The recent letter by Scott Jones ("2 sides in debate on gay marriage") has several issues I would like to address. First, Jones equates gay rights and gay marriage as on a par with women's rights and minority rights. This doesn't make sense to me because sexual orientation is almost always a choice one makes, for whatever reason, which puts it in a category that is different from women and minorities.

  Although we were not officially formed as a Christian nation, we were formed according to Christian principles. This is why we have the freedoms we all enjoy, including the right to voice a minority opinion.

  John Adams, our second president and signer of both the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, said that "our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people," being inadequate to rule any other.

  As to what he addresses in the word of God, he has left a few things out. Jones says that Jesus never addresses homosexuality, and he is correct as far as he goes. Homosexuality was not an issue he had to address because, in his culture, if someone was discovered to be a homosexual, he would most likely have been hauled outside the city and stoned.

  On the topic of divorce and remarriage, Jones forgot to mention 1 Corinthians 7, which says that if an unbelieving spouse is content to live with a believer, they should not divorce, but if the unbelieving spouse departs, the believer is not bound by that marriage.

 Jesus also said that divorce was allowed because of the hardness of their hearts. The ideal is that people would be willing to work things out and live up to their commitments, not looking for ways to back out of a commitment they don't feel like being faithful to.

  I fear for our country as we continue in a moral decline. Our politicians are willing to say whatever people want to hear, just to get elected, and their promises are forgotten once they are elected. Our moral decline is being followed by a political decline, and we will likely wake up one day and have no freedoms at all.

JIM RICKABAUGH
Yuma