Letter to the Editor: Rights and religion can coexist

Letter to the Editor
April 15, 2004, Page 4

Dear Editor:
I find myself unable to conserve my opinions involving the recent rash of traditionalist appeals and satirical responses involving sexuality.
I am a Christian, and feel unrepresented by the authors of this newspaper. As a Christian, I believe that the foundations set by Christ are example for all truths.
A major basis for Christianity is that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28.
The Old Testament Laws showing homosexuality as sin can not be used to prove or disapprove homosexuality today because Christ fulfilled those laws, reforming them, Galatians 5:14, 18.
The rules apply equally to those of heterosexual and homosexual orientation. We get our identity in Christ, not in our sexual orientation or anything else. In Christ there is neither male nor female…homosexual nor heterosexual. God looks only at the heart!
Ready for the kicker?
Although I am forgiven for my sins, God is worthy of my best efforts and the Church is our model of righteous living, and therefore has no right to condone homosexuality or any other selfish act.
Just because we are forgiven does not mean that we should condone the behaviors which set us apart from God. The Church, however, also must recognize that a homosexual is no guiltier of sin than is the minister or congregation and therefore can not be condemned.
So what does this say of the legality of homosexuality?
It means the Church must accept gays as it accepts all people, but it cannot marry them.
Does this mean that gays should not have the right to union?
Absolutely not!
America was founded on the principle that all humans should have the right to pursue happiness equally under God.
If I have the right to watch TV all day while people are starving elsewhere, then the rights of all people seeking selfish fulfillment should also be protected under the constitution.
So, the Church cannot marry gays but the State can, keeping separate the two identities so that both freedom and righteousness are protected.

Jeff Daniels

Dygert respectfully disagrees with letters

Click here to see the original article
Click here to see J.T. Hill's Letter to the Editor
Click here to see Kamleh Shaban's Letter to the Editor
Click here to see Shawna Clement's Letter to the Editor

Andy Dygert
Staff Writer
April 8, 2004, Page 4

This article is in response to the three letters to the editor in last week’s paper responding to my article, “Keep Marriage Between Man and Woman.”
First off, Mr. J.T. Hills wrote a highly sarcastic letter in which everyone who does not believe the same thing I do in my article is killed off (along with lots of others.)
He ends it with: “Then the three of us that are left will be able to live a life of bliss. It’ll be like heaven on earth.”
Though I realize, of course, that Hills is joking to a point, I also feel that I must clarify my position.
I do not, in fact, endorse killing people—regardless of their religious, marital, social or any kind of belief.
The main thought in Hills’ article that I want to comment on, however, is his thought that I believe the femininity is decreased by her not staying at home, but rather playing sports or having a job.
This is not my way of thinking at all.
Women have every right to play sports and hold a job as long as they do not neglect their children.
Men have this same responsibility! There is nothing wrong with a stay-at-home dad for instance.
Hills also talks of divorce as disrupting families which is definitely a true statement. I do not condone divorce; I believe it to be wrong.
However, people who have divorced are not necessarily bad people in any way, any more than anyone is necessarily bad.
My response to the next to letters is combined. Both talk about homosexual couples having the same feelings, as well as rights, toward each other as do heterosexual couples.
Ms. Kamleh Shaban’s letter states that, “The same holds true for any barren heterosexual couple” as my article spoke of how a homosexual couple could not produce children.
My answer is that homosexual couples have absolutely, positively no opportunity for children coming out of their relationship, while even a presumably barren woman possesses the innate ability to bear offspring.
For example, Sara gave birth to Abraham even though they were both very old, and was considered to be barren. Women’s bodies are made for bearing, men’s are not. It comes down to that.
I would like to thank everyone for their responses to my original article. I respect your right to your opinion, though I continue to firmly disagree with your stances.

Keep marriage between man and woman

Andy Dygert
News Editor
Mar. 11, 2004, Page 4

Marriage is almost as old as humanity itself.
Adam took Eve as his wife. Cleopatra married Mark Antony. Henry VIII could not seem to stop marrying (and then executing) different women. Every single president of the United States has been married.
What is the one thing all of these marriages have in common? They were between a man and a woman. This part of the institution of marriage is now being abused.
On Feb. 4, 2004, the Massachusetts Supreme Court handed down a decision to allow same-sex marriages. Following this ruling, city officials in San Francisco and the mayor of New Paltz, N.Y. began performing same-sex marriages.
President Bush answered these proceedings by calling for a Constitutional amendment which would define marriage as being between a man and a woman.
Tosha Rae Long wrote an article, published in last week’s edition of The Doane Owl, which stated that she thought Bush’s proposal is “bigotry in disguise.”
Long asks, “What exactly is Bush trying to defend? Marriage is not under attack.” She goes on to say that marriage is only being “reconstructed to fit the needs of everyone.”
This, however, is incorrect as the very core of marriage is being attacked.
Marriage was instituted for the sake of the family - legally giving guardianship (through parents) to the children coming from the union of the couple. Children are created naturally only between a man and a woman. Two men or two women cannot create children together.
Homosexuality comes about because two people of the same sex are attracted to each other and want to engage in their attraction or lust. Children are not in any way part if the equation (adopted or medically implanted children are not the fruit of a homosexual couple).
Marriage is a union entered into in mutual love ordered towards the procreation and education of children. Therefore, allowing homosexuals to marry one another strikes directly at the core of marriage. Furthermore, children with parents of the same sex are brought up without the complementary differences of a man and a woman - children relate to a mother differently than to a father for instance. A child is deprived of one of these differing influences if brought up by homosexual parents.
Such a child is actually deprived of both influences! In marriage, the femininity of a wife is perfected and brought out in its full glory through the masculinity of her husband, and vice-versa.
When a man loves a man as he would love a woman, however, people’s experience should show them that his masculinity is, to say the least, not as well defined.
Long ends her article by sayin that officials like the ones in San Francisco and New York “set the example that Americans can challenge the system and fight suppression.” These officials do in fact challenge and fight against something – the law. California Family Code 300 reads, “Marriage is a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman.”
Therefore San Francisco officials were indeed breaking the law by “challenging” the system.
The state of New York has similar legislation.
Bush’s amendment to the Constitution of the United States would effectively end the question of the legitimacy of these unlawful acts.
Marriage must be protected on a national level in order to preserve its very meaning and purpose.