Don't approve same-sex marriage

Newsday's constant articles and editorials on New York State's so-called gay marriage bill are missing the mark ["Call the vote on gay marriage," Editorial, June 15]. Your attempt to tag all opponents of the bill, as well as all Senate opponents, as people against civil rights, crosses the line of reality.

Your notion that the majority of New Yorkers are in support of this bill is not true. This has always been about the traditional definition of marriage and nothing else. Marriage is a union between one man and one woman, but more than that, it is a sacred religious sacrament and the foundation of the American family.

I'm an independent and tired of Newsday pushing its secular liberal view on to Long Islanders. Stop making this a political issue and let our senators vote with their morals. Stop telling Republican senators that they will be voted out of office unless they vote yes to this.

I will vote against anyone who favors this bill, as it would send the message that politics are more important to them than basic morals. I hope others will vote them out as well. If you want to give gay couples some of the state's many rights that married couples enjoy, then pass a bill to do so, but call it something other than marriage. If this bill passes, then New York State will join the few other states that headed into a downward moral spiral.

You are far from a fair and balanced point of view.

Ray Sangiorgio, Farmingville
 

The article "Shift on marriage" [News, June 14] makes perfectly clear why the state of New York and the federal government grow more completely dysfunctional and ineffective with each passing year. Sen. James Alesi (R-Perinton), seeking to explain his change of heart on the issue of same-sex marriage, knowing that he was "letting people down," says he previously voted in a manner so as not "to give the Democrats who then controlled the chamber a victory."

Until elected officials realize that their mandate is to bring victory to the people they represent, not the party to whom they are so beholden, New Yorkers and U.S. citizens will continue to lose.

Doug Shaw, West Sayville
 

I see that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is pushing for the legalization of gay marriage. I agree -- but call it a civil union, partnership, cohabitation, etc. Call it anything but marriage.

It's blasphemy, a gross distortion, sacrilegious and an affront to all who were brought up with the basic understanding that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Herb Stark, Massapequa
 

The same-sex marriage debate is not about ensuring the basic rights of homosexual persons. Nor is it about love or personal equality. The debate over same-sex marriage is about securing legitimacy for social arrangements and personal behaviors that most societies and religious traditions have found problematic from long experience and that a great many people see as morally troubling.

Let us hope our politicians do the right thing and oppose gay marriage.

Arthur Bajeani, Staten Island