Even editors get edited sometimes.

I had a column prepared in response to the Amendment 2 rally held in Crestview last week.

We ran out of space on the Opinion space, so I deferred space on the topic to our reporter, Brian Hughes.

Here’s what I had written:

Passing shots: Who gets hurt by same-sex marriage?

I’m not even going to try to win this one.
A rally supporting a proposed state ban on same-sex marriages and civil unions was held this past Wednesday at First Baptist Church in Crestview.
Amendment 2, according the Florida Division of Elections Web site, “protects marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife and provides that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”
A guess: Probably 70 to 80 percent of the people in this area would agree with such a ban. A Crestview church official put the number at 90 percent.
I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind.
I just ask this of the 70 to 90 percent: Who gets hurt by same-sex legal unions? Who needs protected?

The churches?
One of the leaders of the organization that sponsored the Crestview rally was quoted in the Florida Times-Union as saying churches could be sued for refusing to marry same-sex couples.
If this is true, then this is a valid concern. The government should have no right to force churches to marry couples, no more than it should have the right to ban couples from getting married.

Heterosexual married couples?
Legal same-sex unions occur every day in California and Massachusetts. Do I think my own marriage is diminished every day because of events thousands of miles away? Not really.
From a purely practical point of view, multiple studies show states with legal same-sex unions see an economic boost — a boost that presumably benefits many in heterosexual marriages.

Children?
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that a same-sex union is not the “ideal” setting for children.
Let’s ban same-sex unions for that reason.
Do I even need to list other settings that are considered to be not “ideal” for children that, by the same logic, also should be banned? Should we ban all non-traditional families?
There are many other things we should ban for the sake of children before we even think of banning same-sex unions for the same reason.

Society as a whole?
An online argument claims the legalization of same-sex unions will start a trend of acceptance toward other actions some might consider improper.
The example: A permissive attitude toward certain activities in the 1960s led to the admittedly less-God-fearing society we live in today.
The take here: I’m not convinced of a direct cause and effect. Larger issues are causing the breakdown of conventional values (a topic for another column). The trend likely will continue regardless of whether same-sex unions are legalized or banned.

Final thought
Seventy to ninety percent of you likely supported passage of Amendment 2 before reading this column. Seventy to ninety percent of you likely support a law saying something along these lines:
“It shall hereafter be unlawful for any person in this State to marry any save a person of a different gender.”
Just know this: The law paraphrased above doesn’t come from anything related to Amendment 2. It comes from Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924, a law that banned interracial marriages. A law intended to “protect” churches, white couples, children and society as a whole.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned that one in 1967. Has anybody really been hurt since?

Kyle Wright is the News Bulletin Editor. Contact him at 682-6524, or e-mail kylew@crestviewbulletin.com

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