The church of the time was

actually his main patron, since both he and his predecessor, Copernicus,

taught in Catholic universities.

It wasn't his theory which

caused the church court to confine Galileo to his home (not prison); it

was his betrayal of an agreement he made to refrain from publishing his

theory as being definitively true with no alternative.

In any case, the definition

of marriage is a quite different issue than the explanation of the cosmos.

The church, along with almost all of human culture has universally, at

all times and all places, defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

Now Mr. Ellis seeks to simply toss that aside as so much Bible prejudice.

If he succeeds, and I fear

he and his cohorts will, our society will continue the long, slow slide

to moral barbarism which began in earnest in the 1960s.

Trey Hoffman

Peachtree City, Ga.