To the Editor:
News for John Olsen '05 ("Tyranny of the Majority," March 29): not being able to marry a person of the same sex doesn't mean you are a second-class citizen. It means you are a citizen--period.
Equality and civil rights rest with individuals, not couples or groups, and homosexual individuals have the exact same marital rights as heterosexuals, no more and no less. What nobody has, of course, is the right to marry simply anyone he chooses. Precisely, any one person (gay or straight) is entitled to marry one other person, provided that other person consents to the marriage and is not underage, already married, consanguine, or of the same sex as his partner. This rule applies equally to all and without discrimination; there is no check box for sexual orientation on a marriage license.
What gay rights advocates really wish, then, is for the government to reconsider one of the negative criteria for what constitutes a suitable spouse. This is a fine and dandy proposal, but please don't start calling it "civil rights." There is no resemblance. Recall that no matter the (arguably) inborn impetus for the attraction, engaging in homosexual behavior and/or relationships is a lifestyle choice, not a predetermined characteristic like melanin content. And it's okay for lifestyle choices to have societal consequences.
The debate over homosexual unions is an interesting one that certainly merits discussion, but doing so under the trendy and bombastic pretenses of "equality and justice" against "discrimination and prejudice" is every bit as useful to informed debate as the input from the fellow with the "GAY? Got AIDS yet?" sign. Instead of sullying the good name of civil rights by weeping about the supposed discrimination of an institution whose rules apply equally to all, why not make a convincing case to society for how gay marriages would benefit the general welfare in such a way as to warrant the government's recognition and reward of that type of union? After all, that's the reason they hand out marriage licenses in the first place.
