Debate Over Prop. 22

It is disheartening to see the ridiculous “Protect Marriage” signs on people’s lawns. As a pastor who does marriage counseling from time to time, I cannot figure out how limiting marriage to any group of people can somehow “protect” it. If Jim and Joan are having problems in their marriage, it makes no difference whether Mike and Mary--or Steve and Sean--are married or not. We protect marriage by making sure the couple is ready for it before getting married. Their gender has nothing to do with whether or not they will make a good and useful couple to God or society.

Prop. 22 itself is a lie--there are thousands of gay and lesbian marriages that are valid and recognized by God and others, regardless of state law. Remember, even the impartial state government renamed the proposition “Limit on Marriage” because it does nothing to protect marriage.

MARK SHIRILAU

Irvine

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A letter writer (Feb. 10) doesn’t want “the government to tell us just whom we may or may not marry.” Would he approve of the marriage of a daughter to her father; and the marriage of one man to seven women; and the marriage of a woman to a farm animal? The potential matrimonial pairings boggle the mind.

Laws are the way we perpetuate values we deem best for society. Raising children is done best by a man and a woman. Granting homosexuals state-sanctioned marriage places their contrived “right” above what is good for society and certainly what is best for children. What next, the right of a mother to marry her nine sons?

MARK LANDSBAUM

Diamond Bar

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I need a simple reassurance from the evangelists and conservatives who are asking me to vote for Prop. 22: If I do vote for it and it passes, will there then be more attempts to convert our state and federal governments to theocratic dictatorships?

LYLE DAVIDSON

San Diego