To the editor:

In a recent editorial, Patrick Miller asks, “does the State choose a system where one citizen has the license to limit another citizen’s rights?”

Miller is concerned about the passage of the Adoption Protection Act, which affirms the right of faith-based adoption and foster care agencies to operate according to their beliefs, enshrining in law what has been practiced in Kansas for more than 60 years. Miller writes, “If you are a LGBT Kansan, the state has essentially singled you out and placed you in a formal ‘separate but equal’ system.”

This sort of rhetoric is precisely what Justice Anthony Kennedy had in mind when he wrote of “a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs” of baker Jack Phillips in the recent Masterpiece Cakeshop case. Rhetoric like that of Miller displays a troubling ignorance about religion and the rights of people of faith in our society.

The reason for such furious backlash against laws like the Adoption Protection Act is plain to see. As, Tim Gill, the multimillionaire donor bankrolling the LGBT movement, told Rolling Stone, “We’re going to punish the wicked.”

Activists like Gill and Miller refuse to accept that many don’t share their values. It is they who support a system that limits another citizen’s rights — the First Amendment rights of people of faith. Instead, let’s embrace our differences and live at peace in spite of them.

Eric Teetsel,

president and executive director of Family Policy Alliance of Kansas