The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Just Married

6.20.08 @ 12:01AM

IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH
Re: George Neumayr's What the Counterculture has Joined Together

After 200 years of trying, American Utopians can look to California as their best effort. The worry is that the current experiment in perfect living will collapse and the perfect state will become the State of Dystopia where dreamers become the victims of reality. Hope is on the way as Sam Adams Brewery has begun marketing Utopias Beer which has 25 percent alcohol content or 50 proof and is guaranteed to enhance euphoria in the imbiber.
-- Howard Lohmuller
Seabrook, Texas

George Neumayr quotes Roger Cardinal Mahony as follows "Some benefits currently sought by same-sex partners can already be obtained without regard to marital status....Other desired benefits such as sharing in a partner's health insurance could be made available without the drastic step of a cultural or legal redefinition of marriage".

In other words, the argument over establishing an absolute equivalence for homosexual behavior versus heterosexual behavior has been reduced to the Alamo of the word "marriage". Everything of substance, in every respect, has been rendered equivalent. Filing joint tax returns, adopting children, etc., the same. But are Crockett, Bowie and Travis expected to sacrifice themselves for the word and not the substance? This is madness. We live in a real world, not a theoretical one. Words do have consequences. But consequences pre-empt words. You can stick a fork into consequences, but not into words.

If Californians and Americans do not wish substantive differences between civil unions and "traditional" marriages, then it's time to recognize that the word has been rendered meaningless.
-- Frank Natoli
Newton, New Jersey

How about doing an article on how the leftists will square this with their Islamists buddies?

Bet they haven't thought about that. But I'm sure they are fully confident that they'll talk the Islamists into accepting it.
-- David Constans

CREATIVE WRITING
Re: Quin Hillyer's The Lowdown on the Slowdown:

Wait! I thought Arlen Specter was already doing this. Didn't Specter, a few weeks back, say that he was fed up, and really, really, mad, and by God, was going to take Harry Reid and Patrick Leahy to task on the judicial slowdown? Oh yeah, that's right, Arlen doesn't really take on Democrats. Just like McCain, he only gets tough with conservatives and fellow Republicans. My bad.
-- A. DiPentima

Mr. Hillyer, your little essay would make a nice, creative submission in an advanced English Composition class. But why, pray tell, do you address the readership of this magazine with this issue? Were you simply a little short on ideas for a column this week? Do you enjoy preaching to the choir, instead of the whole congregation, or at least that part of it responsible for the shortcoming being addressed? Why don't you address your concerns regarding abuse of Senatorial privilege in the confirmation of judicial nominees to the offending parties, or at least the ones that could do something about it but chose not to do so?

Yes, you can blame Sen. Leahy. You could just as well blame Sen. Kennedy, or Sen. Schumer, or Sen. Biden, or a couple of dozen other Democrats. But why? Why not address your concerns to the GOP Senators that ensured that the complained of practice would continue in perpetuity? Why not address your concerns to Sen. McCain, who was the moving force behind the Gang of 14? Or you could address your concerns to his puppy dog, Sen. Lindsey Graham, who do doubt will be the Atty. Gen. in a McCain administration until an opening occurs on the SCOTUS. Or perhaps you might address your concerns toward that Major Domo of the Shenandoah, Virginia country club set, and ex-spouse number 3, or 4, or whichever, of Eliz. Taylor, Sen. Warner. You remember him, don't you? He was the GOP Senator that personally took it upon himself to see that Ollie North would lose to Dem. Sen. Chuck Robb for a Senate seat from Virginia. Why blame the opposition party, when the GOP clearly had the whip in hand and could not succeed in controlling its own members?

Tell me, Mr. Hillyer, when one of your children misbehaves, are you in the habit of speaking harshly to, and punishing another of the children, instead of the miscreant?
-- Ken Shreve

Quin Hillyer replies:
Mr. Shreve is one of my favorite readers, and a careful one at that, which is why I am surprised that he accuses me of failing to address the Republican miscreants on this issue. His major point is right, which is that our current mess stemmed from GOP weakness almost as much as from Democratic perfidy. But I have repeatedly written as much, times almost too numerous to mention, at this site and others. For just a few out of many, many examples, consider this column, and this one, and this one. I thank Mr. Shreve for writing, but his justifiable complaint is aimed in the wrong direction.

SLICK BARRY
Re: Ryan L. Cole's Clintonian Obama:

Ryan L. Cole is apparently surprised by two things: Barack Obama is "hazy" on history and the mainstream media is "reluctant" to point it out. Cole's surprise is based on an erroneous assumption: facts matter. They don't, unless they accrue to Sen. Obama's benefit.

Letter to the Editor

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