President George W. Bush this week threw his support behind a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages. He cited a wave of "activist judges" who are threatening to undermine "the most fundamental institution of civilization."

Before we allow the president's inflated claims to lead us into yet another battle, let's pause to consider the facts. Even if you don't believe that the basic civil liberties of gay people should be protected, you should oppose this amendment.

The original Bill of Rights and most of the 17 amendments that followed were designed to protect individual citizens from two powerful entities: the government and the majority.

The Constitution gives individuals the power - through the courts - to challenge specific violations of their rights. If the police break into your house without a warrant, you can go to court and argue that your Fourth Amendment rights were violated.

If your child is forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance at school, you can challenge the rule using your First Amendment protections. If you were arrested and held without charges for months on end, you could argue that your Fifth, Sixth and 14th Amendment rights had been violated.

The general purpose of our constitutional amendments is to give shelter to individual citizens.

By contrast, the proposed 28th Amendment doesn't aspire to that lofty goal. It reads: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

No one could ever argue that his 28th Amendment rights had been violated. In fact, this amendment is designed to undermine the rights guaranteed to homosexuals in the First and 14th amendments.

Supporters of this measure speak plainly about their goals. They're not trying to protect individual citizens. Instead, they're using this amendment to strip power from the judiciary.

President Bush and other conservatives complain that activist, unelected judges are legislating from the bench and forcing their will on the majority. They suggest that politicians should pass the laws that are popular with the people and judges should not thumb their noses at the majority.

This is a red herring, because our system virtually guarantees that judges can only strike down "popular" laws. Politicians generally are not trendsetters. When they pass a law, it's usually in line with the prevailing public mood on the issue. That means that "unpopular" laws (those that are not supported by the majority of the public) are not likely to pass. Since judges can only rule on issues that have been signed into law, anytime they overturn a bill they're likely to be going against popular opinion.

They're not "activists" - they're just doing their jobs.

English philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote "On Liberty," an essay in which he stated that the tyranny of the majority was "more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since ... it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life ... . There needs protection against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose ... its own ideas and practices ... on those who dissent from them."

Our Founding Fathers established a system of checks and balances that distributed powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches, in order to protect individuals from the will of the majority. Yet the unabashed purpose of the Federal Marriage Amendment is to undo part of that system by abridging the veto power of judges.

Passing the proposed amendment is a bad idea because it works against the basic principles that govern our republic.

Former Denver Bronco Reggie Rivers is the host of "Drawing the Line" Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on KBDI Channel 12. He writes Fridays on the op-ed page.

Copyright 2004 The Denver Post

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