Letters To The Editor
TOLERANCE
To be gay is to be sexual predator
I read with disgust the June 13 story on the social worker accused of multiple counts of possessing child pornography.
Just last week your newspaper was all for Gay Pride Week, with half-page stories and pictures. Are you in turn going to write any editorials on the damage done to young males who were seduced by the thing who worked for the social services of Washington state?
I think not. Your paper and editors have already stated your stand. Eugene Fields Electric City, Wash.
Action needed to stem tide of ignorance
The anti-gay attack on the Peace and Justice Action League office in downtown Spokane (June 9) points out the need for immediate action in Spokane to end the ignorance which always underlies this type of violence.
City leaders should move now to pass a strong anti-discrimination ordinance that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, gender, age, disability and religious preference.
While most such discrimination is banned by federal and state laws, discrimination based on sexual orientation is not. People are denied employment, housing and public accommodations simply because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered.
Given Spokane’s problems with anti-gay and racist attacks, it is imperative that city leaders take this type of clear, decisive action. Such action would send a message that Spokane has zero tolerance for hate-motivated prejudice.
As with all violence caused by ignorance, part of the solution lies in education. We must address these prejudices with an all-out educational effort in our schools. If our children are taught from an early age why anti-gay prejudice is irrational and wrong, then we will break this cycle of hatred.
We will also prevent the abuse in our schools and society that drives thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered teens to suicide. These teens make up 30 percent of the teen suicides in our country. We should be ashamed to put such pressures on our children.
We can and must take action to stop it. Gary Barlow Spokane
God rejects homosexuality - repent
Zaza Varela (“Don’t peddle bigotry as divinity,” Letters June 8) requests that we let God speak for himself. A book millions of people claim is God’s word speaks this: “Homosexuals among others will not inherit Gods kingdom,” 1 Corin., 6:9-10.
It is not called an alternative lifestyle, it is sin and Jesus died for the homosexuals also. There is a cure for ignorance and lying. It is education and repentance. We are all God’s creatures, but not his child until born into his family.
There are many Bible translations of God’s word. Pick one and let him speak for himself, as Varela requested. Phil Humphrey Newman Lake, Wash.
SEXUALLY ORIENTED ENTERTAINMENT
Adult venues comparatively orderly
I wonder if Penny Lancaster (“Regulate nude entertainment before the fact,” guest column, June 6) has ever been to an adult book store or seen a show of the exotic dancers she so freely condemns.
In actuality, there is far more crime going on in our local grocery stores. There you may find bad checks, employee theft, armed robberies, shoplifting, car thefts, bike thefts, drug deals being made, abductions, minors buying alcohol and cigarettes, and anyone 21 years of age, whether they are mentally stable or not, can buy all the beer and wine they can haul out of there to incite themselves to domestic violence of just indifferently kill people as they drive around.
We all know how many minors use false identification to get into drinking establishments and thus jeopardize the owner’s license. Yet in all the years we have had exotic dancers in Spokane there is but one incident of a minor using false ID to obtain employment.
The young girl Lancaster keeps referring to was a pregnant runaway traveling with a 25-year-old man. She lied about her age to earn money to support him. Would she lie about anything else?
What I see from Lancaster is propaganda. She has escalated a situation on limited facts, little research and what she wants us to believe. On the pretense of doing good, her chipping away at our constitutional rights is the real evil here.
You don’t have to be an advocate of pornography to resent anyone trying to take one smidgen of our rights away. Lee Bryon Spokane
Take alleged compassion elsewhere
For all you do-gooders who judge exotic dancers as a pitiful part of society that should be stopped, wise up. Who are you folks kidding?
You say you don’t want women exploited. Was Goldie Hawn exploited when she peeled off her panties in a strip joint in Hollywood? These ladies dancing for dollars are confident, independent women, commonly known in other cities as entertainers.
When your husband buys Playboy magazine the majority of the money goes to Hugh Hefner. No one cares because it’s a man getting wealthy. If folks really cared about exploited people, focus on 13-year-old street hookers, sweatshop slaves and small children whose folks neglect them and keep them only for welfare checks.
When adult men parade around in boxing shorts and pound hell out of each other for a few million dollars, most people call it a sport.
It seems easy to focus on things that really upset us only as long as it doesn’t cost us anything. In the name of caring about children, we hate abortions. An aborted fetus has never cost anyone any real energy or money. If you care about kids, do something for those who are hungry and in need of shoes. Sounds too costly and would take too much energy.
Then there are the jerks who have even convinced themselves they are great for caring so very much.
Wake up. If you really care about women, remember Nicole Simpson and look at the youngsters standing on streetcorners. Leave the adult entertainers alone. Tricia White Spokane
WASHINGTON STATE
GOP mud slingers target Brown
It appears to be a sad fact of recent American political life that when Republicans are behind in a campaign they resort to name calling and character assassination.
Now it’s happening to Democratic state Rep. Lisa Brown as she runs for state senator.
A recent article in The Spokesman-Review quoted Republican supporters of Rep. Brown’s opponent making unfortunate (and unsupported) negative comments about Dr. Brown. Were this not bad enough, the article passed along the comments without opportunity for response.
Citizens deserve better. In fact, we deserve Lisa Brown as our next state senator. Paul De Palma Spokane
Test welfare recipients for drugs
I am not very happy with the reply and foot-dragging from my state representatives and senators on what they are doing for us taxpayers about welfare reform.
I live in Whitman County, and the welfare system could use plenty of improvement. Just take a look at the lower housing areas in your counties.
In letters to my legislators, I said that when employers require drug testing on 40 percent of jobs, what’s wrong with welfare recipients taking a drug test also?
I pay taxes, which means I pay into the welfare system. Something is wrong with our system if for the amount of money one can receive for walking to their mailbox they couldn’t also relieve themselves into a bottle.
I am not against helping those who really need it and are trying to better themselves. But, if a welfare recipient tests positive for drugs, where do you think our money is going?
Our state is opening itself up for a lawsuit by supporting this kind of lifestyle.
Please, write to your legislators and tell them to get straight or get out of our state. Dave Becker Thornton, Wash.
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Medicare mailing a campaign ploy
Headlines in the June 6 Spokesman-Review blazed, “Medicare to go broke in five years.” That same day my wife and I both received a 30-page slick-covered handbook explaining and advertising the present Medicare program.
The publication was from the Health Care Financing Administration, U.S. Government Printing Office. I assume this book was mailed to all Social Security recipients over age 65.
The message by Donna E. Shalala, secretary, Department of Health and Human Services, contained the following statement:
“We in the federal government, from President Clinton to the employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, are determined to continue to provide you with the first-rate health care and peace of mind which have always been Medicare’s hallmark. If you are a new enrollee, we want to welcome you to Medicare. If you have been part of the Medicare beneficiary ‘family,’ we want to reassure you of our commitment to keep Medicare working for you.”
Who’s going to pick up the tab when Medicare goes broke?
We have been on Medicare for over 17 years and have had all the information contained in this document mailed to us by Medicare over a dozen times. This mailing is a blatant political ploy on the part of the president to use government’s already shortchanged Medicare money to finance his re-election campaign. It is unlawful, scandalous and shouldn’t be tolerated.
This country is going to the dogs with a national debt totaling well over $9 trillion. We must do something drastic about these people in government with no conscience. Marshall B. Shore Spokane
Taxation root of all economic evil
“Our country’s taxing dilemma” (Perspective, June 2) overlooks some basic realities about taxation and its economic effects.
Although some forms of taxation are less regressive than others on the economy, all taxation is regressive. This is because tax revenues are dollars taken out of the resource pools that produce, distribute and consume wealth (all goods, services and assets), lowering workers’ incomes and raising prices, thereby lowering buying power.
This hits the working poor the hardest.
For that matter, employer-paid employee benefits, such as comprehensive health care (health care industry subsidy) and vacation time (vacation-recreation industry subsidy) have the same effect.
Attempting, through egalitarian wealth-transfer taxes, social welfare and entitlements, to alter the national economic relationship that requires investment and productivity to provide for wealth consumption, breaks the chain of investment/wealth production, renewal and only causes a more tax-burdened, sluggish, debt-ridden economy, such as those of Europe.
Given the projected entitlements funding problems (caused by the above), and because government spending drives taxation levels and determines the relative size of the private sector, from where all tax dollars originate, we must go back to the Christian-Judeo ethics of wealth consumption in exchange for productivity and the personal, private obligation of helping others, while spending tax dollars only on investment in public-at-large physical and intellectual infrastructure (including defense) and eliminating/privatizing wealth-transfer funded entitlements, thereby putting our fiscal house on a solid macroeconomic foundation and protecting our children’s economic future. Jeff Schaller Pullman
We need candidates with principles
A few thoughts on Bob Dole’s recent statement welcoming pro- abortionists to the Republican party.
If abortion is the premeditated murder of a helpless human being, then welcoming supporters of this preposterous, ungodly act into the party would be like welcoming Heinrich Himmler into the Likud Party in Israel.
Secondly, Pat Buchanan, my personal choice as Republican nominee, has opened a chicken coop to the foxes by agreeing with Dole.
Thirdly, it is all a farce anyway. The party platforms mean about as much as the Constitution does to most politicians - not worth the paper it is written on.
Would somebody please give us someone to vote for who knows right from wrong and is not afraid to hold to the right, despite the political pragmatists who try to please both. Kenneth Orr Rathdrum, Idaho
Media fetch water for GOP crooks
Syndicated columnist Molly Ivins recently reminded the media that they aided and abetted in the coverup of the Reagan-Bush scandals, notably the HUD and Saving and loan sellouts to the manipulators and wealthy friends of the administrations via their silence.
The Donaldsons, Rathers, Buckleys, Cronkites, Safires, etc., were strangely quiet, perhaps too intimidated by the powers that be to point fingers at the Reagan-Bush administration, the Bush family, Sens. Phil Gramm, Henry Hyde, Alfonse D’Amato, etc., who were all involved, either via enriching their own coffers or in the very successful coverup of a scam that bilked taxpayers of billions of dollars.
The total dollars absconded by the Bush family alone makes the Whitewater farce pale in significance, yet those media “stars” were too awestruck to accuse the GOP administration and/or its wealthy friends of outright thievery.
The media were even more gun-shy than they were in the first Eisenhower administration, when their creed was “Don’t say anything about Ike unless it is favorable.” The media then, as under Reagan and Bush, were like those three famous monkeys: hear no evil, see no evil and positively speak no evil.
Could the fact that “90 percent of the media … is Republican owned” be the reason for ignoring GOP scandals, while trying to create a Democratic scandal out of Whitewater?
If Democrats in Congress had pursued the HUD and S&L scandals on the same level as the GOP is doing with the Whitewater farce, the GOP would have been forced to disband as a political party. Andy Kelly Spokane
IN THE PAPER
‘Grocery grins’ will spread joy abroad
I just mailed a copy of the “Everyday heroes” article “Grocery grins” (IN Life, June 1) to a 10-year-old girl named Yenersy in the Dominican Republic and another to Christian, a 6-year-old in Colombia. I can see their eyes light up and hear them exclaim in Spanish when they see the photo of their old friend in the checkout stand at Albertson’s.
They will both enjoy introducing this hero to their parents and telling them stories of his shenanigans, which always made them smile. Early on, useless legs required both children to ride in the cart. Kermit encouraged them to use their arms to help unload the groceries and challenged them to a future race in the aisles. After multiple orthopedic surgeries, both of these Healing the Children foster kids ultimately walked for the first time in their lives. They wore their braces and pushed their walkers, “racing” Kermit up and down the grocery aisles.
Whenever we’d drive by Albertson’s they’d point and say, “There’s Kermit’s house!” No wonder Yenersy recently wrote and said, “Say hi to Albert’s son.” After four years, Kermit is Albertson’s in her memory.
Who can explain the mysterious mix of tough love, medical expertise, answered prayer and Kermit’s magic which resulted in two kids “landing” on their own two feet. And is it any wonder I felt particularly bereft when these children flew home and I went through Kermit’s checkout alone? Judy Palpant Spokane