Writings - The News & Observer

The News & Observer

May 21, 2004

Equal protection

Edition: Final
Section: Editorial/Opinion
Page: A18

Index Terms:
Letter

Estimated printed pages: 1

Article Text:

Cheers to Dennis Rogers for re-introducing the constitutional "equal protection" clauses to the gay marriage debate (May 19 column, "Why 14 senators say 'I do'"). I've been perplexed why so few people see fit to mention it, even as it stands as the single most sensible argument.

That Rogers' piece ran alongside a news story ("Gays denied GOP booth") on the state Republican Party in effect dismissing members of its own party --even while Republicans bitterly complain that some elected Republican officials have been doing the same thing to them -- should highlight the moral vacuity of the pompously self-righteous.

I am a well-versed and unapologetic conservative. I will happily debate anyone on the importance of the Second Amendment, the necessity of pro-growth fiscal policies or the Wilsonian/Reaganite foundation of President Bush's foreign policy vision. But disavowing the U.S. Constitution and the principles enshrined in it is a degree of foolishness no independent-minded Republican could ever support without admitting hypocrisy.

That these same people have gleefully abandoned their loyalty to "free people and free markets" in order to advance a wedge issue against their own political brethren, all in the name of electoral politics, makes it all the more disappointing.

And they wonder why Democrats have run this state for so long.

T. Greg Doucette
Raleigh

(The writer is 2nd vice chairman of the Wake County Republican Party.)

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