Letter: Sodomy Case Was Civil, Not Religious
Mobile
Register, July 11, 2003
P. O. Box 2488, Mobile, AL 36630
Email: bmccauley@mobileregister.com
Ultra-conservative groups are outraged that the U.S.
Supreme Court struck down the Texas sodomy law with an unprecedented vote of
6-3.
If we could all step off the religious soapbox for a
minute, please: This is not a religious issue. This is a civil rights issue.
Religious groups can choose whether to agree or disagree with homosexuality.
Their freedom of conscience is as vital as gays’ freedom to be treated
equally under civil law. And there is no reason that the two cannot coexist.
The Catholic Church, for example, opposes remarriage
after divorce. But it doesn’t seek to make civil divorce and remarriage
illegal for everyone. Similarly, churches can well decide their take on
homosexuality in their own time and on their own terms while allowing the
government to be neutral between competing visions of the good life. We can
live and let live.
We need not all agree on the issue of homosexuality to
believe that the government should treat every citizen alike. Disapproval does
not mean disrespect. And, if the expression of love between two committed,
consenting adult people in the privacy of their own home is not worthy of
respect, then what is?
—Michelle McHugh, Montevallo
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