The American Spectator

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/p> p> At least Mr. Sager's support for homosexual marriage is couched in thoroughly honest, and modernist, terms. For fifteen hundred years marriage in the West was primarily sacramental. With the Reformation, however, a predominant Protestant authority (albeit well distributed) largely discarded the sacramental nature of marriage and replaced it with, for lack of a better term, a prevailing social nature. Divorce was soon available and eventually proliferated, though slowly. As a result of the further degradation of marriage, we now do indeed live in an age where marriage is merely a contract. The acceptance of homosexual marriage is a logical consequence of this slippery slope. Mr. Sager claims that change does not have to be for the worse. All I can say to Mr. Sager is: Look around you. Do you think things are getting better? Are we on the right track? br> -- Bill Murphy br> San Jose, California /p> p>P.S. Please see the article by John Witte, a Professor of Religion at br> Emory University, on "The Meanings of Marriage" in First Things here . /p> p> Top drawer, R. H. Many conservatives worry that marriages between homosexuals will corrupt the institution of marriage with frantic sodomy and the crooning of idiotic show tunes. This is silly because, as my main man R. H. pointed out, the American marriage is already corrupt. It is a wounded, limping beast riddled with adultery and divorce. On a lark, I would even go so far as to call it a conceptual and literal failure, at least in the broadest sense. Indeed, what many more conservatives actually detest most is the idea that giving gays the choice to marry will, by legally recognizing the rights of those of a different sexual persuasion to lead traditional domestic lives, somehow legitimize the lifestyle choices some Americans find to be so repugnant. That is an obvious one, but most interesting because it springs from fear, not moral disapproval. Some detractors might be able to cope more easily with a poly-amorous passel of drag queens living down the street rather than a devoted same-sex couples with nice business casual attire and a Dodge Stratus in the driveway because the latter upsets the short-sighted vision they hold. br> -- A. Simmons

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