THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 10, 1996 TAG: 9609100001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: 27 lines
With its return from summer recess, the U.S. Senate will likely take up and pass the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which the president has already agreed to sign. DOMA would make same-sex partnerships unqualified for national legal recognition.
There is no doubt that marriage needs defense. Heterosexuals have made marriage a disaster: killing fields of spousal and child abuse, rampant infidelity, proliferating divorce, cynical abandonment, teen and out-of-wedlock pregnancy, breeding grounds of violent adolescent crime. But to blame gay and lesbian people for the calamities of heterosexual marriage makes about as much sense as blaming the Jewish people for Germany's decline into Nazism.
Gays and lesbians want heterosexuals to take responsibility for the mess they have made of their marriages and to stop blaming us for the evils of that parents have visited upon their children. Since we have muddled along in our partnered relationships without the support of this social institution, heterosexuals might also learn from us.
THOMAS L. LONG
Norfolk, Sept. 5, 1996 by CNB