Prop 8 Letters in the Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times printed some letters reacting to the paper’s coverage and commentary on Proposition 8 being back in court.

Jack Fertig of San Francisco wrote:

Freedom of religion is harmed more by the status quo than by allowing same-sex marriage. If your religion doesn't approve of same-sex marriage, it will never have to bless any such unions.

Let's hope we never have to hold you to this claim.

But there are churches, synagogues and other religious institutions that wed same-sex couples. It defies the 1st Amendment that only one religious perspective is given legal status.

Wrong. Those religious institutions can still practice their religion, even if they do so in opposition to both their own tradition and their scriptures.

The separate-but-equal arguments against marriage equality are too transparent to be taken seriously.

A brideless or groomless pairing is not equal to a bride+groom pairing, and that would be true even if the law said say they were. They are not equal ontologically, they are not equal functionally. This is demonstrable.

Anything less than equality is un-American.

None of the Founding Fathers, none of the great rights crusaders of the past such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and no Presidents up through this current one ever said or wrote that a brideless or groomless pairing is a marriage. How much more American can you get then them?

Joseph B.D. Saraceno of Gardena:

[Neutered] marriage and interracial marriage are not analogous. The prohibitions against interracial marriage may have been "legal," but they were immoral. Prohibitions against [neutered] marriage can hardly be called immoral, because Judeo-Christian tradition and other major religions and cultural mores hold that marriage is a union of a man and a woman.

Any effort by a court to rule to the contrary would be to legislate (from the bench) a "new morality."

Yes, someone's morality is going to be law. The question is whose. And who decides? The people should decide if licenses issued on their behalf should be changed. We have voted that the licenses should require inclusive participation of both sexes.

Right now, a court in Canada is examining whether or not polygamous marriages should be legally recognized, and stateside, people are questioning if incest should be illegal after the arrest of a Columbia University professor on the allegation of having consensual sex with his adult daughter. Polygamous and incestuous marriages have wide historical precedent. SSM is a recent invention. It is not out of the range of possibilities for courts to strike down the monogamy requirement as well as the prohibition against incest/incestuous marriage when courts have removed the bride+groom requirement, because neutering marriage is a bigger change. Who decides, and how?