SIR - During the days of the Wild West, travelling carpetbaggers would sell their snake oil to a gullible crowd.

They would use exaggerated claims and con the public into thinking the useless product was something they couldn't live without. I can't help but feel that same-sex weddings have been sold to us by the same carpetbaggers.

Even the Worcester News claimed it would report on the rush for gay weddings.

Well, seven ceremonies and a further 25 does not constitute a rush. We were sold the idea that one in 16 of us is gay and hundreds of thousands of couples would want to be wed.

Politicians, the police, lawmakers and the church form policies on this basis. What people do in their own homes is nothing to do with me. But to have public policies formed on the premises of political correctness and minority pressure groups is quite frightening.

M SWIERS,

Worcester.