Judge Gay Marriage on Its Own Merits

To the editors:

Perhaps I missed something, I am only a freshman after all, in your gay marriage editorial (Editorial, “Equal Rights Under the Law,” Sept. 15). In order to relate the gay rights movement to the civil rights movement, a tactic used to give the movement a greater sense of purpose and meaning, you compare gay marriage to interacial marriage.

Now while I agree that the earlier state sanctions prohibiting interacial marriage were a mark of shame on our country, how exactly is gay marriage the same? Bans on interacial marriage prohibited a man and a women who happened to be of different races from marrying, a discrimination against a union that would have been totally unremarkable if not for some differences in pigment. Bans on gay marriage prohibit something altogether quite different. You may believe that gay marriage is a good idea, as is your right, but it does a service to no one, the gay rights movement least of all, to gloss over such issues.

Mark A. Adomanis ’07

Sept. 15, 2003