Dear Editor:

I write to thank you for your piece “Civil rights are sluggish in America” in Wednesday’s Stater, as well as for including the piece from the Penn State student paper and the Associated Press article about Vermont.

I suppose some will object to the line reducing marriage to cake and photographers and pretty clothes. I’m sure it was meant to be read as tongue-in-cheek. Twenty years from now, if you recall it, I’m sure you’ll find it funny in a different way.

Others might object to your concession – “That’s understandable” – regarding the objection that marriage cannot be natural if it does not lead to procreation. After all, we do not insist that all heterosexual couples produce children once they marry, nor do we annul their marriages if they don’t.

Historians might point out that miscegenation – marriage of blacks and whites – was illegal in this country, depending on the state, well past 1887. In Virginia, for example, the miscegenation laws were not repealed until the 1960s.

Still, you folks meant well and gave the issue lots of coverage. For that, I thank you.

– Richard M. Berrong,

French professor and LGBT studies minor co-coordinator