The Letter I sent to our Local State Rep Fraink J Mautino of Spring Valley Illinois concerning his choice to support discrimination.

Last week I wrote a blog post and mentioned in our podcast about how Frank Mautino our local State Representative from Spring Valley Illinois  has decided not to support Marriage Equality in Illinois due to his "beliefs and how he was raised"  I wrote a letter to him expressing my views on the subject.  What follows is the email I sent to his office.  

Dear Mr. Maution

     My name is Keith Zimmerman from La Salle Illinois and my wife Jennifer and I have been supporters of yours sense you first ran for office.  We both feel you have done a great job for the Illinois Valley area but we were both disappointed to learn you had decided not to support marriage equality in Illinois due to "your beliefs and how you were raised."  

     While you do have the right to believe how you want you don't have the right to use your religious beliefs to discriminate against others.  I was raised Lutheran (now an atheist) but I was taught growing up that we should not use our religious beliefs to discriminate against others. .  To me denying a group of Americans their civil rights does not sound very Christian.  Despite what you may have been told there is no evidence that same sex marriage has any negative effects on marriage.  If Tom marrying Sam bothers someone that much than I think it says more about the person complaining about it than the same sex couple.  In the countries and states where same sex marriage has been legal for a long time there have been no negative effects.  

     I believe all Americans deserve the same rights and that includes the right to marry weather they be gay or straight.  Denying these Americans their civil right to marry is unAmerican and UnChristain.  You don't even need to go to a church to get married in this country.  You can go to the court house and get married by a judge.  Proves right there that it is a civil right.  Also if we're going to decide things based on the bible than should we start stoning woman to death who are not virgins on their wedding night, should we stone people to death for working on Sundays, should we start requiring women to marry their rapists,  All those things and many others  are in the bible too.  So trying to use the bible as a reason for weather we should legalize something is a pretty weak argument.  Also the constitution should be used for giving rights not taking them away.    In closing I would just like to add that discrimination for religious reasons is still discrimination.  You cannot use your religious beliefs to discriminate against a group of people just because you don't like who they fall in love with.  Now you said part of your reason for not voting yes on marriage equality was because of "how you were raised"  I hope you were not raised to discriminate.  That does not sound very Christian to me.  

Thank you for your time

Keith Zimmerman 

La Salle Illinois