I would like to share my thoughts on the editorials published Oct. 7 in regard to same-sex marriage. Ensuing is a list of what I read and my reactions to them.
"Those who support the amendment aren't trying to deprive homosexuals of any of the legal protections they currently enjoy; instead, they are trying to prevent runaway courts from creating out of thin air new 'rights' that would prove detrimental to society,"Seth Johnson wrote.
Wow, when I read this I had to check to see if the column was a joke. The first statement is correct in saying the amendment wouldn't deprive homosexuals from any of their current legal protections because they can't legally marry as it is. When I read the second sentence I was appalled. Let's look at Johnson's reasoning as for why same-sex marriage would prove detrimental to society.
"The goal of gay activists isn't the individual relationship of any two people, despite such statements. It is the revision of national policy to say that gender, especially in child-rearing, is inconsequential, even though research indicates children do best when raised by a married mother and father."
This sure looks like an argument against gay adoption to me, and not one against gay marriage. Heterosexual couples have the luxury of marrying and choosing not to have children. So why should homosexual couples not be allowed the same luxury? As for the line saying that gender would become inconsequential, it wouldn't. Gender does matter to homosexual couples, other wise they wouldn't be called homosexuals.
Johnson then quotes author and researcher Brad Hayton as saying, "[H]omosexuals model a poor view of marriage to children. They are taught by example and belief that marital relationships are transitory and mostly sexual in nature."
I'm sorry, but how can gay people model marriage to children if they legally can't be married? And I would believe that current heterosexual divorce rates more than anything would label marriage as transitory. There are drive-through weddings in Las Vegas for goodness sakes.
Johnson then states "In 'Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times,' M. Pollack found that 'few [homosexual] relationships last longer than two years, with many men reporting hundreds of lifetime partners.'"
Interesting, homosexuals are denied the ability to legally commit in a long-term relationship and then are criticized for their lack of commitments.
Johnson cites "Developmental Psychology" for a study of homosexual couples' children that "found that 12 percent of the children of lesbians became lesbians themselves, four times the base rate in the adult female population. Additionally, nine percent of adult sons of homosexual fathers became homosexuals themselves, several times higher than past population-based surveys."
I'm going to say it again. Wow. Besides the whole argument on whether or not people can "become" homosexual, Johnson's logic raises an interesting dilemma. In his entire article, he argues that same-sex marriage should be denied because homosexual couples have lower statistics for raising good children. Unfortunately poor families have a lower chance of sending their children to college. Using the same logic, there should there be an income level with a cutoff point of when a person can no longer legally be married.
I thought things would get better when I read Lisa Petak's column on Kerry's position. Sadly, I was mistaken.
Petak says that Kerry thinks there should be a separation of church and state and that the term "marriage" is often construed as religious. Thus, he does not support the term "marriage" between gay people because it's religious.
So, let me see if I have this correct. Petak states that religion should not interfere with governmental policy. Yet Kerry is keeping heterosexual marriage and civil unions separate but equal (which oddly sounds a lot like something known as segregation) because Kerry thinks marriage is religious? Is this not religion interfering with governmental policy?
I'm sorry, but after reading both articles I don't want to vote for either candidate.
