To the editor:

I wonder if we also could now pursue an amendment to the Constitution that would require heterosexual couples who marry to preserve the sanctity of the institution and to honor the commitment of marriage. I am floored by the notion that gay and lesbian couples could somehow tarnish the reputation of that union any more than we heterosexuals have already managed to do.

I know there are many “traditional” couples who remain together for life and all the other honorable stuff, but I hazard a guess that, statistically, homosexual couples 1) stay together longer, 2) abuse each other less and 3) are at least as good, loving parents as the rest of us.

I remember a cartoon in the New Yorker magazine years ago, where the presiding minister of a “traditional” wedding said “Do you promise to have and to hold … until the going gets hairy?” Gays and lesbians have so much to overcome in society. Please, let’s not put on our boots and stomp on them.

Rachel Hunter,

Lawrence