The past few days the Star Tribune has had several very good letters to the editor. Lots of them are liberal, but with a few very well written, articulate conservative letters as well. They can be read
here,
here, and
here. In fact, you may want to bookmark their
opinions page simply because they routinely write very good editorials and LTE's. The commentary isn't as good as what you get from the Washington Post and the NY Times, but the other parts make it wortwhile.
Two of the best are concerning gay marriage. I'll present them below the fold, with the liberal one first. The conservative one is partially in reply so it's only fair.
Below is the liberal letter. It states the very simple and (in my view) irrefutable view that gay marriage will not have any effect what-so-ever on the amount of straight marraiges. It can be found in the first link provided above.
A gay couple from my hometown, population approximately 2,500, were married in Massachusetts a while ago. They were made famous by coverage in the Star Tribune, among other places. Since they came home, absolutely nothing has happened to the marriages of the straight people in our community. Furthermore, young straight couples continue to fall in love! I myself have consecrated several straight marriages since that gay marriage happened.
I don't know what world those opposed to gay marriage are living in, but here in the real-world town of Glenwood, it's obvious that straight marriage has not been damaged in the least by gay marriage.
THE REV. GREG KAPPHAHN
Straight, to the point, and it's written by a Reverend, no less! He even uses humor.
I don't agree with the conservative response, but it is by far the most eloquent rendition of the conservative views concerning gay marriage that I have read.
The damage it'll do
The shortsightedness of gay-marriage proponents is unacceptable. Their claim that homosexual marriage is in no way detrimental to traditional marriage since heterosexual couples "continue to fall in love" (Readers Write, March 5) in communities where gay marriage is permitted misses the picture completely.
The full effect of legalized homosexual marriage on heterosexual marriage will be felt in the decades to come, not merely the days to come, for the simple fact that it is our children in their formative years who will be affected the most by our society's definition of marriage.
Affording gay unions the status of "marriage" instills in the fathers and mothers of tomorrow that: first, marriage is a malleable institution open to one's own interpretation; second, marriage is not fundamentally ordered toward the creation and upbringing of children and therefore the family is only of secondary importance to society; and third, sex is merely an enjoyable pastime with no procreative implications or responsibilities.
Where does this leave us? With a generation of adults who will have no concept of how to be good spouses and parents.
JOHN FRANCIS
My biggest problem with this letter is that the writer's conclusions do not follow his arguments. My biggest problem with the arguments is that they show ignorance and fear towards the unknown.
I can only assume the letter writer doesn't know, or doesn't realize he knows, any gay people under friendly circumstances. Otherwise he'd probably choose not to be so public.
On the other hand, maybe people will be inspired by a letter such as this (polite, eloquent, mostly respectful) that they will educate their conservative and/or ignorant neighbors that not all gays are raging sex machines just waiting for a chance to brainwash you into the fold. Besides, there are far more heterosexuals who are like that anyway.
I don't have anything more to say about this, just wanted to bring to people's attention that in some places reasonable, polite, public debate still occurs. Of course, we still have to put up with Katherine Kersten.
