{"id":1211,"date":"2004-10-29T14:19:38","date_gmt":"2004-10-29T22:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/10\/29\/dear-commissioner-roberts\/"},"modified":"2004-10-29T14:19:38","modified_gmt":"2004-10-29T22:19:38","slug":"dear-commissioner-roberts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1211","title":{"rendered":"Dear Commissioner Roberts…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Commissioner Roberts<\/a>,<\/p>\n

Thank you for your letter, entitled “Why I’m voting yes on Measure 36.”<\/p>\n

You ask me to join you in “preserving… marriage between a man and a woman.” But no one has proposed outlawing marriage between men and women. Your marriage is not endangered if two lesbians or two gay men choose to marry; the only thing that’s endangered is your “right” to have your family protected by the law while same-sex families are not.<\/p>\n

You say that you’re afraid that “the law will be defined in a courtroom.” That is, indeed, the central issue of Measure 36. If lesbian and gay citizens believe they’re being treated unequally by Oregon laws, do they have a right to ask a court to consider the issue – or should a majority vote to make sure they never get their day in court? Should the state have to prove a rational basis for their laws – or should our Constitution say “rational basis is only required for heterosexuals?”<\/p>\n

Denying any citizen – but particularly a much-discriminated against minority – their fair day in court is appalling. It’s against the best ideals of America. And any public official advocating such a thing should be ashamed.<\/p>\n

I dearly hope a decent candidate runs against you in the next election, so I can donate to them and volunteer for them, and see you driven out of office.<\/p>\n

Twenty years from now, you’ll be ashamed to admit the position you took on same-sex marriage in 2004.<\/p>\n

Respectfully,<\/p>\n

Barry Deutsch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Commissioner Roberts, Thank you for your letter, entitled “Why I’m voting yes on Measure 36.” You ask me to join you in “preserving… marriage between a man and a woman.” But no one has proposed outlawing marriage between men … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}