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Affirmation Members Speak up for Same-Sex Marriage July, 2004 Two Affirmation members and Southern Utah University Pride Club Advisors, Kraig Stephens and Chris Doss, sent the following letter to the Southern Utah University school newspaper and to the Salt Lake Tribune: Equality is Legal As we consider the contentious issue of gay marriage, and after listening carefully to the recent debate in the media and etc., we wonder if SUU students and others have considered the real root of this issue, the legal issue. Specifically, marriage has its base in legal precedents, not in religious doctrine! The institution of marriage, in truth, is not a religious or "moral" matter in this respect. It is a legal arrangement. What gay persons are requesting is not a religious or doctrinal change, but a legal change. These are two different issues. Simply stated, what the gay community wants is the same "LEGAL" rights that other groups possess. For example, the right to go to the hospital with their sick partner, the right to a will that can be affirmed in a court of law (including inheritance), and the right to health care coverage at the same monetary expense cost as others. If a person wants to marry more than one person (polygamy / bigamy), a close relative, someone underage, or perhaps even a goat, that would still be illegal. To draw these bogus analogies, like so many have in past articles in the Journal, is ludicrous! It is simply baseless to conclude that allowing gay people to marry would encourage others to marry goats, or to conclude that it sets some kind of legal precedent for doing so. Legally, we are dealing with consenting adults, not children or animals. If a person, or a group of people, desire to change the law to accommodate their desires they would still have to proceed through the same legal steps that the gay/lesbian community has had to endure in order to get their marriage deemed legal. Allowing gay marriage does not deny any religious faith the right to condemn it (or support it) and there is simply no credible scientific evidence that allowing gay marriage will result in the destruction of important family values like love, compassion and togetherness-all those important values that kindle the positive nurturing of our children. While many are afraid of change, we are reminded that social change often results in a change for the better. For example, while we once denied interracial marriages for similar reasons, we now embrace them and society seems better off as a result. With 50% divorce rates, violence, and intolerable incidences of abuse and neglect of children within straight families, should we be so quick to damn alternative loving relationships that might function in more healthy ways? Additionally, we wonder when others will understand that being a homosexual is NOT the same thing as being a pedophile. In fact, pedophiles are more likely to be white, male and heterosexual than homosexual. To believe otherwise is to deny the facts, another assumption based in an uneducated and limited perspective on the world around you. If gay marriage is going to upset your marriage, maybe you should examine your relationship for other underlying issues. As gay people, we do not want any church to change its belief system, although we do believe its time to re-examine some antiquated religious values. What we desire is to be treated with the same legal status as the others we associate with. After all, aren't equality and fairness two basic pillars of Christianity? Sincerely, SUU Pride Club Advisors Kenny Laundra, PhD, Kraig Stephens MSW, Chris Doss CSW Southern Utah University "Pride" Club Advisors |
www.affirmation.org