Thank you for printing the letters from Brother Kenyon and Brother Yarbrough. It is important that as a member of this organization, who happens to be gay, I keep in mind that fair-minded protection of the U.S. and Tennessee constitutions is not the sole agenda of certain members, though I seem to remember something about both in the oath we took. (Not to mention that this country was founded by people fleeing other people who said that they had to follow the prescribed religious dogma, or else.) Odd that while decrying Brother Haltom's appeal to common sense, Brother Kenyon refers to marriage as a "capital S" sacrament. I do not recall any Tennessee law, be it statutory, regulatory, or simple common law, that requires me to recognize a Sacrament, be it marriage, baptism, eucharist or communion. Perhaps he thought he was responding to an article in his church paper. As for Mr. Kenyon's assertion that this "biblical institution" has served mankind well for 6, 000 years? That simply flies in the face of the history of civil marriage, which was created as a method of passing and protecting property, not from any romantic intent imposed in the last 200 years. It is obvious that neither writer could practice in the area of Tennessee family law or neither would hold any faith in an institution that fails in six out of 10 instances in this state.
As I believe Mr. Haltom was pointing out, look to your own relationship. Along with Bill, I cannot imagine you think you need the federal government assisting you in yours. As for mine? I could certainly use some of the 1,047 federally granted financial rights that marriage affords. I could certainly use the respect for my relationship that either of the writers could get from a five-minute ceremony resulting from a drunken whim at the Little Chapel of Love in Pigeon Forge. I am not naive enough to think that changing the law will get me that respect, but all I really am asking for is Equal Protection under the law, a purely secular institution.
— William A. Mynatt Jr., Knoxville