Letters To The Editor

U.N. CONFERENCE ON WOMEN

What’s in a name? Embarrassment

I got the impression from the headline on Aug. 20 you thought we should be bursting with pride over the fact Donna Hanson is attending the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing.

If the women truly were concerned about human rights, why are they having the conference in Beijing, famous for humans rights violations? The fact is: They aren’t concerned about human rights issues at all. They’re only concerned about political issues.

One of the issues they’re pushing support for is changing the official standard for sexual clarification. The clarifications now are: sex - male or female. Seems OK to me. But Hillary Rodham Clinton and the U.N. Conference on Women have different ideas. They want to eliminate the word “sex” and replace it with “gender.” The new classifications they’re pushing are: gender - heterosexual male, heterosexual female, homosexual male, homosexual female and transsexual.

I, for one, am embarrassed to have Spokane involved in any way with such an agenda. Spokane is a nice town with wonderful people. I can’t imagine for a moment that Hillary Clinton, Donna Hanson and others like them - people who want to throw morality and common sense out the window - represent how we feel.

Donna, do us a favor. Don’t tell anyone you’re from Spokane. If anyone asks, say you’re from San Francisco. Patrick G. Murphy Spokane

Conference strictly anti-family

The Vatican is right about the upcoming United Nations Conference on Women in China.

First, what’s a conference to improve the worldwide situation for women doing in China, the leading country that inflicts violence upon its own women (forced abortions and female infanticide)?

Second, this conference will be another attempt by the United States to impose its supposed cultural imperialism on other countries.

The draft document of the conference is radical and anti-family, blaming the family, marriage and men for much of the violence in the world inflicted upon females.

It doesn’t give credit to the family as being the basic unit for the stability of society. It never mentions the importance of mothers and fathers working together in the context of a loving and committed marriage to care for and raise healthy children.

The document promotes the myth of safe sex (not encouraging abstinence until marriage) and tries to advance free, government-provided, unrestricted access to abortion in every nation of the world in the name of population control.

Many of the radical U.S. representatives who will be attending the conference also believe in gender feminism, which is a belief that sexual identification is nurtured and not genetic. The implications of this ideology are dangerous.

Congress should cut funding for those who will represent the United States at this conference, including the funding for its own first lady. Ron Belisle Spokane

FORESTS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Better to privatize forests

Charles M. Wolfe, in his Aug. 22 letter, “Keep people’s land federal,” is right. Turning federal land over to the state is no panacea.

In July, schools in Okanogan filed suit against Washington state Lands Commissioner Jennifer Belcher for fiscal and forest-health mismanagement of state trust lands.

But federal control is no solution either. Public access to huge areas is denied for one reason or another, and the management is appalling. Dr. Chadwick Oliver, professor of silviculture at the University of Washington, says federal management has “created sick and dead forests that are choked with unprecedented volumes of fuel for inevitable fires.”

Last year, more than 4 million acres of forest burned, nearly all of it public. Unless something is done, more than that will burn. Fifty million acres burned in 1930, back before effective forest management.

Not everyone who wants to avoid that has “devious, selfish motives.” Some want to prevent more of the blackened landscapes, devastated wildlife habitat and polluted streams that occurred in the 270,000 acres that burned in Washington state last year or the 1.2 million acres in Yellowstone National Park in 1988.

Public management of land has failed. It failed in New Zealand, too, so the Kiwis privatized their forests. They like it. That could be done here, and we still could guarantee public access for recreation, which we don’t currently have.

That’s one solution, and it couldn’t be worse than what we have now. Ed Davis Spokane

Priggee can begin the sacrificing

Milt Priggee’s cartoon of Aug. 25 perpetuates the myth that loggers are intent on mowing down every tree in America until our country becomes one big prairie.

I have lived in the Inland Northwest all my life and have seen trees harvested from forests, replanted, harvested again and replanted again. This is how loggers make their living, support their families and contribute to the incomes of area doctors, dentists, lawyers, grocers, plumbers, department and hardware stores and just about everybody else who reads the newspapers.

Priggee himself benefits. What does he think his cartoons are printed on?

If he is so incensed by the idea that trees - a crop like any other - are harvested, he should be willing to sacrifice his job and cartoons to cut down on the demand for wood. We would all be better off. Bonnie Favor Spokane

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Christian, know thy place

There were three letters to the editor on Aug. 20 concerning our misinformed Spokane County coroner. Only one had the nerve to post his letter as his own opinion.

The other two letter writers, Joyce Huff and Joe Bell, used the same old Bible babble. Before using chapter and verse or some wording for what is only your idea of a Christian good book, please remember that no one - not even Christ - was born a Christian. You must be baptized to be a Christian.

Non-Christians, such as pagans, Buddhists, Muslims, secular humanists, atheists, Jews and Hindus, believe Christianity is an alternative lifestyle. Now, since you’re choosing to live this alternative lifestyle, don’t expect special rights or expect us to accept your archaic attempt at reasoning. Sherrie Bryant, director Freedom from Religion Foundation, Spokane chapter

Silence eases way for haters

A vocal minority can do a great deal of damage with misinformation in a short time.

An elected official who confuses his free speech right with his duty to be fair, just and accurate in carrying out the duties of office can cause irrevocable damage.

There is an epidemic of child abuse in the Pacific Northwest caused by both men and women. We must deal with this serious problem. Instead, we have been sidetracked by a few very vocal haters of a completely different segment of society.

If there were any doubt that hatred of our gay and lesbian neighbors exists in Spokane, recent letters to The Spokesman-Review have made that reality perfectly clear.

The majority of good folks try to ignore hate talk, whether it is found in the print press, on television or talk radio. It then grows, becomes sore, slowly calluses over and dulls our sense of compassion and justice. Perhaps that is why everyday citizens weren’t even aware (they said) of gas chambers in their own German towns during World War II.

There are good and bad heterosexuals and good and bad homosexuals. All are entitled to fair and equal treatment in a just society.

When an elected official unfairly blames and targets a group within society for heinous crimes perpetrated by another, someone must stand up for truth and justice.

I’m proud of the volunteers of the Spokane Human Rights Commission who had the courage to do so. Janet Stevenson, chairwoman Spokane Human Rights Commission