I was disheartened to read the story (Oct. 21) of Carol Daigle and her two sisters, all of whom are voting against same-sex marriage. As a person of faith and someone with deep ties to the Catholic Church, I do not believe in (any) Church being used as a blunt instrument of power for one’s personal beliefs — which is exactly what the sisters have done.

Their own adherence to the doctrine of the Church is perfectly acceptable, although it denies the rich tradition of diversity within the faith on the part of Jesuits, Sisters of Mercy, and many of our brothers and sisters practicing in Latin and South America, to name only a few of those who often stand against papal ideologies.

The power the sisters derive is in the fear they create based on nothing but unsubstantiated claims of the threat of violence and dubious conflation of gay and lesbian people with terrorists and Shariah law.

To be clear: fear is in the hospital waiting room as a man waits to know that his partner survived surgery; fear is in the girl living in rural Maine whose best option seems like suicide; fear is in my heart and the hearts of all of those who are, for now, in the eyes of the law, second-class citizens.

Hayden Golden, Westbrook