Lesson learned

Gordon Parks’ wide-ranging creativity found many outlets – photography, fiction, poetry, composing, film direction and, in at least one Spokane County episode, driving some people to irrational extremes. Maybe not quite as irrational as the wanton mayhem in the Middle East over a few Danish cartoons, but still pretty irrational.

“The Learning Tree,” Parks’ semi-autobiographical novel about a black boy growing up in 1920s Kansas, prompted a Moral Majority lawsuit in 1982. A couple of Mead families wanted the book off the sophomore reading list at Mead High School for reasons that included “blasphemies against Jesus Christ.”

U.S. District Judge Robert J. McNichols dismissed the case, noting that it would have been appropriate for the court to intercede if Mead had been restricting access to information. In this case, it was the plaintiffs who were trying to restrict access to information.

Parks’ death on Tuesday, following so closely a worldwide wave of violence by Muslims enraged by the Danish cartoons, reminds those of us in the Spokane area that no single religion has a monopoly on overreaction.

Reverse march!

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that President Bush’s 2007 budget would bump up discretionary spending by $31 billion. Almost all of the increase would be for defense.

Wars are expensive, and the administration has been sensitive to the costs. But not so sensitive that it would curtail the long-running policy of drumming people out of the military because of sexual orientation.

A study headed by former Defense Secretary William Perry discovered that the nation’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy cost the Pentagon at least $364 million in its first 10 years. The price tag includes money lost in recruiting and training about 9,500 gay and lesbian soldiers who were then discharged and the money needed to replace them. This news comes at a time when the military is struggling to meet recruiting goals.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the military’s right to recruit on college campuses that accept federal funds. Some campuses kicked out recruiters to protest the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Rather than celebrate that victory, the Pentagon ought to consider how counterproductive and expensive it has become to destroy the careers of those who want to serve their country.

Your genes are yours

Because genetic testing reveals health tendencies that might make you risky to hire or insure, an insurance company or employer is understandably interested in your personal gene map. Because a tendency is not a condition, an individual understandably doesn’t want them to see it.

Idaho state Sen. Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle, has sponsored a bill that takes the individual’s side, and a Senate committee has approved it. Broadsword believes the fear of losing a job or being denied insurance will prevent many people from getting tests that would help them manage health-related conditions. That’s a compelling reason to tilt the balance in favor of making genetic testing results private. The full Legislature ought to join the 33 other states that have already done so.