Letter: 'Einstein' tackles marriage amendment

To the Editor:

I was at a ministers’ meeting that kept coming back to our concerns about Minnesota's proposed "marriage amendment" that would codify an "Adam and Eve" model as the only legal marriage. As I've thought about my own approach to the “undecided,” the following list of "thought experiments" came to mind.

It was my smarter, older brother Albert Einstein who pioneered "thought experiments" to open up new ways of thinking about physics and cosmology. Perhaps they could also be useful in ethics and politics.

Experiment No. 1: Imagine that you receive an official letter in the mail from state or federal government, stating that your marriage has been "invalidated."

You will no longer be able to file a joint tax return, have shared health insurance, participate in medical decisions or inherit property in the case of your beloved's death. How would you respond?

Experiment No. 2: Imagine that several churches in your neighborhood that you do not attend had a meeting and declared that your marriage no longer was religiously sanctioned. When you asked why, the answers that they gave were based on a set of beliefs and interpretations that you and your faith community do not share. What would you do?

Experiment No. 3: Imagine that your neighbors had a meeting and voted to invalidate your marriage. What would you say to them?

If our beliefs about our selves and our world are anchored unconsciously in our imagination, these exercises might open up new avenues of thought that might lead to a vote that is, by my lights, wiser, kinder and more just. In a way, each experiment is an invitation to live the Golden Rule by imagining ourselves in the shoes of someone with less power and privilege than ourselves.

Ted Tollefson

Frontenac

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