The Grey Lady's Bigotry.

In a wonderful August 4 editorial on the Proposition 8 court decision, the New York Times editors explicitly compared Perry v. Schwarzenegger to Loving v. Virginia when they wrote:

It also is a stirring and eloquently reasoned denunciation of all forms of irrational discrimination, the latest link in a chain of pathbreaking decisions that permitted interracial marriages and decriminalized gay sex between consenting adults.

I agree. So here are two questions for the Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor:

• Why does you countenance support for "irrational discrimination"? Today, Ross Douthat wrote that by "declar[ing] gay marriage to be a fundamental right," the United States is "giving up on one of the great ideas of Western civilization."


• Would the Times have been justified in running a similarly-reasoned column the week after Loving?