Letters to the Editor 06/28/2006

To the Editor:

It’s scary to put my name out in public, knowing that what I say invites criticism. Many of those who preach tolerance are very intolerant of people who think differently. Just as with the evolution controversy, I don’t expect to change the opinions of people who will believe what they want to believe regardless of the facts.

But someone has to speak up and I’m speaking for a majority of citizens, based on the large percentage in the many states who have voted, even in liberal Oregon, to pass amendments declaring marriage to be between one man and one woman.

Mr. Cooper’s letter in last week’s Nugget calls for a response.

It is neither intolerant nor bigoted to be opposed to children being indoctrinated into accepting the gay/lesbian lifestyle as normal. The facts are that it is unnatural and unhealthy. Homosexuals are incapable of reproduction. If that lifestyle had been the norm throughout history, humans would be extinct. Homosexuals (as well as promiscuous heterosexuals and their innocent children) are dying by the millions of AIDS.

One’s race cannot be changed but homosexuality can, as witnessed by many who have left that lifestyle. There are complex factors involved in why some become homosexuals, but one is simply recruitment during the sensitive growing-up years.

With the leadership of the National Education Association now preparing to endorse gay marriage, children in every public school will be taught to accept it as normal and the values taught them at home will be squelched. Churches are open to the public and those offended by Biblical teaching against homosexuality will without doubt complain to the ACLU and initiate lawsuits. This isn’t just fear-mongering. It has already happened in Europe and will happen here without a Federal Marriage Protection Amendment and/or if public schools teach a view in opposition to what churches teach.

Respectfully,

Lorene Richardson

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To the Editor:

With age comes questions!

As I read the job opportunities (and their technical requirements!) in The Economist, I am amazed at the sheer scope of what will be required of modern education — Steel Analyst, World Finance, World Financial Asset Management, Global Public Policy, Supply Chains!

Along with these come the higher education offerings from Spain, England, Canada — it just makes me wonder if American education is up to the task or are we wasting too much of the valuable young years of our own young people on trivialities.

A plethora of long weekends, spring breaks, three months off in summer, bus trips for athletics or social activities while the rest of the world is concentrating on educating their young people to fill the world’s needs!

Of all the rising stars of the soccer, basketball and golf world, how many will make a living at it? A fraction of a percent, I wager, while India is graduating 400,000 young, well-trained engineers of all types — mechanical, computer — and American industry is hiring them!

Even in the 1960s I had occasion to interview young men for jobs. They were 23 or 24 years old with scads of educational credits — most of it unusable to industry — and no work experience of any kind, unless you call a paper route job experience!

Will the world’s positions in science, industry, finance and world politics be filled by foreign imports? Are we stressing too many of the wrong things, taking too long to get our young people to the important subjects? What jobs will be left for America’s young people?

Russell B. Williams