Letter to The Editor - it is possible to free ourselves from error by using reasoning to approach truth

to THE AGE
     It is good that Jill Murphy, a ‘yes’ voter in the postal survey on marriage, can accept, if grudgingly, that a ‘no’ vote ‘is not solely a product of homophobia’ (12/10). However, she neither tells us her ‘no’ friend’s arguments nor tries to rebut them. Instead, she trots out all the old chestnuts about how outrageous the survey is, that it enshrines ‘prejudices’, that it causes unnecessary suffering to gay people, that gays wanting to marry concerns no-one else and that ‘no’ voters are often motivated by fear.
     More alarmingly, she seems clearly to believe that the community’s decisions on who is to have what rights must accord with her own simplistic views about ‘equality’ and ‘love’.  She also ignores entirely the major arguments of ‘no’ advocates. So, yes, ‘our identities are bound up with our beliefs’, but it is possible to free ourselves from error by using reasoning to approach truth.
     NJ, Belgrave, Vic