To the Editor:
I was reading Paul Halley’s May 27 letter, “One man, one wife for marriage,” and was impressed by his argument for monogamous relationships, specifically marriage.
At first, I could see his argument leading to an inevitable conclusion that marriage should be extended to all couples, homosexual or heterosexual. To my surprise, he concluded the opposite, that it should be reserved for heterosexual couples. This seems contrary to his rationale.
Halley writes, “Children must be protected in a stable, loving home. This means that sex must be protected within the bonds of marriage.” I agree.
He also argues that casual sex creates a callous and violent society (I guess that could be true) and leads to the spread of disease (certainly true). He furthermore points out that adultery is a sin (absolutely true). He then concludes that, due to these facts, marriage should be defined as between one man and one woman.
I don’t know how one could make that conclusion based on these statement. A better conclusion would have been just that sex should only occur between married partners.
By extending marriage to homosexuals, wouldn’t that encourage them to remain committed to their partners — as this does for heterosexuals? Wouldn’t that in turn drive down the level of promiscuity? Wouldn’t that then lead to protection of sex in a married, committed relationship that decreases the level of callousness and violence in society?
Assuming that these couples keep their sex lives within the bonds of their marriages, they also would avoid adultery.
There are a lot of good arguments made for and against marriage equality. I’m not sure who’s right but I’d like to proffer one for marriage equality:
Thomas Jefferson once posited, “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
I know this Founding Father was talking about freedom of religion, but I like to think that this reasoning could be extended to many other areas of life. It does me no injury for my neighbor to marry a man or a woman.