How excited were you when you found out the Pennsylvania House found time to pass a Marriage Protection Amendment?

There's just no telling how many of us happy, healthy heterosexual husbands, finding ourselves in marriages given an extra added OK by the near deities in the state House, rushed home to give our wives the happy update.

"Good news, Wilma! There's no chance I'm gonna elope to the Poconos with Barney now.''

Apart from that breakthrough, however, I'm just not getting the protective aspect of the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment.

It's a very big deal to the people pushing the amendment, but no people of the same sex have ever been able to marry each other legally in Pennsylvania. In 1984, Superior Court of Pennsylvania held that two persons of the same sex cannot contract a common-law marriage. In 1996, just to be sure, The Pennsylvania Legislature passed a bill banning same-sex marriages and any recognition of such unions performed outside our borders. Gov. Tom Ridge signed the bill into law.

This is a funny year, though. Citizens aren't thrilled with America's Largest Full-Time State Legislature, which spends most of its time in Harrisburg not voting on important stuff. So in the same week the House found time to pass a resolution naming Hershey, Intercourse and Lititz as "Foodie Towns,'' a vote I mention only for its profound irrelevance, it overwhelmingly passed an amendment that says:

"Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized in this Commonwealth, and neither the Commonwealth nor any of its political subdivisions shall create or recognize a legal status identical or substantially equivalent to that of marriage for unmarried individuals.''

Similar bills have passed across the country. They seem to be all the rage, though their potential impact is harder to figure.

It still needs to pass the Senate by June 30, and then both chambers must adopt the amendment a second time next year before it can go to voters. The Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank, sees the amendment as a whole lot of nothing.

I called there because its Liberty Index claims to evaluate all legislative votes with this simple question: "Does this Act expand or contract the Liberty of the people of Pennsylvania?'' The foundation gave Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, the Cranberry Republican, its highest rating on the Liberty Index last year, and Mr. Metcalfe is the champion of this marriage amendment.

Does this amendment expand or contract liberty? A foundation spokesman says it does neither. Votes on this amendment were meaningless to the Liberty Index because it doesn't change current law.

"If it passes, nothing changes,'' Nathan Benefield, the policy analyst said. "If it fails, nothing changes.''

Both sides in this argument would tell you that's not right. Mr. Metcalfe uses militaristic imagery to explain that in a "cultural war" this amendment provides the ultimate protection from "an attack on traditional marriage."

But marriage is not under attack. To the contrary, more people want to embrace it, people who have never been able to marry before. You can argue that this is a bad idea, but these people see great value in the institution.

I told Mr. Metcalfe that I still wasn't getting how my marriage would be protected by making sure a gay couple down the block never gets a legal piece of paper similar to the one my wife and I must have lying around somewhere.

"It's kind of like counterfeit money,'' he said. "If marriage is allowed to be redefined into something it isn't, that's a counterfeit marriage.''

It's still hard to see how a committed gay union should have more impact on my standard-issue, church-sanctioned family of four than the marriage of whatever pair of heterosexual hedonists ties the knot drunk in a Vegas chapel tomorrow.

I belong to a faith that sees marriage as a sacrament. We take it very seriously. It is not easy for a man and a woman to get married in the Catholic Church, and no government action can ever change that.

A civil marriage is the stuff of Caesar. Ask me some November soon to decide that gay Pennsylvanians, many with children, can never legally count the way our family does, and you can count me out.