Same-sex ‘marriage’ isn’t Re: “N.Y. Legislature legalizes gay marriage,” June 24
I wish to express my disappointment with New York lawmakers for legalizing same-sex marriage. The decision marks a clear attack on traditional family values. Same-sex marriage is an oxymoron. It is unconstitutional.
The family is the fundamental cell of society. The family — and through it, all human society — have their source and origin in marriage. Marriage is ordered to the procreation and education of offspring.
As the basic expression of man’s social nature, marriage exists solely between a man and a woman who through their personal gift of self to each other, perfect one another into a communion of persons. This human development of the spouses and the proper nurturing of children who are the fruit of such unions makes an immense contribution to the common good of society.
Marriage, New York style, has now become meaningless and open to endless revisions and redefinitions.
Paul Kokoski
Ontario, Canada
Release of oil reserves is a symbolic Band-Aid
Re: “Obama releasing 30m barrels from U.S. oil reserves,” June 23
The United States consumes about 20 million barrels of oil per day. Thanks to environmental zealots and government overregulation, our current domestic oil production is limited to about 6 million barrels per day.
President Obama’s politically motivated release of 30 million barrels of oil from our 727 million-barrel national oil reserves will reduce our national security, provide a Band-Aid of less than two days of oil, and won’t help our long-term economy. Permitting production of 30 million barrels per month from Alaska’s outer continental shelf, and opening up our oil and gas resources would.
The economy will suffer even more if Obama continues his costly, government-controlled nation-building at home, as he confirmed in his speech on removing troops from Afghanistan.
Lest we forget, insanity is doing the same stupid things over and over, expecting different results.
Daniel B. Jeffs
Apple Valley, Calif.
Lawyers have incentives to bring more lawsuits
Re: “Trial lawyers won’t give up on Wal-Mart lawsuits,” June 24
Diana Furchtgott-Roth notes that lawyers typically get a percentage of a worker’s winnings in discrimination lawsuits against employers. Actually, they often get more than that, since employers have to pay them.
Under a ruling in Christiansburg Garment Co. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, employers have to pay a worker’s lawyer when a worker wins a discrimination lawsuit — even when the worker gets little. For example, in the 1999 case Brandau v. State of Kansas, an employer had to pay $17,000 to lawyers for a woman who received only $1 in her lawsuit. Due to such generous fees, lawyers will bring a discrimination lawsuit even when it involves only an individual worker, not a class action, and the evidence is weak.
Hans Bader
Washington
