Based on the many posts occuring recently I have written the following letter to my elected state officials. I have edited it slightly so that I can post it publicly. Feel free to borrow all or some of the language herein to write to your own elected officials. Also, since I'm making this public, feel free to send along a link to this post. Since many of you live in MA, you can use this site to find your elected state officials. You can also use it to find out where to vote next week. If anyone wants to use other translations of the Bible, there are bunches available here. By the way, also from reading the Bible, I don't think that homosexuality is immoral, but that's the subject of another post.
Greetings to my elected state public officials,
I vote. Most of my friends vote. One item many of us are concerned with right now is the fact that propositions banning gay marriage are on the ballot in several other states. Because of this, many people are posting the following sentence in their blogs: "Copy this sentence into your LiveJournal if you're in a heterosexual marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow." Most of these people are residents of [state], some of these people are also residents of [city], and some of whom are in my precinct. I hope they also write to you on this issue.
While I am not married, I may get married someday, and I am heterosexual. I see no way that my marriage could be hurt by someone else's marriage. What will sanctify my marriage is how my husband and I treat each other, not whether others are allowed to marry or not. In addition, marriage confers many rights and privileges that should be available to all people, regardless of whom they wish to marry. The virtue of the financial and legal benefits I will gain upon marriage will be lessened if they are not enjoyed by all couples.
I am a Christian. I also read the Bible, and when I read 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 (New International Version), it says "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside." From reading this, I believe that it is immoral for me to judge people who do not believe the same way I do by denying them rights because I disagree with their morals. I also base my stance on passages such as Matthew 7:1-3, Luke 6:37-38, and Romans 2:1-3.
For these reasons I ask you to make a stand for equal rights for all people, no matter what personal disagreement you have with them.
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