Wake up! Your liberty is at risk! Proposition 74 is allowing a few religious zealots and political opportunists to usurp the “unalienable Rights” of “Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” to a minority group of your fellow law-abiding citizens.

If a zealous religious faction and political opportunists, through demagogy and deceit, can deny us of our rights because of differences in color, religion, national origin or sexual orientation, what is next? Will we embrace past Christian persecutions of Jews, heretics, Africans, women, etc.? How about an old-fashioned pogrom, burning at the stake or hanging? Where is their Christian love or compassion? Shame on them!

In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia, “Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival.”

Think! When you usurp the rights of a few, you risk the rights of all. Contrary to popular myth, sexual identity is not a choice. It is determined at birth and is not reversible.

In the name of liberty, compassion and common sense, I urge you to vote to reject Proposition 74 – for all Washingtonians.

James C. Lanham

Cheney