Love is the key to happy children

Mr. Finnegan is wrong on many levels in his bigoted opposition to same-sex marriage (Fence Post, March 19). First, he refers to being gay as a “choice.” Being gay is something you are born to be, not something you decide to be. Did Mr. Finnegan decide to be heterosexual? The only choice that a gay person makes when deciding to have a relationship with a person of the same sex is the choice to be happy. Who is Mr. Finnegan or anyone else to deny them that?

Second, the Bible should never be used to promote or oppose legislation and public policy of any kind, whether it relates to same-sex marriage, abortion, or otherwise. Mr. Finnegan continues by saying that we shouldn’t confuse tolerance with what is moral. Isn’t tolerance itself morally right?

I don’t know which studies Mr. Finnegan refers to in his letter, but you can’t convince a reasonable and empathetic person that a forsaken child is better off in a foster home or orphanage than he or she would be with two loving and caring parents of the same sex. Who is he or anyone else to speak for an unwanted child yearning to just be loved by nurturing parents, no matter what their sexual orientation might be?

Marriage between a man and a woman is simply not the paradigm of happiness and health that Mr. Finnegan and others portray it to be, not when the divorce rate hovers at about 50 percent and broken homes are no longer an anomaly.

Love, not a subjective definition of normalcy and certainly not statistics, is the key to healthy and happy children. The source of that love matters not a whit.

Mike Fanella

Arlington Heights