Letter to the Editor.

[Q3JR4]

Thought I'd share with you all a letter to the editor I wrote and submitted recently. After I originally wrote it it had 100 words. I then went through and cut that down by half and am pretty happy with the results.


Title: "Thank the Mormons"

Those who supported Proposition Eight like to talk about "traditional" marriage. What they always fail to mention is that in this country until 50 years ago you couldn't marry someone of a different race, 150 years ago you couldn't divorce your partner, and African people (property) weren't even granted the right to marry each other. A thousand years before that a father picked his property's (AKA daughter) husband, and any passing nobleman could claim the droit de seigneur (her virginity) on her wedding night. Each of these practices were once traditional parts of "the marriage contract," yet no one seems to want them back. "Traditional marriage" must mean "if it happened more than 40 years ago don't count it."

Even though marriage started out as a religious activity, somewhere along the line the state decided to confer rights based on that activity. As the Supreme Court said in Loving V. Virginia, government cannot set limits on who it will allow to marry. The argument they tried to make then, that the law treats everyone equally because both whites and blacks were equally consigned to their own "race", was flawed and today's contemporary version is also flawed.

The difference between the gay community and the straight community is that the state places no limits on your love. We homosexuals can marry someone of the opposite sex, but we can't marry the person we love. Even though same-sex couples can and in fact DO have religious ceremonies, the one thing we don't get are the rights. Taken together, not only do marriage amendments set limits on our love but on our religious freedom as well.

If African American civil rights, or Mormon civil rights had been decided by majority vote one-hundred years ago, we may never have even reached "separate but equal" and the Mormons might not even exist today. Constitutions exist to protect the minority from the will of the majority. Every court ruling protecting civil rights has been based on that fundamental precept. There was religious (or secular) opposition to interracial marriages, to blacks marrying other blacks, and to divorce itself but even in the face of religious condemnation all of that changed. "One man one woman" marriage definitions are likewise doomed to eventual failure.

Finally it's been said that Proposition Eight passed because of heavy Mormon involvement. Isn't Mormon funding of "one man, one woman" ads more than a little hypocritical? After all the Mormons were once the ones pushing for a redefinition of marriage; one man many women. Aren't there still sects today that want that very thing? In the end, though, I suppose we should be thanking them. Proposition Eight's passage has galvanized the gay community like no other time that I can remember. We'll probably get national marriage rights even sooner, and it was all because of the Mormons, and the Catholics and the Baptists. But mostly the Mormons.

[jody]

1. Excellent but it's 483 words long and many papers limit to 150 words and rarely 250 words. n/t

[NMMNG]

2. Good, but marriage did not "start out as a religious activity".

The religious bigots keep trying to claim they own marriage, that it was "instituted by god" and other such nonsense. The reality is that marriage has existed in many forms (including same-sex marriages) in every culture worldwide both with and without religion. Don't kowtow to their phony claims.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

3. BRAVO!

Great letter!:yourock: