From the earliest days of my public education, I heard about a paradise called “the land of the free.” There is a well-documented rumor that the word “freedom,” a noun describing the condition of being free, implies things like: “exemption from the arbitrary exercise of authority in the performance of a specific action” and “the power to act without externally imposed restraints.” I recall from my scholastic experience that a fundamental document stated that: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Americans are enormously proud of their civil liberties. We recently spent billions to spread our pride and “free” the Iraqi people from political persecution. We’ve even altered the adjective nomenclature for greasy, crispy potato shards from “French” to “freedom” in order to demonstrate that our love for diversity of choice is as great as our love for oily consumables.

Nearly every speech given by our president has promised protection against “those who hate freedom.” The freedom-haters may otherwise try to prevent us from achieving the set of life experiences that we are fundamentally entitled to by our very own Constitution.

The experience timeline typically starts with birth, ends with death and includes a sundry of accomplishments like proms, marriages, children, etc. A vast percentage of these milestones are related to, or even dependent upon, a strong emotional interaction with a partner. The commonly accepted term “love” has been selected to describe this connection. A state of freedom and personal liberty would imply that each person is entitled to experience this feeling and these milestones.

Amongst my friends and neighbors, I have seen both wonderful, supportive relationships and terrible, oppressive relationships shielded by the term “love.” I have spent several hours doing a series of complex statistical analysis on the observed interactions and I have not found any correlation between sexual orientation and relationship quality.

Others have examined my results in order to ensure that I did not fail to carry any ones or maintain proper order of operations. Thus far, no surveyor has found flaw in these calculations. The only certainty obtained from my numerical manipulations is that the love and personal commitment that exist between two people are wonderful, beautiful, fabulous things.

Therefore, I would never claim that a love is invalid because of semantic or technical parameters like race, financial status, shoe size or gender. Recently, there has been increased terror-related fear and paranoia, which may be playing a role in enhancing the notice taken in these semantic and technical parameters.

Despite the present regime’s concern for public well being, I regret to inform that it appears necessary to raise the terror alert level.

This alert-level spike is a result of an observed increase in chatter amongst “those who hate freedom.” The freedom haters are trying to inhibit or destroy one of the most fundamental bases of life and happiness. They are saying that some loves are more acceptable than others by excluding Americans from experiencing milestones of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hope that each of you will help ensure that we maintain national security by keeping an eye out for suspicious behavior of this nature.

Please report any freedom-hating activity to your local Homeland Security office. It is only with your assistance that we can fight against enemies of freedom. These freedom haters can try to legislatively redefine the word marriage in Massachusetts, but bear in mind that if they do, love and freedom are on deck for their own reciprocal retrofits.

— Michael Epstein is a graduate student studying electrical and computer engineering.