Letter: Looking it up

Editor, Daily News:

Cal Thomas' Friday commentary on gay marriage warns against dismissing an "objective concept (same-sex marriage) rooted in unchanging truth" and cautions that "the country (is) equally split" on this issue. He suggests that gay marriage acceptance is a slippery slope that might lead to "social engineering," lawsuits and polygamy.

Looking back into history, we can remember some widely accepted unchanging truths. Blacks are inferior to whites and only men are competent to vote in elections. Scientists widely accepted the truth that matter can be neither created nor destroyed.

Thomas' slippery slope warnings are an attempt to obscure the central issue. Like civil rights for blacks and like suffrage for women, this is about equal rights — whether same-sex couples shall be afforded the same marriage rights, privileges and responsibilities as different-sex couples.

Our country clearly was split over and conflicted by slavery and women's suffrage issues, but conflict and open debate replaced the other "truths" with more reasonable ones. By questioning this "unchanged truth," we might find that it also is rooted more in tradition and custom than in principle.

Albert Bauer, Naples