Editor:
I disagree with Clark Gunnerson’s March 12 letter to the editor (“Laws aren’t meant to be broken”). In his letter, Gunnerson insists that the issue of so-called “gay marriage” is not a matter of discrimination. Indeed, it is. When a law is enacted to deny a minority group the legal rights that a majority group enjoys, that is discrimination. And that, shamefully, is what our legislature has done.
Gunnerson also forgets that a very important part of shaping the civil judicial code is the right to protest parts of it that are unjust. Without civil disobedience bringing challenges to court, our judicial process would become inert and inflexible. Challenging this Gunnerson suggests that we should think about what the definition of marriage meant to the framers of the Constitution. I do not recall any formal definition of marriage being included in the documents that created the government of this country. Perhaps it was because the framers of the Constitution did not deem it a matter so key to the creation of this nation that they needed to exclude some people from the right to marry. My only experience on the matter is this: I am directly descended from one of the people who helped draft some key documents that helped form this nation and who helped run it for some time, too. My family has been very careful to hand down the same code of ethics as our forefathers. None of my extended family supports the idea that gays should not be allowed to marry. We do not enjoy the fact that some people in our lives and in our families do not have the same rights as the rest of us. We believe in equal rights for all-even now.
Those concerned with the disintegration of the American family do have cause for concern. But I have news for them: Gays are not the problem. Disallowing people who want a family the right to have one seems a foolhardy way encourage family values. With only a 50 percent success rate, the heterosexual population needs all the help it can get. I suggest we look further into the issues of adultery and spousal abuse family, instead of pointing fingers at an easy scapegoat.
Joanna Coolidge
Junior, Pre-Medicine