Mickey Maurer has achieved much in his career, but he should leave sarcastic humor to real comedians. Not everyone who disagrees with him is a hateful, bigoted “Hoosier neanderthal.” I am responding to his article, not because I disagree with him regarding proposals pending in the Legislature addressing gay marriage and illegal immigration. In fact, I agree with him on the substance, but strongly disagree with his tone.

Many like me have opposed gay marriage as a further affront to the institution of marriage. Maurer makes it seem that if one opposes gay marriage then one is a knuckle-dragging neanderthal.” I guess that would include our illustrious president as well.

Like many, I have changed my mind on this issue. I used to favor “civil unions” until it dawned on me: marriage, at least with regard to the state’s role in it, is a civil union. Having said that, many who oppose gay marriage don’t have a bigoted or hateful bone in their body. To equate them with “Nazis” is a bit much.

Regarding immigration legislation, my view has also changed. Many of us conservatives have railed, correctly, that government should stick to its rightful place, and when it steps in to do things it isn’t supposed to, bad things occur. For example, federal intrusion into education, other than to desegregate it, has failed. For me to argue that the feds should get out of education while the state of Indiana intrudes on enforcement of immigration laws is silly and inconsistent.

We simply need to elect serious people on the national level who will protect the borders. By the way, I presume Mr. Maurer locks his doors at night. Protecting our borders is nothing more than “locking our doors” on a national scale.

While I favor more legal immigrants to our country, I do believe our national government has the duty to protect our borders and the people have a right to have them protected.

 It is not bigoted to demand that we know who comes here, for what purpose and whether or not they have a criminal record. But it is also not our Legislature’s job to vote on a largely symbolic measure that will anger visitors and hurt our state while doing little to nothing to solve the problem of illegal immigration.

In short, I find myself disgusted with Mickey Maurer’s tone yet in agreement with his position on these two issues.

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John L. Sorg