Dear Jocelyn White and other Citizens concerned about same-sex marriages
I question the validity of your argument which claims that by allowing our citizens freedom of choice (including same-sex marriage), we will somehow limit freedom of speech. How does it work in your mind that by limiting someone else’s freedoms, you are protecting your own, is this a joke! Are recent hate crime laws, invasions on our freedoms of speech and expression? Has our society gone astray by stopping racial slurs, sex-biased hiring practices, racial-profiling and by ensuring voting rights for all citizens?
I therefore say that you are not against same-sex marriage because of your “concerns” for your own freedoms, no it is because you are blinded by hate. Anyone who “hates” homosexuals or their lifestyle is the very same as the persons of our nation’s past who paraded our streets dressed in white sheets and hoods proclaiming hatred of a different breed but with similar sentiment. As a heterosexual man born 25 years ago I know very few people my own age who are openly homophobic (unless they have been raised by homophobic parents). I attribute this to a societal evolution in which we have come to understand homophobia to be a form of hate. This simple connection is a phenomenal change in our society. Join me in this understanding. Are you willing to tell your grandchildren that you were a bigot who detested someone else's lifestyle because it was different from yours (is there any difference between this and hating someone else who’s skin is a different color)?
Stop arguing that same-sex marriage will damage children, you might as well make divorce illegal if this is your platform for “saving traditional marriage” or keeping children safe from “grave physical, economic, and psychological consequences”. I just don’t know what to say to claims that children who are brought up within a loving marriage between two committed people could face grave physical consequences (are you insinuating a link between pedophilia and homosexuality?), economic consequences (children who’s parents face higher tax rates, inability to join in group healthcare together and higher rates across the spectrum currently imposed on singles would be better off?), psychological consequences (should these children be ashamed of their parents, are their parents bad people who deserve your hate?).
Labeling homosexuality a sin would not be a right stripped from our nations bigots because religious freedoms have been upheld since our constitution was written. Even though these same bigots might be forced to accept the resumes of the very persons they choose to hate, they would still uphold the constitutional right to tell those persons that they are headed to hell. Legalizing same-sex marriage would simply remind America that we as the citizens of this great county have a responsibility to overcome the mistakes and limitations on freedoms that we have inherited from our forefathers. The honorable Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have had more eloquent words than mine but I say to you now; Let God bring peace to your heart, let His teachings of compassion bring you closer to your fellow citizens and not further from Him as hate is designed to do.
