Letters

Re “Iowa’s OK of gay marriage could bolster Prop. 8 foes,” April 4

The Times’ article regarding the legalization of gay marriage in Iowa is excellent reporting, but it is crucial we remain careful going forward and don’t assume that the battle for gay marriage in Iowa has been won.

Although the Iowa Constitution and the courts have made gay marriage possible, I would wager that gay marriage still does not have popular support in Iowa. There is still a risk that gay Iowans could lose their right to gay marriage.

After being legal for six months in California, gay marriage was overturned by the people through Proposition 8.

Gay-marriage activists must remain committed to keeping gay marriage in Iowa and achieving it in other states. This has been a major victory for gay rights, but the battle is far from over.

Branden Lewiston

Indianola, Iowa

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So California, which has always prided itself for standing at the forefront of enlightened thinking and the protection of civil rights, now finds itself unable to keep up with Iowa.

Edward Ruttenberg

Rancho Palos Verdes

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I am a child of Judeo-Christian heritage. However, my brand of religion does not judge a person’s merit in the eyes of God based on their sexual orientation. Certainly science has more than adequately proved that sexual orientation is not something we choose.

Separation of church and state is one of the premises on which our nation was founded. Why, then, is there any discussion at all, in any court in our land, over the rights of homosexuals?

Religion is the only reason that I can see for the condemnation of homosexuals in our society, and we need to keep religion out of government.

Barbara Sabo

Hermosa Beach

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The press doesn’t get it. Justice doesn’t get it. Although the majority of the people like myself are quite sympathetic to the gay cause, we nonetheless voted for Proposition 8.

This is not a moral issue. It is a semantics issue. You cannot change the meaning of words to satisfy your lifestyle.

Two men or two women is not a marriage. It is a pair. So, let’s call it a pairage or a union, give them the same rights and get on with our lives.

Chris Bovy

Huntington Beach

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Why is it that every time the right wing loses a case in court, it invariably blames the defeat on “activist judges”?

The term itself is meaningless. If it is intended to denote jurists who bring their worldviews to their consideration of the issues before them, then by definition every judge who has ever presided is an “activist.”

What the right really means is that judges who rule unfavorably to their point of view are “activists.”

If you want to read a decision in which the majority unabashedly departed from established legal principles and blatantly ignored the law in order to achieve a desired result, take a look at the most “activist” decision in the history of Supreme Court jurisprudence: Bush vs. Gore.

Jeffrey H. Friedman

Santa Ana