To the editor

Did you know the view that marriage is “the way two adults make known their love for each other” is wrong? According to our own Sen. Sam Brownback, this erroneous belief will result in the destruction of civilization. In the United States, those advocating same-sex marriage are responsible for our high rates of divorce, poverty and child abuse. In Europe, such marriages are responsible for lower “married” birth rates. I’m not sure why this is used as an argument; married or not, limited resources make reducing population growth pretty important. I learned this in Environmental Studies 101.

The senator states that children with “two biological parents” do better in school and are less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol. I’ll bet the result is the same regardless of the sex of those two parents. The critical factor is not sex, nor biological ties, but the loving, respectful example set for those kids. Why in the world would we want to eliminate any such greatly needed examples?

If some choose to hold Mr. Brownback’s views, that’s what America is all about: your right to your beliefs. But you cannot force those beliefs on others. It’s easy to understand the need to find a scapegoat upon which to lay blame for our problems. But surely we’ve learned that it takes “two to tango” in this world, adaptation is the rule of survival, and there are no simple solutions to complex problems.

Lisa Bailey,

Lawrence