Standard christian thought on this subject is that homosexuality does harm them, indirectly. They will be forced to live in a society where their kids must see men holding hands, where they will be subjected to perversion in the streets, etc. To this I would answer:

1) Allowing a civil union is no more than a contract - and any contract is legally binding. The law has no right to interfere in civil contracts for whatever reason they are enacted.

2) Allowing such a contract will not encourage homosexuals to ‘act’ homosexual in public any more than they do already. Welcome to the real world, where everyone is different.

3) By denying homosexuals the right to form such a contract, Christians are acting hypocritically. Because they may have to see other people ‘acting’ homosexual, they want to discriminate against them in law - but they don’t apply the same rules to other behaviour that they may not like - saying ’swear’ words, having full-body tattoos, being pierced from head to toe.

3) Gays and lesbians, because they are a minority, tend to overplay their sexuality in general much more than heterosexuals do. This behaviour has begun to decline a bit now that the lifestyle is more accepted; so allowed civil unions will actually achieve the opposite of banning them - by making it an issue, Christians are encouraging a much more ‘colorful’ display of public homosexual behaviour than if they simply allowed people to be what they are, libertarian-style.

4) By making the law partial to their moral standpoint, Christians are erecting a bucket of crap which will one day fall down on them. They may find that shortly, in the same way that they have used law enforcement to prevent others from pursuing things that they don’t like, a day may be coming when THEY are the minority, and another majority will be able to do exactly the same thing to prevent them from doing what they want to do: from going to church, for instance, or reading the bible in public.

With tolerance in law-making, libertarian-style, we can create a society in which our kids may grow up to find that the law already steadfastly supports each and every lifestyle choice with NO prejudices - permitting us all to pursue for ourselves our own individual aims, goals and moral code.

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John Wright

johnwright@softhome.net