Dan Cathy, son of Truett Cathy and CEO of Chick-Fil-A, created a firestorm of controversy, recently, by announcing that he believes marriage to be defined as the union between one man and one woman. Predictably, the oh-so tolerant left has fixed its cannons on Chick-Fil-A and is currently engaged in a boycott against “hateful chicken.” While I do not begrudge the individual American citizen the God-given right to vote with his wallet, I am extremely disturbed by the blatant First Amendment violations that are potentially at hand with mayors of large American cities threatening to use the power of government to interfere in the business plans of a company because of the personal views of its chief executive. I hope that Constitutional principles will prevail, but in these days of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, my faith in judicial review is admittedly shaken.

One cannot turn on the television or peruse the internet, now, without being absolutely inundated with the language of marriage equality rights. Either the theories concerning the media echo chamber are correct, or someone is publishing daily talking points, since everyone on the left appears to be using this particular language. In fact, it was reported that the Democratic National Committee will announce marriage equality rights as an official plank of the Democratic Party platform at its convention in September. However, before declaring something as a foundational piece of one’s political dogma, it would help to ask if such a thing even exists.

Brace yourselves for a shock. Homosexuals enjoy the exact same rights as every other American group. This seems a controversial statement on its face considering that homosexual marriage is not yet legally recognized by the majority of states in the union. To those driven more by passionate emotional appeals than by reason and logic, this statement seems patently, even offensively, incorrect, but this statement is logically airtight based on the definition of what constitutes a right and based on the absurdities that arise when we carry the negation of that statement to its logical conclusion.

When I say that homosexuals enjoy the exact same rights as every other American group, I am actively denouncing the manifestly incorrect allegation that there is a ban on homosexual marriage. The truth is, if two homosexual people wish to engage in casual sex with one another, they have the same right to do so as any heterosexual couple; if two homosexual people wish to enter into a long-term, cohabitative relationship, they enjoy the same right to do so as two heterosexual people; moreover, if two homosexual people wish to be married, they have the same right as two heterosexual people to find a minister to consecrate their union and live happily ever after. The only so-called right of which homosexuals are denied is the legal recognition of that union by the state, but the shocking truth is, such a thing can never be construed as a right.