Retain equal rights

Washington has become the seventh state in America to grant equal rights and liberty to all of its citizens. However, a group of conservative zealots is circulating Referendum 74 asking us to reverse the law and impose their selective reading of religious text on the rest of us.

It is a scientifically verifiable fact that for Homo sapiens (us), our brains and therefore our sexual orientation is fixed as male or female at birth, regardless of the sexuality of our physical form. Whether straight or gay, our brains literally create our sexual preferences.

“De-gaying” a person is as impossible as changing a person’s skin color or the color of their eyes. We must not continue to marginalize American citizens based on the 3,500-year-old myths of ignorant nomadic goat and sheep herders, or to ignore scientifically verifiable facts.

To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where Americans will not be judged by their sexual orientation, but by the content of their character.”

I urge you to ignore Referendum 74 and welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual Americans into our community with the full rights of every American.

James C. Lanham

Cheney