FILE -In this Friday, Jan. 11, 2013 file photo, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore talks to the crowd after being sworn into office, at the Heflin-Torbert Judicial Building in Montgomery, Ala. Gays and lesbians could get marriage licenses in more than half of Alabama’s counties Friday after a federal judge told a county judge that he must not defy her ruling striking down the state’s same-sex marriage ban. Moore has remained defiant, demanding that the state’s probate judges keep refusing to issue licenses to same-sex couples until the final word from the nation’s highest court. (AP Photo/AL.com, Julie Bennett, File)
Re: “Alabama judge got it right on gay marriage,” Feb. 17 letter to the editor.
Letter-writer Tom Uebbing’s argument against same-sex marriage boils down to the simple fact that same-sex partners cannot procreate. He writes, “Persons of the same sex disqualify themselves to marry because they lack complementary sexual differentiation.”
What this argument fails to recognize is that marriage is usually comprised of elements other than procreation. Marriage in this era is neither defined nor driven by the need to procreate — in the vast majority of cases, itap actually defined and driven by love. Procreation can happen without marriage (or love) and marriage happens without procreation. Procreation frequently occurs within marriage, yes, but itap not the basis upon which most marriages are built.
If two people love each other and want to get married, there’s not a single, fact-based reason to prevent them from doing so. Plenty of faith-based reasons exist, of course, but last I checked, the United States wasn’t a theocracy.
James Lewis,Castle Rock
This letter was published in the Feb. 19 edition.
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