I disagree with nearly everything Kathryn Jean Lopez (Nov. 13 column) had to say about gay marriage, the Maine Election and Maggie Gallagher, except that Gallagher works tirelessly. She does work tirelessly — to further injustice, intolerance and ignorance. She has made a career of spreading hatred and bigotry against gay Americans.
Lopez, choose your heroes wisely.
Gallagher and her organization do not want to protect the “sanctity of marriage.” They want to ban gay marriage. Gallagher clearly states in her “Marriage Talking Points” on the National Organization of Marriage Web site, “Language to avoid at all costs: Ban same-sex marriage.”
She admits that although her base “loves this wording” they should not say it. They should say, “we’re against redefining marriage.” Evidently, she thinks this phrase makes her supporters sound “tolerant.”
Actually, what she is saying is “act like a bigot but do not sound like one.”
Lopez thinks banning gay marriage helps “rebuild the institution of marriage,” which she notes has been “neglected, abused and under-appreciated.” She does not, however, state how stripping gay Americans of their right to a civil marriage helps rebuild anything. She also fails to mention that the neglect and abuse of the institution of marriage comes at the hands of those in heterosexual marriages.
More than 50 percent of all heterosexual marriages in the United States end in divorce. In Oklahoma, in 2001, for every 100 marriages licenses issued, the state granted 76 petitions for divorce. Divorce rates in the Bible Belt are the highest in the nation.
High divorce rates also coincide with young age of marriage, less education, lower socioeconomic status. If you want to rebuild the institution of marriage, you should fund education and fight poverty. By the way, the state with the lowest divorce rate is Massachusetts, a state where gay marriage is legal.
In Maine, bigotry and fear won over reason and fact. The anti-gay marriage initiative there was funded by the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church and the Religious Right. Their commercials against gay marriage were outright lies, designed to fuel fear and hatred.
Remember, in Maine, 299,808 people may have voted out of fear of gay marriage, but 267,785 people voted to preserve the right for gay Americans to marry. It is not over yet. Fear is easier to raise than awareness. Lies are easier told than the truth.
But in the end, knowledge will always overcome ignorance.
T. Michelle McGrew
Muskogee
