Dear Source:
Mr. Ed Cullen is undeserving of the honorific "Reverend" since that title designates one who should be revered and his letter to The Source undercuts any claim he could possibly make to reverence. Cullen exposes his own anti-gay bigotry by his transparent and idiotic attempt to protect his fellow bigots who as members of the Constitution Convention supposedly serve the entire population of the Virgin Islands and not just those who are heterosexual. The phrase defining "marriage in the Virgin Islands as the legal union of one man and one woman" is, by its very nature, anti-gay and designed to legislate against gay marriage. Clearly, Mr. Cullen's defense of this bigoted position negates any argument by which he could possibly claim revered status.
To Mr. Cullen: Government should not be in the marriage business in any way. If your church wants to refuse its sacrament of marriage to gays, or to anyone regardless of sex, sexual preference, race, religion or political party, that is the right of your church. The state must allow anyone without qualification to form a legal union that offers all the rights and protections of the union it has historically and improperly called marriage.
I abhor bigotry and all forms of discrimination that grow out of it.
As the parent of a gay son whose adult life includes a struggle for his and his partner's civil rights. I am especially enraged by the hatred that lies under the surface of Ed Cullen's attempts at justifying the comments of bigoted members of the Convention who have chosen to discriminate against those who love people of their own sex. As a human being I am shocked and saddened that men and women—whose antecedents, and perhaps they themselves, have been subjected to the viciousness that inevitably grows out of bigotry and hatred—can themselves even consider furthering such bigotry and hatred upon fellow humans.
Shame upon all of you.
Wilson Roberts
St. John 00830
Greenfield, Mass.
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