False Logic

I almost bought the false logic in Charles C. Munroe III’s letter to the editor, “AIDS, Condoms and the Church,” (Dec. 17).

Munroe likens homosexuals to children playing with matches. Although they are definitely playing with fire, they hopefully are adults who can understand and take responsibility for their own acts.

The Roman Catholic Church may not condone or facilitate activity that it knows will lead the participants into eternal damnation. This would be something like a Hindu owning a butcher shop although he believed consuming meat to be a deadly sin. I hope that my church never embraces this double standard. In a following letter, Felix Doherty mentions the principle of the lesser of two evils being acceptable to prevent or minimize a greater evil. What greater evil than eternity in hell, Doherty? AIDS is relatively transient and innocuous when compared to this.

For Archbishop Mahony to condone the use of contraceptives would be to deny a basic tenet of the church. Somehow I have the feeling that his detractors know this but take every cheap shot that avails itself to them.

Roger Mahony is doing a very difficult job very well.

GEORGE PROSSER

Los Angeles