To the editor:

Bruce Ney (“Knights of Columbus gives $100,000 to support amendment,” March 28) is not the only Lawrence Catholic who is dismayed by the position church leaders have taken on the gay marriage issue.

I was always taught in Catholic schools that the separation of church and state is vital to the health of religious practice. No one is asking that gays have access to the sacrament of marriage (though I would support that). What is at issue is the civil rights of people in a religiously diverse America.

Catholic bishops and Knights of Columbus seem determined to head further down that slippery slope of civil discrimination in the name of religion. How disappointing!

Marilyn Hull,

Lawrence