It's about equal protection
03/08/04
This is going to come as a shock to the opponents of gay marriage: The Bible is not the basis for U.S. law.

As soon as society started assigning legal rights to marriage, it ceased to be a function of religion and became a function of law. Almost from the beginning, marriage was about property -- specifically, the wife as property -- and inheritance.

Nowadays we no longer see spouses as property, but the idea of common property between spouses is still very much a matter of law.

Then there's the matter of privileged speech. Communication between spouses has the same protection as conversations between doctors and patients, lawyers and clients or priest and penitent.

Under the 14th amendment to the Constitution, any right that's available to one portion of society must be available to all of society. It's called equal protection.

If you are against gay marriage, then you're against equal protection, equal access to property and inheritance and against equal access to privileged speech.
JORDAN LUND Southeast Portland