Morality Debate Won't Lead to Consensus
To the editors:
In "Questioning Homosexuality" (Opinion, March 13), Stephen E. Sachs '02 claims that the morality debate over homosexuality is far from settled and must be engaged before a "consensus" can be reached on issues like same-sex marriage.
To borrow Andrew Sullivan's argument, the institution of marriage is utterly uninterested in the question of morality or character. Death-row criminals, immigrants held for deportation, the mentally-retarded, dead-beat fathers, even the "rapists" with whom Sachs compares homosexuals all have a legal right to marry in this country. Sachs is right to note that there is not a national consensus on homosexual rights. But morality, as the issue of same-sex marriage shows, is not the starting-point for such a debate.
Adam Christian '01
March 13, 2001
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