GAY TRUTH

Margaret Somerville is Professor of Bioethics in the School of Medicine at the University of Notre Dame Australia . I wish that I could support same-sex marriage and I have "moral regret" that I can't. When we feel ethically bound to take a position that we know will cause hurt to others, we should - and I do - regret the hurt that causes. If same-sex marriage involved only adults it would be much easier to agree with legalizing it. One hopes its advocates are correct that it would send a powerful message from society as a whole that discrimination against homosexual people and ill-treatment of LGBTIQ persons or a failure to respect them is abhorrent. But marriage doesn't involve just adults; it also involves - and, arguably, primarily - children. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines marriage as a compound right: men and women "have the right to marry and to found a family." The "right to found a family" makes marriage the soci...

A cancer victim who sued the state of Tennessee for the "right" to have doctors kill him says the U.S. Supreme Court's decision constitutionalizing homosexual "marriage" expands individual rights so as to legalize assisted suicide . Former Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Jay Hooker , who is terminally ill, wants to be put to death. A Tennessee judge said no. Hooker's lawyer argued that since   Obergefell v Hodges   was decided, that's unconstitutional.  Hooker, 84, went to court in Nashville to win the "right" to die by assisted suicide. Three doctors said they were willing to prescribe a deadly dosage of painkillers for him, but they wanted to be sure they wouldn't be put in jail for killing him. Hooker's attorney, Hal Hardin, sought to prove that since the U.S. Supreme Court constitutionally expanded the definition of a fundamental right to include gay "marriage," the right to privacy is constitutional...