Why Jocelyn Floyd is bad for Illinois

Jocelyn Floyd's Tribune op ed October 4, "Why same-sex marriage would be bad for Illinois" is one of the strangest, most incoherently argued and mean spirited pieces I've ever read in the Trib. It deserves a response.

The author, Jocelyn Floyd, is listed as "special council for the Thomas More Society", which is a not-for-profit public interest law firm working to... restore respect for life, religious liberty and marriage. Dig a little deeper and you find that it does not respect life, religious liberty or marriage. What it does do, according to the religious gospel of attorney Floyd, is demand that our freedom loving, secular nation, follow in lock step, the Society's extreme religious notion of what constitutes respect for marriage even though it treats an unprotected minority as second class citizens.

Much of the civilized world including 15 states and the District of Columbia in good ol America, recognize same sex marriage. Those enlightened countries include: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, UK, Uruguay. They do so for the simple reason that every citizen deserves the human and moral right to marry the lover of their choice. However, the rights of gays don't ever enter into Floyd's worldview. She makes preposterous claims, based on a nursery rhyme, no less, that marriage must only be between and man and a woman when her silly ditty makes no such claim. If fact her nursery rhyme supports gay marriage by stating simply and eloquently, "First comes love, then comes marriage". If she was truly honest Floyd would have added, "except if you have the same genitals". Her ludicrous claim that every child has a right to be raised by "his mother and his father", is belied by the fact that a sizeable minority if not a majority of all Illinois babies are born out of wedlock and half of Floyd's imaginary wondrous heterosexual marriages end in divorce. It may be true that children raised by unmarried gay couples enjoy a richer, more nurturing childhood than those innumerable kids of straight parents who have split up or never lived together.

Thomas More Society folks like Jocelyn Floyd are ideological dinosaurs. Their promotion of mindless bigotry as long passed as the majority view in Illinois, in America and the world. Some remnants of its harm linger on such as Illinois' soon to be scrapped gay marriage ban. However, if Floyd and her cohorts feel uncomfortable that her gay neighbors living together can soon say "I do", maybe they should move to a place where religious bigotry concerning gays will last till the next century. Iran and North Korea come to mind.