"Since the secular age began, the notion that one should look to religion — or to any past wisdom — for one's values has died."

Reminds me of the slogan from Aldous Huxley's novel, "Brave New World": History is bunk. In the book, traditional values and mores of all kinds have been tossed aside in favor of a new civilization built entirely on technology, on secular thinking, on science completely unhindered by morals of any kind. Like Huxley's fictional utopian society set centuries in the future, our present world seems more and more to think that indeed, history is bunk.

My take is this: If you're going to toss aside literally thousands of years of human experience in favor of some new idea, you had better be DARN sure of what you're tampering with. It's long past time for courts to be stripped of the power to remake society in this way.

I think YOU are a no-nothing, filled with hubris - an old fart with his head up his own behind - behind the times. Get with it Mister - your out-dated, out-of-line ideals have no place in American society anymore - for example - the notion that sexual orientation and preference is NOT fixed at birth. For you to even imply that homosexuality is a "choice" - that people who are homosexual can just choose to be heterosexual instead - just further illustrates your ignorance and stupidity. You are so misinformed - what the HECK are you doing, writing for newspapers and websites? Go ahead and cling to your right-winged, bible-induced conceptualizations of American life with your white knuckles, as if you were on a rollercoaster ride. The fact is, just like with a rollercoaster, American society has left you in the dust, along with the conservative platitudes you spout and the rest of your white-haired, right-winged, retired generation living on their 401k investments and social security checks. I sure hope you are uncomfortable with this latest evolution in human social mores. I say it's about time - idiots like you have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Stop trying to keep change from happening. The world WILL change - and it will continue to do so - long after you become merely a calcium deposit in the ground.

The bible, on which you base everything "good" in your article - the holy rosetta stone of morality - was written by Man, during the time when we did not know much about the way the world works - and before the discovery of so many things we now take for granted - such as Electricity, The Table of Elements, Dinosaurs, the Planets, what Stars are, the structure of the Universe, and even Indoor Plumbing. The fact that gender is a gray scale based on hormonal flux in the womb and fetal brain development, also falls into this category.

For you to even suggest that we continue for all eternity to base our society on some book written well before the discovery of Tooth Decay, says alot about your level of intelligence.

In the mean time, the more important morality rules that we should walk away with from the Bible are ignored by humankind, time and time again. Like - "THOU SHALL NOT KILL."

You do not need to look to the Iraq war for those types of atrocities - they are right here in our own backyards:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5795466.html