Responding to the gay marriage debate

There is one, tiny-teeny, itty-bitty thing that Lydia Claudio forgot to mention in her long-winded article about God and his (her) ideas about "the unnatural lifestyle" of homosexuals -- God has absolutely no place in the United States government. It does not matter what some fictitious book written thousands years ago says about homosexuals. Here is a crash course in American history: the church, and therefore God, is separate from the government.

What Christian radicals and other protesters who claim the immorality of homosexual lifestyles seem to forget is that it does not matter what one person's God says is immoral, nor what anyone else's religion values. This country's government will not base its laws solely on what a particular God says is allowable or not. For some reason, many believe that their religion is better qualified than others, and therefore we should base our country's laws completely on the values and morals their religion teaches. That, my friend, is what people see as "unfair, narrow-minded, and discriminatory."

You are not tolerant of diversity and you are narrow-minded if you do not see that cramming your religion down people's throats is unfair and uncalled for. You can rave about sin, you can claim that it is undermining the institution of marriage (sorry, but divorces are undermining your so-called holy institution), and go on and on - but it does not matter at all. Sin and your religion's qualifications of marriage do not count in politics.

As for condemning adulterers and alcoholics in the same category with homosexuals, they should not be seen in the same light. Adulterers (one reason for failed marriages, not gays) and alcoholics usually end up hurting others through emotional and physical abuse. For this reason, they should be punished and their activities should be condemned. But I fail to see who homosexuals hurt by being married to each other. Gays happily married, committing themselves to a loving relationship ... ooooh, spooky. You cannot condemn the lifestyles of homosexuals based on the qualities of adulterers and alcoholics -- homosexuals do not commit crimes, so why do you treat them like criminals?

Additionally, in reference to the comment that the homosexual lifestyle is "clearly and explicitly contrary not only to nature, but the very nature of God," -- we have already covered how the nature of God is irrelevant in this conversation, but how homosexuality is also against nature is again, wrong. I need only mention a viewpoint ("Oh the things we can learn ... from penguins, Feb. 12") that highlighted the homosexual relationship between two penguins in the Central Park Zoo located in New York. No, they are not freaks of nature, possessed by the devil, or lab experiments. They are just two normal male penguins who engage in a monogamous relationship, have sex, sit on an abandoned egg, and raise a baby penguin. How much more natural can you get?

What makes the Christian faith so amazing that everything in this nation must somehow tie back to it? After years and years at Catholic school, I still have no answer to that question. What I do know though is that when it comes to the discussion of politics and law-making, religion has no place. All that really matters is that people -- all people, from all walks and thoughts of life -- are allowed to do what they want. That is what a democracy is based upon. And just because your God (or any other God for that matter,) says otherwise, it should not mean we have to cheat citizens from enjoying their democratic freedom.

Aysenur Nuhoglo is a junior majoring in International Relations and Economics