I was dismayed (though not at all surprised) at the conservative reaction to the recent Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage.

What is curious to me, though, is that individuals opposing gay marriage on the grounds of exercising their religious freedom have not taken an aggressive stance to overturn divorce laws; to refuse the issuance of birth certificates to children born to unmarried parents; or, perhaps more subtly, to draft legislation to advance laws promoting philanthropy, the foundations upon which their faith is based.

So I also think it is about time for religious conservatives to hold themselves accountable for the “values” they profess to embody. So until clerks in Texas and Mississippi refuse to enforce said divorce decrees or the issuance of birth certificates to unmarried parents, they will remain – in my opinion, anyway – the sole remaining practitioners of bigotry.

Then again, I find that the most self-righteous Americans always seem to turn their vitriol against the most vulnerable in our society. Our conservative governor’s “welfare reform” agenda is another case in point.

So I guess we have to ask: What is it about conservativism that gives license to look down upon our most persecuted and disenfranchised fellow citizens?

For every voter in America, the next 16½ months should be enough time to answer that question definitively. I just hope we finally choose pluralism and inclusion over the politics of divisiveness and self-righteousness.

Brad Smith

Cumberland

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