Marriage: Why Court Public Opinion?
Re “Massachusetts Grants Gays Right to Marry,” Feb. 5: Gov. Mitt Romney says, “We’ve heard from the court, but not from the people.” I say, gay marriage is not to be decided by the will of the people because, unfortunately, too many people oppose it. Like some other controversial issues, gay marriage should be decided only in court, where logic overrules prejudice.
Think of gay marriage today as being like school integration in the 1950s: If that had been decided by the will of the people, do you think it ever would have happened?
Ryan R. Sanderson
Los Angeles
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I’m one of those people who can’t see why gay marriage should have any effect on anybody other than the two people involved. But what did anger me was Romney’s statement calling the issue “too important to leave to a one-vote [court] majority.” I should like to remind Gov. Romney of a rather more important, relatively recent court decision involving a one-vote majority -- selecting a president of the United States!
Joel Rapp
Los Angeles
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Regarding the issue of gay marriage, George W. Bush put in his two cents, calling the Massachusetts court ruling “deeply troubling.” Bush decries this verdict as deeply troubling because it was the work and will of “activist judges,” not the result of debate from elected officials in Congress, nor the will of the majority of the American people.
If this is the case, are these the same kind of selfish, ideological, activist judges who anointed him president in 2000? If so, why did he, the man with “moral clarity,” as Republicans often try to sell him, not come out and deem the five conservative Supreme Court justices “activists” back in 2000? His selection to be president certainly was not debated by elected officials of Congress, and it certainly was not the will of the American populace, seeing as how he lost the popular vote by half a million. Smells like politics; smells like hypocrisy.
Philip Hu
Alhambra
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I have two words for those who seek to legally uphold the “sanctity of marriage” as being a union reserved for one man and one woman: Britney Spears.
In this country, a woman such as Spears can legally marry a man one day, have the marriage annulled the next day, then brush off the entire incident as a “joke gone too far.” This is perfectly legal. Yet the rush is on to pass state and federal constitutional amendments that will prohibit loving, committed, same-sex couples from the legal protections of the civil contract known as marriage. While our legislators are at it, perhaps they could take the time to introduce a bill that will protect gay and lesbian couples from the follies of heterosexual unions.
Amy A. Ross
Malibu
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Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and the Rev. Al Sharpton have it right. As the Massachusetts judges said, separate but equal doesn’t work. Didn’t we already try that again and again with segregation?
Forget Bush’s opinion; he doesn’t know how to process new information and change his mind about anything. But to the remaining and beloved Democratic candidates, please explain to me how you can be against same-sex marriage and then, in the same breath, say that you advocate equal rights for gays and lesbians? Equal means equal -- not equal in this and not equal in that. Come on, can’t we get beyond this absurd hypocrisy? And what is a civil union anyway?
Barbara Kavanagh Crowley
Malibu