SAME-SEX MARRIAGE: FOR BETTER OR WORSE?

By ALEX TRESNIOWSKI

Each week about 1,500 readers provide quick and unflinching feedback to TIME through letters, faxes, phone calls, E-mails, online postings: everything but carrier pigeon. Such rapid response makes it easy to tell when the magazine has hit a nerve, as it certainly did recently with Charles Krauthammer's piece opposing same-sex marriages [ESSAY, July 22].

Nearly 500 readers wrote about the Essay. Although some of them strongly supported Krauthammer's position, about 90% of those who wrote criticized--to put it mildly--his arguments, particularly his linking of gay marriages to polygamy and incest. "I have yet to read a credible study showing a homosexual relationship causes the same level of psychological trauma that incest does," wrote Kar-yee Wu, 24, a Hong Kong native and second-year medical student at Tufts University in Boston. "Also, I don't remember the last time someone was killed or beaten because he or she was polygamous. I do know that these things happen to homosexuals."

Wu, who is straight, says she became more tolerant of people's differences after learning her mother was a lesbian. "It seems hypocritical to be against gay marriages and at the same time in favor of family values," she says. "Gay marriages can and do provide stability for children and for society."

Many readers argued that homosexuality is not a choice. "If Krauthammer believes that one's sexual orientation is chosen, let him say when he chose to find women physically attractive rather than men," wrote Michael Hickey, 45, the executive director of technical services at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. Hickey, a homosexual whose partner of 14 years recently died of aids, concluded, "Where there is no choice, there can be no moral issue."

Krauthammer's most vociferous critics demanded equal rights for all. "Evidently, gay Americans are to be kept around to work and pay taxes but lack those human qualities that would permit them to marry," wrote Steven M. Ferre, 32, a contract manager for a health-insurance firm in Washington. Ferre, who is gay and currently without a partner, has seen relationships fail because the logical next step--marriage--was not an option. "It's difficult to stay in a relationship if you can't get married," he says. "It becomes very easy to cut your losses and move on."

Luis Torres, 60, a retired editor in San Antonio, Texas, wrote, "I've served in your army, paid taxes like everyone else and tried to live an ethical life, and as a citizen of this country, you can bet your booty that I want the same benefits that others enjoy."

Torres also taught college history, served as a German linguist for the U.S. Army Security Agency and worked as a regional editor for National Geographic Traveler magazine. He and his partner of 13 years, Don Schechter, 60 (a retired former employee of the National Security Agency), together helped raise two daughters from Schechter's marriage. Like many of those who wrote in, Torres doesn't view the issue of gay marriages as a complex philosophical puzzle; to him it's a life-and-death concern: "Now that my partner and I are approaching old age, I don't want to have to resort to all kinds of legal subterfuge to ensure that what we have built together is not taken away. I want Don to be able to inherit my Social Security benefits if I die before he does. And I want to be covered by his medical retirement benefits. I simply want our waning years to be secure."

--By Alex Tresniowski