Consenting adults should be allowed to marry their partner of choice. It should make no difference if they are straight or gay. While a license from the state is required, there is no such license requirement from a church.

A couple marries for a variety of reasons including economics, companionship, love, and sometimes – but not always - to have and raise children. Outside of actually having children, gay couples would be marrying for the same reasons. What’s not to think this is a good thing?

It turns out that marriage between men and women has not been the norm for all of human history, but a fairly recent legal structure. Even today, men are allowed to have multiple wives in several countries. And until recently (late 1960's), interracial marriage was banned in several states in the US.

Marriage, one might say has evolved over time and has a different meaning today than it did even 100 years ago.

Nature actually teaches us that homosexuality is quite normal as there is a certain percentage of the population – around 6 percent to 10 percent- who are born gay. No one wakes up one day and thinks “I’m gay or I’m straight.” Sexuality is not two polar opposites – straight or gay – but a range of expressions between straight and gay.

Gay people cannot be converted to straight anymore than straight people can be converted to gay, regardless of what some people think. Consider this for a minute – would anything change your sexuality? Not likely!

Not allowing homosexuals to marry really amounts to discrimination – pure and simple discrimination. If anyone thinks that allowing gays to marry somehow threatens his or her marriage, then that marriage must not amount to much or he or she must have a lot of free time and a vivid imagination.

Consider the current divorce rate, spousal and child abuse, broken homes and such when thinking about traditional marriage. It’s not Ozzie and Harriet anymore and, in fact, it never was.

There are lot of stories, as well as controversy, in the bible and it is easy to cherry pick those passages you like or don’t like and use them to justify your position or feelings regardless of reality or evidence.

Lots of people, including some pastors, want us to believe what they say as it makes their life easier. But frequently it turns out that reality is somewhat different, more complex, and not exactly what we learned as children.

David Gould
Fauntleroy