Bigotry revealed

To the editor:

Though I disagree with them, I think I can understand a lot about why so many senators and representatives voted for a Kansas constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. They had strong religious, cultural, and political reasons for doing so. However, by including civil unions in the amendment they reveal the proposed amendment’s hateful discrimination, its underlying ignorance and bigotry. To see more clearly, just look back.

Many of us are old enough to remember the laws enforcing claims that God did not want black people and white to mix, much less marry! Wasn’t that bigotry? Please think back to when traditionalists claimed that voting by women was contrary to God’s word, was immoral, and would destroy marriage and family — as would higher education for women, too. Wasn’t that also bigotry? Looking still further back in American history, you will recall that married women in our country once had no legal and economic identity, that blacks were slaves, that Irish, Jews, Asians were inferior “races” and … the list is long.

Now, when all that is, thankfully, in the past, or is at least dying out, comes this new wave of discrimination, mistaken as morality and defense of tradition. Any American proud of how far we have come should say to the Kansas Legislature, “Shame!, shame on you!”

Haskell Springer,

Lawrence