In her article “Marriage Equality, Christianity and the president,” Amy Johnson futilely attempts to argue for the benefits of homosexual unions by employing reasoning that is hypocritical and therefore self-defeating.

She begins by expressing her wholehearted approval of the fact that “marriage is under attack (whenever) men view women as property, and whenever clergy sleep with ‘preaching groupies.’”

Amy, I could not agree more. It is saddening that the divorce rate has been skyrocketing, and that high incarceration rates and low wages harm marriages. When one such as you laments such facts, she does so because they represent the devaluing of an institution society should and does prize very highly: marriage.

For example, I would assume that Johnson bemoans the high divorce rate because statistics prove that children who live without either a mother or a father suffer emotionally, mentally and spiritually. But, if that is the case, then why does she so ardently advocate for unions that would ultimately result in a great number of children growing up in households where either a mother or a father is absent?

Yes, divorce devalues the institutions of marriage and the family. So do homosexual unions. Permitting two men to “marry” and raise children greatly devalues the role of a mother. “A child doesn’t really need a mother; a man can provide everything she can.” Similarly, a household comprised of two women proclaims, “A child doesn’t really need a father; a woman can play that part just fine.”

This is entirely false. A father provides for his children what a mother never can, and a mother what a father never can.

To minimize these differences is to do violence to a timeless institution that prides itself on complementarity.

Johnson’s argument hinges on the fact that “straight people have mucked up the institution of marriage just fine on (their) own.” Therefore, nothing worse can happen by allowing homosexuals to “marry” each other.

Suppose that a lion escaped from the zoo and is tormenting the local community. It seems that Johnson would advocate for the demolition of all enclosures at the zoo, so that all the animals can escape. After all, that can’t be much worse than having a lion on the loose. No, the key is to put the lion back into its habitat where it can thrive.

Similarly, the key to reforming our society lies in the strengthening and supporting of the family, not in the further undermining of it by promoting one of the very evils that is weakening it in the first place.

Harold Geno, Federal Way