This letter was published in The State News in the Tuesday 24 April 2001 edition, given by them the title, "Sexual orientation shouldn't matter." My letter was one of a dozen negative responses to the opinion column cited.
Editor
The State News
There is so much faulty logic and misused rhetoric in John La Fleur's column ("Institution of marriage is for heterosexuals," State News, 20 April 2001) that one hardly knows to what to respond, but since he's saying nasty things about me and my family and many of my friends and their families, I feel I need to say a few things myself.
La Fleur claims that "the institution of marriage was established as a legal union from which children are born," holding this up as the single reason that makes heterosexual marriage valid. So would La Fleur advocate having the state dissolve childless marriages and rescind tax benefits once grown children leave home? If a stable, but childless, family unit has redeeming social value, how is the sexual orientation of the unit significant?
Of course 'homosexual' (or bisexual or transsexual) marriages are not necessarily childless. We put together families much the same way that many 'heterosexual' people do these days, from previous unions, with outside help, or through adoption. Are all heterosexual people who are single parents, in second or third marriages, or who are not the biological parents of all their children to be tarred with the same brush La Fleur uses on us?
Many types of families and unions between people exist and will continue to exist whether or not they are recognized by law and favored by government.
We should be moving forward to extend and secure basic human rights for all, not working to continue to restrict privilege to any subset of humanity.
Lisa Lees
East Lansing Resident