Moscow council deserves thanks

The following letter to the editor appleared on page 9A of the Moscow Pullman Daily News in Moscow, Idaho on December 27, 2007.

     I commend the Moscow City Council for extending insurance benefits to city employees' domestic partners, including same sex partners. I urge the Council to stand firm and if challenged to argue its case fervently.
     The instigators and defenders of the Idaho Constitutional amendment tabooing same sex marriages are trying to use it to impose their misguided rightist views far outside the question of who may have a legally recognized wedding. They hope to use the amendment to dictate what policies offered by an insurance company can be accepted by the city and its employees.
     No matter how broadly or narrowly it is interpreted, the anti gay marriage amendment is based on prejudice, is unjust, and is harmful to society. It is also a direct affront against freedom of religion. My UU church, the first to ordain women ministers and homosexual ministers, has long recognized and ritually blessed same sex marriages. By the principle of minority rights, no one, not even a majority of voters, has the right to use the law to forbid the practices of my church, so long as we do not impose on others or cause others harm.
     The government has no business interfering in anyone’s religion. From a religious perspective, a wedding is a sacred communal ceremony. The only question the government should have about a marriage is whether it is a valid civil contract agreed upon and adhered to by both parties. Who but the hard-hearted and uncharitable would deny two adult citizens the right to agree to a contract to live intimately together as equals, sharing all, mutually responsible for each other’s and any household children’s well being, on the basis of "to love and to cherish," whether they are of opposite sexes or of the same sex?

          Brian Leekley
         Moscow, Idaho