There were a few holes in your Jan. 21 argument suggesting that gay and African-American struggles were not the same. 

No one is going to compare the atrocities of slavery, and the struggles of the civil rights movement to the fight for marriage equality, but let’s face it, they both fall onto the same plateau – civil liberties. In this free country, we can’t say one thing and do the other. The spectrum of civil liberties all fall within the same playing field – freedom. You mention how there are many African-American pastors who oppose marriage equality, and there’s the rub – “pastors.” It’s only religion that seems to take issue with marriage equality isn’t it? You can’t legislate someone’s rights based on religious preferences. This isn’t Saudi Arabia. This is the United States. 

You mention the many states where voters approved to ban marriage equality, yet cite the “Voting Rights Act of 1965.” And while one is an act of Congress and the other is a Supreme Court decision, one is not any more or less law than the other, in fact the Supreme Court is the final law of the land. Consider also the “Civil Rights Act of 1964,” again an act of Congress. Did not these two key laws overrule state and local preferences in many states as well? Should those laws not exist? It just seems you’re playing a very desperate angle with your point of view, which while an opinion, is a bad one. A law protecting marriage equality is a good one. A law protecting discrimination against marriage equality based on religious grounds, is a bad one.

Matt Britt

Bowling Green

— The reference Britt refers to about the Daily News citing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was not about the ban on gay marriage; rather, it was a correction of Saundra Ardrey’s statement that the Supreme Court gave blacks the right to vote.