It turns out that President Obama’s endorsement of same gender marriage coincided with news that President Washington’s letter to the Jews is finally going to go on public display, and it is a fortunate coincidence. The exhibition of Washington’s letter, which will begin in June at the National Museum of Jewish History, was won by hard journalistic work of the Forward newspaper over the past year, and it will be an important moment. The letter, written to the Jews of Rhode Island, is the one in which America’s first president wrote, “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

We’ve always loved Washington’s phrasing, and we have thought of it often during the national debate in respect of same gender marriage. We have sensed from the beginning that there is a danger that proponents of same gender marriage, in casting the issue in the language of the civil rights movement, are implying that Orthodox Jews and Catholics, among others who look to religious law, are bigots. That is a line that this newspaper long ago stated that it would not cross. The reason is that suggesting that religious laws spring from bigotry is not only inaccurate but is calculated to instill in Jews and other religious persons exactly the sort of fear that Washington prayed would be avoided in the new republic.

We do not mean to suggest that bigotry against homosexuals does not exist in this country. It does, and when it does, it is a hateful thing. We do mean to say that it is important in conducting this debate on the laws of marriage to avoid describing such bigotry as the wellspring of religious objections. Same with comparing same gender marriage to inter-racial marriage. It is true that jackleg preachers tried to attribute their hostility to inter-racial marriage to the laws of God, but they were referring to no text that is credited by the Torah sages. Nor did the Torah sages object to the victory of Richard and Mildred Loving in their famous case against Virginia, which ended laws against inter-racial marriage. This newspaper remarked as recently as 2008, when Mrs. Loving died, on the importance of their heroism.

President Obama, in announcing his personal view of same gender marriage, spoke shrewdly in our view. He hung back from making a statement of constitutional principle, with which the federal courts are now wrestling. The president made it clear that he was stating a personal view, and he stopped short of suggesting that this is a matter of bigotry. Had he not stopped short, he would have sent to the orthodox religious communities — such as Agudath Israel of America, which has been noting with great dignity that whatever happens in the secular sphere the plain meaning of religious law will not change — a message to be feared. It would have violated the wish of, among others, George Washington, at whose letter we all will, and none too soon, be able with our own eyes to marvel.