Papering over parentage

OPINION:

This February, the State Department will be issuing a revised passport application replacing the mother and father questions with requests for identification of “parent one” and “parent two” in the new spirit of gender neutrality (“Heather has two passports,” Comment & Analysis, Jan. 11).

Thanks to yet another Obama administration placation of its political base, we may wonder if and when we’ll be celebrating Parent One Day and Parent Two Day, which leaves us to imagine how we’re supposed to identify grandparents and more distant progenitors. It’s yet another big-government attempt to fix what isn’t broken by changing something simple, innocuous and familiar into something complex, offensive and culturally unfamiliar.

NORTON RUBENSTEIN

Richmond, Va.