SOUNDING OFF:

Eliza Rubenstein, in a letter to the Pilot (“50 years later, rhetoric still the same,” Sept. 25), attempts to frame opposition to same-sex marriage in the same context as the opposition to the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education striking down the separate but equal doctrine that promoted racially segregated schools.

Rubenstein’s analogy is flawed. Race is a genetically determined feature. Racially segregated schools discriminated against children for something they inherited and could not control. Studies have attempted to establish that same-sex attraction is genetic, but no scientific evidence supports the theory.

It is not mere rhetoric when concerns are expressed as to how same-sex marriage may affect society when we consider that opposition to homosexual behavior is considered bigotry. People have stood before human rights commissions and had their freedom of speech infringed, lost tax-exempt status, even been forced out of business for refusing to place adoptions in same-sex couples’ homes, or had their children taught in school that same-sex unions are healthy, which contradicts what they are taught at home.

Marriage is about more than the affirmation of two adults. Marriage as an institution was established primarily to protect children. It defines the rights and obligations of parenthood. That is basically the only interest the state has in it.

Research consistently indicates that what matters most in healthy child development is the family structure headed by two biological parents who love the child and each other.

All children deserve their biological mother and father, with adoption an option for those whose natural parents cannot care for them. Fathers and mothers are different, and biological ties matter to kids.

Rubenstein argues that marriage is a fundamental right. Courts have differed on that, and 27 state constitutions now define marriage as between one man and one woman. Marriage is not simply about the private love relationship of two people. Everyone is free to pursue that as he or she sees fit. The state has no stake in it.

It is not the role of marriage to guarantee anyone’s rights.

This issue hinges on the four judges who overturned Californians’ will. In March 2000 Proposition 22, defining marriage as between one man and one woman, was affirmed by more than 61% of the vote.

The issue goes beyond moral or theological reasoning. What is at stake here is the people’s right to determine under what laws they will live. But increasingly, egalitarianism trumps liberty.

It is time to give the people back their constitutional guarantee to liberty, and restore marriage to its historical and universal definition as between one man and one woman. Proposition 8 will do that and nothing more.

ILA JOHNSON lives in Costa Mesa.