Letters to the Editor	Letters Archive

Marriage isn't the answer

After reading your editorial Right Question, Wrong Answer, all I can say, as a bi/poly activist, is "Thank God someone has the courage to stand up and say 'the emperor has no clothes.'"

Queer folk across the nation are justifiably overjoyed that Canada (at least in two provinces) has agreed to legalize "gay marriage," but the logic of that decision, "two people bonded together for life to the exclusion of all others" leaves many of us out in the cold, and thus tempers our happiness considerably.

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Is the "mainstream" queer community going to abandon the field and leave the rest of their brothers and sisters hanging, once they've gotten theirs? I hope not... but the signs are not encouraging.

via the Internet

As a polyamorous bisexual female sexual freedom activist, I was delighted to see your editorial Right Question, Wrong Answer -- thank you! GLBTs, swingers, the polyamorous, and BDSMers all share common ground, common enemies, and would all benefit from a more diverse approach to fighting governmental and societal discrimination. Which is more the right thing to do, eliminate discrimination against gays, or eliminate discrimination against everybody who doesn't fit the conservative relationship mold?

Consider the fight for the right to marry, a good example of how some approaches to evening the playing field are at best short sighted. Polyamorous people in stable, committed relationships of more than two people also resent that marrieds enjoy legal benefits that are not available to them and their partners. They, too, must set up living wills and irrevocable trusts in order to gain the same rights and protections provided by default by legal marriage. And a fat lot of good the right to marry will do homosexuals in relationships of more than two, and they're out there.

Though relatively achievable, pursuing same-sex marriage is a bankrupt strategy. Many who can and have been married have rejected traditional marriage as irretrievably broken-- marriage is not the universal key to happiness, despite what some conservatives say. And so it is likely that 50 percent of hard-won same-sex marriages will fail as well. A better solution is for government to stop favoring marriage altogether and provide equal rights and protections to all individuals without regard to marital status, relationship choice, or sexual orientation, which should be treated as private matters.

Anita Wagner
via the Internet

Faded love

There's an inmate who ran an ad in your publication by the name of [B.J.] who is at Kentucky State Penitentiary, who is a liar, and who conned me out of money. You can check the info that he gave in his past ads with you with the Internet site www.cor.state.ky.us [click on "inmate search"] to see he's a liar. If you choose to let him run an ad again you'd be negligent and could possibly pose grounds for a suit. I hope that you'll not let him again.

anonymous
Cincinnati, Ohio

We do not allow anyone to solicit money in a personal ad (with exceptions for known non-profit newsletters, pen pal bulletins, and such). And we cannot and do not adjudicate disputes amongst letter writers for whom love's initial bloom has faded. As we've said many times before, sending money or valuables to a person known only through a few letters risks being disappointed. Obviously.