Letter: Don’t legalize discrimination

Monday, March 8, 2004 | 9:02 a.m.

In endorsing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages, President Bush exhibits a disappointingly narrow view of love, commitment and family. Marriage is a vital institution that has progressed dramatically over a relatively brief span of time.

Since the adoption of our Constitution, race restrictions on marital choice have been eliminated, laws that allowed marriage to be used as a means of subjugating women eliminated, divorce regulations equalized to protect both parties, and government can no longer intrude on sexual intimacy. In just the last generation we have seen an increase in the age at which people marry, and in the rate at which they decide to "unmarry." Marriages are no longer oppressively arranged, but entered into equally through love, choice and commitment.

The president's recommendation would result in the first time since the failed and repealed prohibition amendment that the Constitution was modified in an attempt to control personal behavior and restrict individual liberties. In Bush's endorsement speech, he cited America's religious roots as support for his argument and made the outrageous claim that only opposite sex marriage is "honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith."

Bush should know that many religious groups are supportive of equal rights for same-sex couples. His proposal to write discrimination into our Constitution on religious grounds is in direct contradiction to the First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty. Marriage in the United States is secular, not sacramental.

MEL LIPMAN