BY AS EARLY as tomorrow morning, Gov. John Lynch will sign a bill making New Hampshire the sixth state to sanction same-sex marriages.

Last week, Maine joined Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts in legalizing same-sex marriages. New Hampshire would be the fourth state in six weeks to legalize same-sex marriages. It's a trend, at least in New England and, for some reason, in Iowa.

Try as I may, though, I can't seem to get worked up over it.

It may be because the U.S. Supreme Court interprets the Constitution's equal-protection clause to mean that states lack the authority to ban same-sex marriages regardless of what any of us thinks.

It may be because I've been married for 40 years to a person of the opposite sex. As far as I know, not one gay person has ever looked at my happy marriage and decided that heterosexuality was for them.

It's the same for me when I see news photos of gay couples embracing on the steps of a New England courthouse. I don't know of any heterosexual who looks at that and says, "Hmmmm, there's an option I should have considered."

But to hear opponents tell it, we are about to reach a tipping point in which gay marriage will become so accepted that folks will be flipping coins to decide whether to marry Helen or Hank. Wedding bells will ring off-key and family life will be imperiled.

I think not. I don't think traditional marriage is endangered by what happens in New England anymore than it is protected by any of those defense-of- marriage acts passed by poll-watching politicians.

As quaint as this may sound to some of my more liberal friends, I do believe that marriage is a bond between a man and a woman. It always will be.

That's because I make a distinction between marriages like mine and those sanctioned by the U.S. Constitution or those in Iowa and New Hampshire.

What the Constitution can and should do is protect even despised minorities from the tyranny of the majority. In a country where gay people pay taxes, risk their lives for their country and obey our laws, how can they be denied the same rights as heterosexuals?

Many evangelical Christians and other religious people who cringe at the thought of same-sex marriages embrace the concept of civil unions, which give gay couples the same property rights as others.

But they come to a screeching halt at the altar when a gay couple or a legislature interprets that to mean they are entitled to a church wedding.

This is the point at which I diverge from some of my more liberal friends. There is no legitimate way that the U.S. Constitution or any state law should be able to compel a religious body to confer its blessings on a marriage that it opposes in principle.

What my bride and I entered into 40 years ago was what we called holy matrimony. It's not for everybody, regardless of your sexual orientation.

I could not have been married at a masjid or synagogue. The law would never compel an imam or rabbi to marry us or any other professed Christian.

Gov. Lynch gets it. He threatened to veto the same-sex marriage bill passed by New Hampshire lawmakers if it didn't specifically protect churches from being sued for refusing to marry gay couples.

It's not a settled issue in this country and may never be. It's not even settled in New England, where activists can force the issue onto a ballot if they can gather 55,000 names on petitions in 90 days.

That's what happened in California. After their state Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriages, voters reinstated the ban at the polls. I would have voted against reinstating that ban.

The U.S. Supreme Court may have to deal with that.

As long as it understands that its authority does not extend beyond the door of our places of worship, marriage as I understand it will be safe. *

Send e-mail to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/smith