Boston Comments
Maggie Gallagher's "Banned in Boston" (May 15) pairs me with Doug Kmiec at Pepperdine to show an alleged pattern that scholars strongly opposed to same-sex marriage are less concerned about its consequences than they should be. She and I have reconstructed how this misunderstanding arose---and it was entirely innocent on both sides--but it badly misstates my position. My position has long been that opponents in the culture wars are entitled to live their own values with a minimum of government interference. Gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry and to participate without discrimination in the broad secular economy. Religious believers with conscientious objections to same-sex marriage should be allowed space in their religious organizations, their private associations, and their family-owned small businesses to live their own lives and, in that space, to refuse to recognize such marriages if that is their choice. The gay rights issue appears intractable because each side insists on controlling the other side's lives in addition to its own. Large segments of the gay rights community and of the conservative religious community display a mirror image of intolerance toward the other side. But the only solution is mutual tolerance.
Douglas Laycock
University of Texas Law School
Austin, Tex.
The only important perspective missing from Maggie Gallagher's excellent article is some recognition, on her part and the part of the lawyers and officials whose views she reports, that our constitutional heritage tells us how to contain the looming religious struggle over the meaning of marriage and how to moderate the passions it could so easily inflame. Containment and moderation are possible, even probable, if the issues are fought out in 50 state legislatures, rather than in Congress or in the federal courts.
It is not surprising that most advocates of homosexual marriage resist the idea that they are engaged in a religious crusade. They sound more credible to themselves, and less alarming to some of their opponents, when they speak of fairness or progress. But their anger and their intolerance are pretty reliable indicators of the scope of their ambitions. In seeking the destruction of traditional ideas and existing laws regarding marriage, they show that they have in mind nothing less than an official (re)interpretation of human nature. Victory in one state, in 10 states, even in 49 states--none of these would satisfy them. Deviation from the new piety is an affront to the righteous.
Scott Rutledge
Richardson, Tex.
Blowing a 50-amp Fuse?
Regarding Fred Barnes's "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (May 15): It seems as though the Republicans in Washington are not "conservative politicians"; instead, they are simply pandering politicians. President Bush and the Republican Congress have failed to control both spending and deficits. On their watch, the national debt has increased by $3 trillion. Democratic big spenders like the late President Johnson look like pikers in comparison. Bush continues to refrain from vetoing any of the pork-laden spending bills sent to him by Congress, and both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans have given up balancing the budget.
Except for Senator John McCain and a few others, everyone else believes the best way to grease the wheels of reelection is to load up on billions in pork barrel projects. Democrats and Republicans have morphed into one inside-the-Beltway party dedicated to staying in power regardless of the cost to taxpayers. It is true that you can't always get what you want, but perhaps we are getting to the point where we're not getting the leadership we need.
LARRY PENNER
Great Neck, N.Y.