Bush Fuels the Dispute Over Gay Marriages

Re “Bush Seeks Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage,” Feb. 25: Tuesday was one of the blackest days in U.S. history. Our president said the United States and our Constitution should stand not for equality and tolerance but for discrimination and prejudice.

David Reisner

Los Angeles

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I am not in favor of gay marriage. I am not opposed to gay marriage. I am not interested in gay marriage. Amend the Constitution? Spare me.

Mary A. Rouse

Los Angeles

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My parents’ 43-year marriage endured throughout most of my 18-year partnership with my same-sex partner despite many holidays spent together, vacations shared together and anniversaries celebrated together. My parents’ 43-year marriage came to a crashing halt the day my mother discovered my father was having an affair with another woman.

Using the logic of President Bush and the religious right, would it be wrong of me to propose a constitutional amendment abolishing divorce and making adultery a felony? Is it possible we are confusing the words “sanctity” and “sanctimonious”?

John B. DaFonte

Los Angeles

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Why is it that The Times hasn’t addressed the real issue of gay marriage? Daily space is devoted to sympathetic accounts and photos of the events, but there is nothing challenging the clear misdirection used to advance so profound a societal change. The red-herring argument comparing gay marriage to interracial marriage has been repeated ad nauseam, and I have yet to see it questioned.

The marriage laws are completely fair and unbiased -- any unrelated man and woman can marry. At issue is a desire to actually change what marriage is. This is the issue I would expect The Times to pursue.

James R. Evans

Torrance

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Whether or not gay marriage is ever officially illegal in this country, there is one thing the Bush administration cannot change: the fact that I am a man who does not fall in love with women. Centuries of prayer, psychoanalysis, treatments, torture, imprisonment, hate crimes and murder have failed to change men and women like me.

Therefore our gay marriages are equal because they fulfill our lives. I live in a country that says the pursuit of happiness is one of my inalienable rights. Marriage falls into this category, and I will fight for it as long as I am alive.

Daniel J. Chaney

Los Angeles

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Regarding Bush’s proposal for a constitutional amendment: I’d like to propose that we go one step further. Let’s have a one-time package deal that combines prohibitions on gay marriage, abortion, flag-burning and pornography with a requirement for prayer in the public schools. We could call it the Defense of Intolerance Amendment, or perhaps just the Idiocy Clause.

Henry J. Silverman

Los Angeles

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I have absolutely no problem with gay marriage. I don’t care who gets married. Proponents claim that they should be able to marry and get the same benefits as heterosexuals. There’s the rub right there. No one should get benefits for being married. When you give benefits to married couples you discriminate against singles. As a conservative (a real conservative, not a far-right-wing Bible thumper), it’s clear to me that government should be out of the marriage business completely. The left wants free benefits (now there’s a surprise) and the right wants to impose its religious values on everyone. This is exactly the reason for the separation of church and state.

Tim Riley

Studio City

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It seems hard to comprehend all the furor over same-sex marriages when the solution to the problem is so simple. If you think same-sex marriages are wrong, when you make the decision to marry, don’t marry someone of the same sex.

Howard McGarry

Upland