Romney and same sex marriage

Mitt Romney, presidential hopeful, stated that we needed elected officials, people who are “people of faith.” I don’t know if he meant only the presidency or all elected officials. If all, then I guess he thinks an atheist combat veteran with a degree in government cannot be trusted to be a county clerk. Atheists do not have the religious concept of doctrine that their fellow Americans who are religious possess. To an atheist one must use one’s own reason/problem solving and plain common sense when confronted with a problem be it in life or if one was in the Oval Office.
Now many religious people do this every day, but unfortunately from what I hear of the religious, it is an appeal to religion in support of governmental policies, such as opposing same-sex marriage or a right to die for a person in intense pain because their religion says no to these things. That is fine, but when one leads a nation of 300 million people then appeals to religion in that way don’t do!
We are too diverse and not all Americans would agree with policies being taken simply from the bible or any other religious book. An atheist president might also believe rights don’t come from a God but are the product of evolutionary forces that gave forth a man that

needs/desires and yearns for liberty. In this way the creator of the Declaration of Independence can be a personal God, deist deity or just nature, including evolution. If God is true then it doesn’t require our country to elect a person to keep telling us that God is true.
Another example of hostility to supposed atheist political candidates is that the Texas Republican Party stated in an e-mail newsletter about a nominee for a seat on the 6th Court of Appeals of Texas that the man is an atheist. The gentleman says he isn’t an atheist, that he was just misquoted in a long-ago newspaper column in El Paso. That he is an atheist or not doesn’t matter. What matters is the statement by the state GOP that an atheist won’t uphold the laws and the Constitution of Texas.
To say this is insulting, does a disservice to that word. Yes, atheists will uphold the laws of the state of Texas or any other government they are entrusted to uphold. One doesn’t need a belief in God to do so. They do so based on their own honor. Atheists work as lawyers, doctors, engineers in society every day while upholding their responsibilities and obligations. If an atheist pilot can be responsible for a 100-plus passenger jet and the lives in it or an atheist soldier manning a machine gun in Baghdad, then he can be responsible to be say, a county clerk.


Homosexuality-same sex marriage

Some oppose same sex marriage and domestic partnerships because they state that the ideal for the institution of marriage is heterosexual marriage. Maybe or maybe not, but to believe that gay men and women will not want to marry and express their love through that institution just because one states heterosexual marriage is the ideal is nearsighted.
That heterosexual marriage maybe is the ideal for society doesn't make millions of gay men and women who love each other go away. Getting past the point that both heterosexual and gay couples have the same love for each other and that both groups contribute as law abiding, tax paying and economically productive citizens is heterosexual marriage better for society? No, not if enforcing such an ideal leads to more misery and deprivation of rights by denying same sex couples the same right to marry according to their sexual orientation.
An ideal has to be grounded in the real world. Should we have an ideal that only the best of possible parents should marry? After all, one of the reasons in opposition to same sex marriage is that heterosexual marriage is better for parenting. But, no study has shown that heterosexual parents are on average better then gay parents.
If same sex marriage or even domestic partnerships are are not allowed will there not still be gay couples raising kids every town in America? These parents deserve the same rights as all other parents.
I cannot believe that we as a society cannot give the respect that millions of our fellow citizens deserve to be equal under the law. But cannot they marry other people of the same sex, as heterosexual couples? Why should they? They do not wish to marry people of the same sex any more then a heterosexual wishes to marry someone of the same sex.