Correspondence

...But their anger and their intolerance are pretty reliable indicators of the scope of their ambitions...

...Containment and moderation are possible, even probable, if the issues are fought out in 50 state legislatures, rather than in Congress or in the federal courts...

...The gay rights issue appears intractable because each side insists on controlling the other side's lives in addition to its own...

...Democrats and Republicans have morphed into one inside-the-Beltway party dedicated to staying in power regardless of the cost to taxpayers...

...It is not surprising that most advocates of homosexual marriage resist the idea that they are engaged in a religious crusade...

...Victory in one state, in 10 states, even in 49 states—none of these would satisfy them...

...Religious believers with conscientious objections to samesex marriage should be allowed space in their religious organizations, their private associations, and their family-owned small businesses to live their own lives and, in that space, to refuse to recognize such marriages if that is their choice...

...Gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry and to participate without discrimination in the broad secular economy...

...Correspondence BOSTON COMMENTS MAGGIE GALLAGHER'S "Banned in Boston" (May 15) pairs me with Doug Kmiec at Pepperdine to show an alleged pattern that scholars strongly opposed to same-sex marriage are less concerned about its consequences than they should be...

...It is true that you can't always get what you want, but perhaps we are getting to the point where we're not getting the leadership we need...

...instead, they are simply pandering politicians...

...In seeking the destruction of traditional ideas and existing laws regarding marriage, they show that they have in mind nothing less than an official (re)interpretation of human nature...

...REGARDING Fred Barnes's "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (May 15): It seems as though the Republicans in Washington are not "conservative politicians...

...Except for Senator John McCain and a few others, everyone else believes the best way to grease the wheels of reelection is to load up on billions in pork barrel projects...

...On their watch, the national debt has increased by $3 trillion...

...President Bush and the Republican Congress have failed to control both spending and deficits...

...Deviation from the new piety is an affront to the righteous...

...SCOTT RUTLEDGE Richardson, Tex...

...She and I have reconstructed how this misunderstanding arose—and it was entirely innocent on both sides— but it badly misstates my position...

...My position has long been that opponents in the culture wars are entitled to live their own values with a minimum of government interference...

...BLOWING A 50-AMP FUSE...

...Large segments of the gay rights community and of the conservative religious community display a mirror image of intolerance toward the other side...

...THE ONLY IMPORTANT perspective missing from Maggie Gallagher's excellent article is some recognition, on her part and the part of the lawyers and officials whose views she reports, that our constitutional heritage tells us how to contain the looming religious struggle over the meaning of marriage and how to moderate the passions it could so easily inflame...

...They sound more credible to themselves, and less alarming to some of their opponents, when they speak of fairness or progress...

...Democratic big spenders like the late President Johnson look like pikers in comparison...

...LARRY PENNER Great Neck, N.Y...

...But the only solution is mutual tolerance...

...Bush continues to refrain from vetoing any of the pork-laden spending bills sent to him by Congress, and both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans have given up balancing the budget...

...DOUGLAS LAYCOCK University of Texas Law School Austin, Tex...