To the editor:

Reference the recent actions of the Kansas Legislature: Has the majority gone nuts? Are we now in the era where we forget that the rights of the minority are as sacred as the will of the majority? Have we forgotten that all men (and women) are created equal with the self-evident rights to life liberty and pursuit of happiness? Have I, as a Kansan by choice rather than by birth, made the wrong choice?

William Butler Yates said: “Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.” To quote Mahatma Gandhi: “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.” Or, if you don’t trust foreigners, attend to Thomas Jefferson: “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”