Editor:

On June 24, Clayton Perkins’ letter to the editor titled, “Nature chose moms and dads” implied that nature has made gays and lesbians the way they are to forbid them from having children.

This smacks of the same-sex marriage debate that tried to limit the right to marry to only those who could have children.

Of course, this flawed logic would also forbid marriage of the elderly, the impotent/barren and others who for various physical or non-physical reasons could not bear children.

What utter, complete, undiluted, raw nonsense this is.

Perkins himself said that homosexuals have been found to “raise (children) comparably with (children) of heterosexual couples.”

I see conception and the raising of children to be two completely different issues. The ability to perform one task does not necessarily imply adequacy in performing the other.

All one has to do is spend time living near severely poor neighborhoods like those near southeast Washington, D.C., to see how relatively simple conception is compared to sticking around and raising the children.

How about this: Nature may or may not choose who is unfit to raise children, but if you’re going to restrict the right to bear and raise children, wouldn’t it make more sense to impose those restrictions on people who are truly incapable of fulfilling the task?

We can start by restricting those who would impose poisonous attitudes toward homosexuals. Those are learned-not programmed by nature-and thus can be prevented.

Erik Ratcliffe

Junior, Graphic Design