This letter is in response to letter writer Roland L. Rose.
President Obama's statements were of national and historical significance. His words affect a much broader geographical region than the borders of North Carolina, and were the first of their kind from a sitting president. This alone is enough to justify any differences in coverage, especially in an upstate New York local newspaper or on a Northeast public radio station. People expect, or they should expect, their local media to report on issues most likely to impact them and where they live. If people want stories that reinforce their pre-existing and narrowly interpreted religious beliefs, they should go to their church, not to the media.
More to the point, equating in any sense, "the practice of homosexuality/lesbianism" is "no better or no worse than, say, pedophilia " is an exaggerated and ridiculous comparison. A situation involving two consenting adults who wish to marry and that of an adult taking advantage of a child are simply incomparable. If any sin can be equated to pedophilia, then those who choose to shave the sides of their head (Leviticus 19:27), those who choose to wear jewelry or braid their hair (1 Timothy 2:9) or those who wear clothing of mixed fibers (Leviticus 19:19) would have a lot of explaining to do.
Society has yet to collapse as a result of individual personal-care decisions or fashion sense, and it is equally unlikely to collapse when the same civil rights are afforded to men who want to marry other men and women who want to marry other women.
JEFF DORMAN
Gloversville