CNN Headline News commentator, Mike Galanos, was outraged that the majority will of Californians had been trounced by that state’s recent state Supreme Court ruling reversing an unconstitutional law against gay marriage.

“Personhood” proponents in several states want voters to decide whether one’s reproductive rights and right-to-life can be squashed by a biblically-inspired law redefining the human being.

The cornerstone of President Bush’s foreign policy in the Middle East is to “spread democracy.” Never mind that democratically-elected Islamist governments in Gaza and Iraq have no intention of embracing Western ideals of liberty.

Democracy at its best? As a matter of fact, yes!

See any problem with that? I sure hope so! Because if you don’t, then you will fall into the trap of equating “democracy” with “freedom.”

The philosopher and novelist, Ayn Rand, couldn’t have clarified it better:”‘Democracy’ in its original meaning [refers to] unlimited majority rule…a social system in which one’s work, one’s property, one’s mind, and one’s life are at the mercy of any gang that may muster the vote of a majority at any moment for any purpose.”

Here is majority rule: it is illegal for gay adults to marry their life partner because most voters think it’s an abomination to God. Majority rule: lawyers on behalf of fertilized eggs can sue you in court when a doctor prescribes birth control that prevents implantation. Majority rule: women in Islamic democracies are treated like cattle because most blindly condone oppressive Islamic traditions from the Dark Ages.

By definition and by design, democracy must lead to tyranny.

The only model that promotes freedom, respects individual citizens, and leads to a thriving civilization is the original United States of America: a constitutional republic that is “restricted to the protection of individual rights.”

In a constitutional republic: gay adults can marry the partner they love because this does not violate anyone else’s marriage rights and does not lead to the breakdown of society (a ridiculous allegation by Christian fundamentalists). A fertilized egg is a fertilized egg and has no rights, and therefore cannot make any claims on a woman’s life. Men and women have equal opportunity to pursue their own rational self-interest without stopping anyone else from doing the same, because the society’s laws are not defined by the arbitrary and ever-changing whims of some majority.

In a free society–that is, a constitutional republic, not a democracy–people are free to thrive….by definition and by design.