This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Today's article in the Salt Lake Tribune outlining and quoting the appeal that Utah's Attorney General just filed against same-sex marriage uses the wording "biological, opposite-sex couples." "Biological" and "opposite-sex," separated by a comma, are two different adjectives defining the same noun, and they do not mean the same thing. Maybe the attorney general should buy a dictionary (Utah makes it all about kids in brief against same-sex marriage, Tribune, Feb. 5).
Is the Utah attorney general also asking that the courts outlaw adoption, because that is what it says. Ask any adopted child and he will talk about his biological parents versus his "parents," those who raised and loved him. This wording is hurtful to every adopted child and adopting parent in the United States.
The attorney general, as stated, is sending a message to all adopted children that they would have been better off with their biological parents. Are they second-class citizens because of this?
When writing anything, especially an appeal that will some day reach the U.S. Supreme Court, what you write is what you mean, not, as politicians use as an excuse, what you meant.
Gordon Craig
Park City