By insisting on a new battle in the culture wars, fought on the field of gay marriage, President Bush this week divided the country needlessly, attempted to affix a prohibition on an evolving social question to the U.S. Constitution and put at risk rights that gay men and women already have. As with tax cuts in a time of deficit spending, the president has sought a solution that exacerbates the problem.

This is not to suggest the president made this decision merely for political reasons: He and a majority of Americans, according to polls, do not agree that gays should be allowed to marry. Many, but not a majority, further believe a constitutional amendment is needed to prohibit such marriages.

Clearly, because of court rulings in Massachusetts and San Francisco, the issue has become a topic of national interest. But rather than lead the nation to greater understanding he chose to serve a voting constituency by supporting a constitutional amendment that has little chance of passage in Congress but could do a great deal of damage in the meantime.

Still, while the debate is just beginning, there’s time to recognize that there are honest differences of opinion both about who should be allowed to marry and whether a constitutional amendment is required to protect this distinction. And while we recognize that ideas about marriage are deeply held and cherished, preventing gays from creating formal and legal ties is needlessly exclusionary.

Civil marriage is difficult to discuss because its requirements are difficult to define. Love is not required for it, nor is sex, nor children. Faithfulness, as with a sense of humor, helps enormously, but is not strictly necessary. Once a couple is wed, what marriage requires most is a mutual commitment to stay married. This is as intimate a negotiation as life has to offer, and the idea of the federal government proscribing two adults from entering into it seems overly intrusive.

The constitutional amendment being considered in Congress, however, continues beyond this. It says, “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution nor 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.”

If it only wanted to prevent gay couples from marrying, there would be no need for “legal incidents thereof.” That language, many believe, is there to also prevent civil unions and domestic partnerships, the contracts that give gay partners legal standing for such basics as health care decisions.

It is this amendment that makes the issue especially divisive. Plenty of conservatives who hold that marriage should be between one man and one woman do not see the need to alter the Constitution to make this clear. And it is worth noting that the Constitution historically has been successfully amended to guarantee rights, not bar groups from obtaining them. Congress would set the nation on a radical new course if it were to support this measure.