Definition of Marriage

Re “Definition of Marriage Ballot Measure Lashes Out at Gays,” Sept. 12.

[Wade] Young managed to throw so much dirt on the wall that, while little of it sticks, it muddies the issues and appeals only to the emotional. Activists make the argument that homosexuals are an oppressed minority. Yet openly homosexual people work many jobs in mainstream society, hold influential positions, create some of the world’s greatest art and music and work with heterosexuals who respect them. This is a far cry from the plight blacks suffered in this country. Furthermore, black Americans should be outraged by any comparison of homosexuals to the oppression they themselves, their parents and their grandparents experienced. Perhaps it didn’t dawn on Young that many black Christian families are as opposed to “gay marriage” as are the white, bigoted extremists that he highlights in his commentary.

While I would never argue that “Bible-believing, God-fearing, churchgoing Christians” didn’t own slaves, I would certainly argue against the absolute that Young presents, implying that only the aforementioned Christians owned slaves. Perhaps in his next diatribe, he can explain the sudden conversion of the black tribesmen and Muslims who participated in the capture and selling of slaves. And it is amazing how Young conveniently forgot that those who fought to end slavery were not “hedonistic pagans” but people with Judeo-Christian values who recognized the evil of slavery.

Society has an obligation to set standards and norms for its self-preservation. To persevere, society must encourage those ideals that benefit society as a whole and discourage those behaviors that are damaging to its soul. In endeavoring to do this, society recognizes that the ideal family is one man married to one woman with children begotten of that union. Over the past 35 years, we have watched liberal ideas and actions wreak havoc on the American family. It is time for us to stop giving credence to self-imposed oppression and refute the hollow, emotion-filled rhetoric of the left.

TIMOTHY B. SAVAGE

Palmdale

* I have long believed that either propositions in California should be harder to put on the ballot or, considering the history of their survival before the state Supreme Court, should have to be defended before that body prior to being placed on the ballot. Now comes this anti-gay proposition that most surely will be declared unconstitutional after expenditure of millions of dollars for petitioners, advertising, adversarial rebuttals and lawsuits.

ROBERT A. FRUGE

Toluca Lake