The American Spectator

The story goes that someone once asked Louis Armstrong what “soul” is. The great Satchmo is reported to have answered, “If you listen to the music and you don’t hear it, I can’t tell you what it is.” Just so. “Socially conservative types” don’t need to look for reasons to oppose homosexual marriage (yet another oxymoron). The reason stares us all in the face. If Sager can’t see it, no one can explain it to him. (Furthermore, if Sager argues we can’t say no to a man who wants to marry another man, using his logic how could we say no to a man who wants to marry three men, his sister, a horse, and a Buick?)

And this isn’t about “accepting homosexuals fully into civil society.” American society is about the most welcoming on the planet. Anyone who behaves civilly — homosexual, straight, or variations thereof — can make his/her way quite nicely now.

Another obvious truth Sager hasn’t yet stumbled over has to do with his main point. Sager is just wrong when he says marriage will tame homosexual males as it has tamed straight men. No. Marriage doesn’t tame men. Women tame men.

p>I suggest Sager spend more time outside of Manhattan. Maybe his head would clear a little. br> — Larry Thornberry br> Tampa, Florida /p>

Mr. Sager’s article had a disturbing aloofness about marriage in general and gay marriage in particular. I agree that the gay community can through other means achieve the trappings of marriage (property, domestic arrangements, living wills, etc.). But what I found disconcerting is the presumption that we are on some grand experiment at the state level on issues of gay vs. straight commitment arrangements.

The danger of course is, having let the genie out of the bottle, if the effects are found debilitating, how does society undo the damage? And at what cost? To date the track in Western societies are that once social changes are unleashed seldom are past social norms reinstated. So Mass. uncorks the bottle, what if in 10 years time it is found that such a decision was a bad one? Does one nullify the existing commitments made?

Paradoxically, I am not for a Federal Marriage Amendment. This country has traditionally left issues of social norms to states and local authority. To now federalize such social constructs permits an ever more widening intrusion into private affairs, whether gay or heterosexual.

p>I suggest that before we head off on this grand expression of “equality for all,” we first understand why for most civil societies around the world and for hundreds of years, recognized unions were between a man and a woman. Or maybe I should just wait to move to Mass. when they enshrine polygamy. br> — John McGinnis br> Arlington, Texas