Reactions at the Los Angeles Times

At LATimes.com, they printed some comments on their editorial, which had received the most comments in comparison to other recent editorials. Samantha Schaefer gathered these. Letters printed in today's edition are included further down.

LAzyPD 2011:

Gays these days are calling anyone that disagrees with them on this a hater. I am not a hater and I am not a religious nut. I just don't agree with gay marriage. If you want to see hate, just look at the hate that will be directed at me for stating my opinion here.

I would say some marriage neutering advocates are doing that, certainly not all homosexual people.

Shawn P:

This is yet another "progressively" manufactured false issue. There is no "right" to marriage of any kind, be it heterosexual or gay. Interesting how anytime a "progressive" thinks something is "unfair," it morphs into a Constitutionally defended "right" somehow. Which is about the only time they ever pay attention to the Constitution. I don't care what your sexual preferences are. Really. I won't poke you in the eye with my "heterosexualness;" please feel free to stop poking me in the eye with your "gayness." I. Don't. Care.

This gets to the heart of why the Left, which used to say marriage was obsolete and a marriage license was "just a piece of paper", now says it is vital to same-sex couples. It is about forcing public affirmation of their relationship. They want to force you to care. It went from "stay out of our bedrooms" to "we demand you stop saying both-sexes relationships are any different than same-sex relationships".

P-Funk:

I'll say this again, "marriage" can ONLY BE between a human male and female. Human because the act of "commitment" is reserved for only those with critical thinking, capable of improving upon the previous generation. Male and female because a marriage is a "union" both physical and emotional. Only a male and female can unionize in a manner that is designed to produce the continuation of the species. Any other construct is a "relationship".

Pablo G:

As a guy from another country, I had never understood why it took the US so long to give blacks what they deserved by birth, how so many people were against African American rights (and so in favor of violence and discrimination) and, mostly, how many said nothing to support those rights a few decades ago.

Oh, no, there's no racism in other countries. None whatsoever.

Now I can understand because I hear and read the same non sense arguments against gays, the same stupid violence, and the same dehumanization of people -- to make them an easy target -- that have the same hearts and needs as anybody else.

The same? The same? There's no comparison. No African American was ever able to get by living "in the closet". We are talking about buying people like property, treating them under the law as property (it was legal to destroy your own property, mind you), shipping them to a foreign land, whipping, beating and raping them, denying them education, voting rights, housing, employment, and all kinds of accommodation, and public, photographed lynchings akin as if they were having a town parade, with no punishment for those leading the lynchings. All because of their skin color. To this day, African Americans score lower in various socioeconomic indicators. Contrast that with homosexual people. When was the last time a homosexual person was simply walking down the street, behaving the same way as anyone else, and was publicly lynched for being homosexual, with the murderers getting away with it despite clear evidence of their guilt? When was the last time a homosexual citizen was denied the right to vote based on who they are? What housing covenants state that the housing can’t be sold to homosexual people? When a heterosexual person or closeted homosexual someone kills someone else presumably because the victim is homosexual, it makes huge news, is rightly widely condemned, the murderer ends up in prison, and Oscar-winning movies and Tony-winning plays are made about it.

I have always said that everyone should be treated the same in just about any application of law, including when it comes to marriage law. I have never denied the humanity of anyone based on their sexual orientation.

The paper also printed letters responding the news out of New York.

Alex Murray of Altadena:

It's bitter in that my state, California, should have and could have been the first among the big states to do it instead of succumbing to the idiotic bigotry of Propositions 22 and 8.

I’d like someone to explain exactly how Prop 22 or Prop 8 was bigotry. Were the people who came up with state marriage licenses that asked for the information of the groom and the information of bride bigots?

Ray Shelton of Glendale:

I chose to stand up as a gay man 31 years ago. Friends, family, church members and co-workers - all turned their backs on me. I've paid a heavy price over the decades in lost jobs, opportunities and relationships.

I can't imagine dropping a friendship, or a family member, or a fellow churchgoer based on them being a homosexual. I speak from experience. Shame on anyone who mistreated Ray. It is entirely possible that they will drop me, if they ask me to support marriage neutering and I decline.

Marriage? Great! But where is the apology? Not only from the straight people who betrayed equality, not only from all the closeted gays who betrayed equality, but also from all the drag queens and leather boys who cast the overwhelming majority of gay Americans as freaks, thus setting back gay equality decades.

I agree that nothing does more violence to the meme that "homosexual people are the same as everyone else" than a "pride" event. And that's a shame, because there certainly are homosexual people who are good citizens and as mainsteam as can be, aside from how the relate to the sexes. These are the people that surprise you when they come out, or perhaps they never were in the closet, the issue just never came up before. However, I find it interesting that someone insists a man should be able to demand a state marriage license without a bride while also implying that a man shouldn't be able to dress in drag or leather. But I think I get his point. He didn't appreciate being associated with that, the same way I wouldn't want to be associated with a lot of televangelists or heterosexual exhibitionists or hedonists.

Mel Wolf of Burbank:

The recent approval of same-sex marriage (still an oxymoron in my book) in New York gave rise to statements such as "brings marriage equality to a new plane," "a new level of social justice" and "doing the right thing as treating all persons with equality."

All the talk, including by The Times, seems to apply only to same-sex couples and never explains why these arguments shouldn't apply also to multiple persons wishing for a common marriage or to siblings wishing for a formal relationship.

Mel, Mel, Mel… never liken same-sex "marriage" to incestuous marriage or polygamy. After all, the latter two versions of marriage have been historically recognized and are currently widely recognized and practiced.