Opinion: Mailbag: Same-sex marriage, ‘til death us do part
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Will the honeymoon never end? Gay marriage keeps people talking.
Responding to David Benkof’s* Blowback ‘Marriage ban is not a ‘wedge issue’,’ one reader wonders who needs protection:
It’s hard to know where to start responding to Benkof’s hate screed, disguised as it is in the cloak of reasonable argument. First, he announces that efforts to ban gay marriage are not a ‘wedge issue,’ offering as proof nothing more than that some marriage-equality advocates have said they are. Then he decides that anyone who has ever cheated on a wife or husband is unqualified to say what marriage is. The fact that someone does not have a perfect, or even a good, marriage does not invalidate his or her opinion on the subject.Then Benkof starts in on how marriage-equality supporters are trying to ‘redefine’ marriage. In actuality, proponents of gay marriage are simply pointing out the inherent inequity of denying basic rights because of sexual orientation. It is unconstitutional to create two separate classes of law-abiding citizens and grant to one class rights that are denied to the other.Benkof also hits the usual pandering notes of ‘traditional’ marriage and ‘marriage protection,’ never explaining why marriage needs protection from people who want to get married, and pleads for rationality and compromise while advocating writing discrimination into state laws.Susan Hathaway
Our news coverage draws this response from frequent contributor Jasmyne Cannick:
Re: ‘For one same-sex couple, marriage was always the goal’ (June 16, 2008)I’d like to challenge the L.A. Times to for once, feature a gay or lesbian couple in a story that isn’t white or one half white. You wouldn’t know it from the Times’ coverage of gay marriage in California, but there are Black, Latino, and Asian gays too. And no, we’re not all rushing down the aisle to get married either. By the way---the story you ran on the two Black lesbians abusing their five year-old doesn’t count. Just a thought.Jasmyne CannickWest Adams, Los Angeles
And another reader says heterosexuals are peeved about definitions, not threats to marriage:
Every article and op-ed I read about gay marriage has the same talking points. I don’t know why proponents of gay marriage feel that we married heterosexuals feel threatened. Nothing could be further from the truth. Traditionally, men and women marry. Unions of gay persons should be called something else because it is something else. Liberal politicians just want your vote…gay, illegal alien, convicted felon, stray cats... Mike Mancuso
* This spelling of the name Benkof was corrected after this post was published. Thanks to David Benkof for pointing out my error.