Religion infringes on a civil right

As Mr. Emmit Lehman’s June 17 rebuttal of my letter using most of his space to not once, but five times publicly question my political intent, nowhere in my letter or in my signature did I falsely present myself either as a public figure or as public representative of any group. I find therefore that discussion unnecessary.

As to personal intent: as a private citizen, how I vote is of my choosing, and my vote is not public domain.

In response to Mr. Marvin Johnson’s rebuttal of June 18: Within the confines of a democratic republic, the right to marry as written into civil law requiring civil licensing, performed in a civil ceremony and entailing certain civil benefits must therefore be a civil freedom, in the same way that a right to a civil union is a civil liberty. And if no other civil liberty requires a singular religious prerequisite, why does marriage?

At least in the case of the Defense of Marriage Act, while an agreement between religious and government authorities regarding a singular definition of marriage as being solely between one man and one woman is not in and of itself an endorsement, when each of these governing bodies then enact those singular views into written law, they not only endorse them, thereby excluding those of any other faith, they enforce them.

As a practitioner of one major world religion which does not adhere to such a limited definition of marriage, I must yet hold by federal law to a singular limited definition of that liberty as found in another faith (or group of faiths) in order to have access to that single civil liberty as opposed to any other liberty. I contend that at least in this case, those singular views are religious in origin, are not all inclusive, but are upheld by common government authority as though they were, and therefore infringe upon our common civil right to religious freedom.

John F. Page

Libertyville