I cannot pick up my copy of The Tribune on any morning and not read how our misguided Legislature seeks to marginalize, minimize and add to the burdens of those who are different but who live among us. They may not look exactly like me, though I like salsa better than ketchup and tortillas better than Wonder Bread. They may not share my sexual orientation, but their agenda, if there is one, does not threaten my marriage, my family or my values.

I am an old Mormon bishop, and I cannot sit still any longer and listen to the garbage coming from Capitol Hill from our ethnically challenged and homophobic legislators. They are a threat to me and to the tranquility of my life. I ask these erstwhile champions, these protectors of our freedom, our race, our morality: Wouldn't the world be a better place if you just enjoyed your lobbyist-paid-for Jazz games and junkets to the Caribbean and left the rest of us alone?

In spite of these legislators of morality, as people of Utah, who are kind, compassionate and caring, can we not find and share the things we have in common, celebrate our differentness, and enjoy that which is unique about us all as children of a loving Heavenly Father, rather than marginalizing and criminalizing so many among us?

George Fisher

Centerville