Dear Editor,

I am writing in response to Joe Adgie’s opinion editorial entitled “Everyone deserves right to marriage” in the Spectator’s April 4 issue.  Let me just first point to the fallacy in the title of Mr. Adgie’s article.  Everyone is already entitled to marry; they just can’t marry someone of the same sex.  This idea applies to all people, whether heterosexual, rich, poor, immigrant, black or white.  Homosexuals already live equally under the same laws as other people.  For instance, there are no special traffic or murder laws that only pertain to gays.  Marriage is an institution (or definition) that has been on the books for thousands of years and no group has the right to change it.

Moreover, it appears recently that the true intent of homosexual activists is to eliminate marriage altogether.  Take for instance what lesbian journalist Masha Gessen had to say in a recent radio interview.

“It’s a no-brainer that (homosexual activists) should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. …(F)ighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there — because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.”  (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/why-get-married/4058506)

Statistics seem to back up this sentiment.  It has been shown in other countries and certain regions of theUSwhere homosexuals are allowed to marry that few actually elect to do so.  For example, less than 20 percent of homosexual couples that lived together inCaliforniamarried when given the opportunity in 2008.  Compare this to the fact that 91 percent of the heterosexual couples living together inCaliforniaare married.

Homosexuals have the same rights as everyone else.  They do not, however, have the right to rewrite the definition of marriage.

Caleb Thomas

Valdosta Citizen