RIGHT ASCENSION'S MARRIAGE EDITORIAL IN ITS ENTIRETY

On Friday, 13 August, the Deseret News editorial page published a letter to the editor that I wrote.

I do not like the way the editorial page editor edited my original letter. I reproduce the published version and, after that, my original unedited letter for your consideration.

First the edited version:

A father and a mother

Deseret News
letter to the editor
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700056325/A-father-and-a-mother.html
Published: Friday, Aug. 13, 2010 12:00 a.m. MDT

Marriage is not an arrangement between two people; it is a covenant between four entities: a man, a woman, God and/or the culture in which the couple live, and children — whose interests always get lost amid the legalistic smoke generated by same-gender marriage controversies.

Heterosexuals damaged marriage more than any other group. They, after all, created marriage definitions, traditions and laws to include polygamy, mistresses, dowries, la casa grande and la casa bonita, quick divorces, and institutional acceptance of violence against women and children. Their liberalized marriage laws made a successful marriage harder to achieve. After we accept many of these bogus assumptions, marriage between same-gender couples is just another small leap. Backward.

We should allow and accept the companionship legalities and domestic arrangements that consenting adults want. The law should accept both gay and straight domestic partnerships with unblinking legal equality and objectivity. A child, however, deserves both a father and a mother in a family. A father is not an afterthought.


Now my original letter, with the crucial cut highlighted:

Marriage is not an arrangement between 2 people; it is a covenant between 4 entities: a man, a woman, God and/or the culture in which the couple live, and children – whose interests always get lost amid the legalistic smoke generated by same-gender marriage controversies.

Heterosexuals damaged marriage more than any other group. They, after all, created marriage definitions / traditions / laws to include polygamy, mistresses, doweries, la casa grande and la casa bonita, quick divorces, institutional acceptance of violence against women and children. Their liberalized marriage laws allowing people of different cultures, classes, nations, and races to marry in fact made successful marriages harder to achieve. After we accept many of these bogus assumptions, marriage between same-gender couples is just another small leap. Backwards.

We should allow and accept the companionship legalities and domestic arrangements that consenting adults want. The law should accept both gay and straight domestic partnerships with unblinking legal equality and objectivity. A child, however, deserves both a father and a mother in a family. A father is not an afterthought.


RIGHT ASCENSION AFTERTHOUGHT

Men and women of different cultures, classes, nations, and races do have a moral and legal right to marry each other. It does not follow, though, that they have created marriage that will be inherently more successful,