The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 2 of 4)

DEFINE YOUR TERMS
Re: W. James Antle, III's Seesawing Same-Sex Marriage:

One of the clever tactics of people who want things their way is to redefine terms to suit their argument.

The "same-sex marriage" argument is one of those. It is not a civil rights question at all.

I wonder whether marriage is even a "right," civil or otherwise. It certainly doesn't qualify as one of the self-evident unalienable rights granted by the Creator. The Founding Fathers would have been shocked into stunned disbelief to see marriage so re-defined.

Perhaps, in view of the restrictions that states (and religions, although I'm not making that argument) have traditionally placed on marriage, it is really a "privilege."

For the sake of this argument, I'll assume that everyone does have a right to marry -- provided he or she meets the legal qualifications in his or her jurisdiction. No one is being denied a right when marriage to same-sex couples is denied, because marriage, by definition historical, excludes same-sex unions. Many gay persons have married persons of the opposite sex.

The redefinition comes silently in when the almost eternal definition of marriage is twisted out of recognition to suit the argument of gays.

Finally, the "civil right" to marry does not include the "civil right" to change the definition of "marriage."

In our present social/judicial/legislative environment, however, does that even matter anymore?

I'm sure the Sotomayors of our judicial system will applaud the new rule.
-- A. C. Santore

COMPARING UNFAVORABLY TO THE NAZIS IS NOT GOOD
Re: David Aikman's Tiananmen Twenty Years Later:

"Tiananmen Twenty Years Later," which testifies to Beijing's efforts to keep later generations of Chinese from learning about the history of Tiananmen Square, reminds me of a similar situation in Germany. Shortly after World War II, I was living in Heidelberg and met, through the German-American Women's Club, the wife of a university law professor. In the early 1960's, when I met the lady again, she described the shock experienced by young Germans entering the university when they learned for the first time about the Holocaust. There were no laws in Germany against revealing this horrible story -- no reprisals as has been the case in China. These truths were simply kept out of primary and secondary schools. Moreover, I knew that bringing up among my German friends any discussion of the crimes against the Jews would have been considered very poor taste indeed.
-- Nancy Ann Holtz  
Beverly, Massachusetts

THE BEST NUTS COME FROM CALIFORNIA
Re: Peter Hannaford's No More Eureka for California:

Unfortunately, the legislators in Sacramento may not be as dumbstruck as the author suggests. The new conventional wisdom, being spun by Barbara Boxer and her co-conspirators in Sacramento, is that the voters of California have been given too many chances to exercise their right to vote. They are saying -- as she did on a TV talking head show a few days after the election -- that governing by ballot proposition is making things too difficult for the legislators, who, they believe, have been sent to Sacramento to "represent" those same voters by "making the hard decisions," and furthering their interests.

What she opted not to say was that the voters are now holding her and her venal partners in crime responsible for doing the job of representing California voters in a totally corrupt and self-interest-oriented way. If only she and they had been doing their job of representation as it should have been, instead of stealing, spending and taxing in secret, the voters might not have to step in with guidance. Typically she and they don't see it that way; the voters now need to be disenfranchised so she and the other perps can return to the old ways. They need to be careful.
-- D.D.
California