The front page of Tuesday’s Press-Citizen and the Des Moines Register featured pictures and a story of two 90-plus-year-old women who have loved each other for more than 70 years and recently became married in Davenport. A later letter to the editor asked, “How can this couple possibly harm Iowa?”It seems presumptuous of the Holmans to assume that these women haven't lived a married life in their 72 years together. They courted each other. They both worked hard during their younger years. They formed a family together, even if they themselves didn't raise any children together. And they are both active members of First Christian Church of Davenport, IA.
Jesus told his disciples: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?”
It is God who established marriage. They hurt Iowa with their example! It is impossible for two men or two women to consummate a “marriage.”
Not long ago, men courted women for the purpose of marriage and family. Work was considered a blessing, an expression of man’s worth to his family and his community. No life was thought to be complete without showing reverence to God. If a man got a girl pregnant, they were married at the point of a shotgun, if necessary.
We need to go back to those days.
Dan and Donna Holman
Keokuk
I really have a hard time understanding how these two women hurt Iowa -- simply through their decades of commitment.
The quote from Jesus does not have to be prescriptive (how things should be). These women each left their parents' homes, came together to share a life together, and have literally held fast to each other for over seven decades. They shared a life together in every way. It is very difficult for me to see how their example has hurt this state!
Iowa has not been hurt by the example set by Vivian Boyak and Nonie Dubes. Far, far from it. We could all learn a lot from their life lessons!