Dear Mr. Metcalfe:

Your information about the history of marriage is far from accurate. Marriage, as an institution, was first recorded less than 4400 years ago. It was first created as an economic institution: a way of insuring that a man's children were actually his and that his wealth, accumlated over generations, would pass onto a legitimate heir. Marriage has NOT historically always been between one man and one woman or even between consenting adults. Until the year 866, women did not even have to consent to marriage in order to be considered the wife (and therefore property) of the man she was forced to marry. Even into the 1940s, here in the US, there were twelve states in which married women were not legally able to sign a contract by themselves or to own their own property.

Aside from your misinformation about marriage, you also seem to be misinformed about the history of the United States of America. You seem to be laboring under the misconception that the US is a democracy. In fact, the founding fathers set up our form of government to specifically prohibit democracy. You see, in a true democracy, the majority opinion rules. Always. The rights of the minority (any minority) are subject to the whims and fancies of the majority, which changes over time. The founding fathers sought to protect individual freedom: to allow each man to live his life in the manner in which he saw fit. (That, after all, is what life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness really means when you get right down to it.) So they set up a constitutional republic in which majority rule was subject to the limitations set forth in the US Constitution. In the United States, majority rules only when it does not violate the constitutional rights of even one individual.

Marriage in the United States is a civil contract and civil contracts, as you may know, are not gender specific unless there is a compelling reason for it to be so. (For example, a modeling agency that deals with women's fashion design might have a contract that is specifically written for women since female clothes are best modeled on female bodies.) There is no compelling reason for marriage to be a gender specific contract.

I know! I know! You're going to say that marriage is for procreation and the raising of children and for that, you require a man and a woman. Well, you're wrong on both accounts. First, there is no requirement in the US that marriages, in order to be valid, must result in the birth of children. We allow couples who are incapable of having children and those who choose not to have children to marry. Nowhere on the marriage license does it ask how many children a couple intends to have. Second, gay couples have at their disposal the same resources that infertile heterosexual couples have for giving birth: in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, adoption, surrogate parents, etc.

You comment that this amendment is meant "to prevent the courts from redefining marriage without consent of the people through their vote." Again, sir, it is not the right of the majority to impose their will on the minority. In fact, it is the duty of the courts to overturn and throw out laws that violate the US Constitution, regardless of popular support. This doesn't make the judges of those courts "activist judges": it only means they're doing their sworn duty.

Up until 1968, the majority in sixteen states decided that marriage between blacks and whites was illegal. In Loving v Virginia, the US Supreme Court overturned these unconstitutional laws and in their opinion they stated: "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free man." While many insist this does not apply to gays, in the Lawrence v Texas case, where the US Supreme Court overturned sodomy laws, the courts opinion stated: "[F]or centuries there have been powerful voices to condemn homosexual activity as immoral. The condemnation has been shaped by religious beliefs, conceptions of right and acceptable behavior, and respect for the traditional family.... The issue is whether the majority may use the power of the State to enforce these views on the whole society through operation of the criminal law. 'Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.' Planned Parenthood of Southeaster Pa v Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 850 (1992)"

The Fourteenth Amendment provides for equal access to all under the law. The "full faith and credit" laws are what allows a heterosexual couple married in one state or even country to move to another state without remarrying. And yet gay marriages, which are legal in Canada and Massachusetts (among other places) are not legally recognized in any other state, in direct violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. How does this provide equal access under the law?

The concept of marriage as being between only one man and one woman is a Christian concept. Under the First Amendment, civil laws is not to be based on the tenets of any one particular faith or even a group of faiths. Every church in this nation is free to define religious marriage as they see fit and there are many churches that support gay marriage. Under current laws, only some of those marriages are recognized as valid civil marriages. How is that allowing for the free exercise of faith?

It has been said by many that if we allow gay marriages, then ministers who disagree with its validity will be forced to marry gay members of their congregation. This is nothing more than fear-mongering hogwash. The Catholic Church refuses to marry within the church anyone who has been divorced, even if they are a member of the congregation. And yet no one is suing the Catholic Church and demanding they allow them to marry simply because divorce is legal under civil law.

Finally, Mr. Metcalfe, you overlook probably the most important point of this whole debate. With or without legal "permission", with or without social approval, gays are getting married. And gays are creating families. My wife and I are raising two teenage sons from my first marriage, the oldest of whom has just joined the US Air Force. (Does that qualify him as a contributing member of society in your eyes?) In fact, the vast majority of gay couples I know have children. Laws like the misnamed "Pennsylvania Constitutional Marriage Protection Amendment" and the federal "Defense of Marriage Act" do nothing to prevent gays from getting married and from creating families, even if that marriage is not legally recognized. The only things laws like this do accomplish is to guarantee that gays and the children of gays will not have the same legal protections that heterosexuals and their children enjoy.

I invite you, Rep. Metcalfe, to a public debate on the issue. Name the time and the place and I will be there, armed with information to counter the inaccuracies that those who are pushing for passage of this law want the voters of Pennsylvania to believe without question. Armed with statistics and facts to counter the fear-mongering that underpins proposed legislation like this.

Love and Light,
Rev. Shelly Strauss Rollison