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Opinion Letters Letters to the Editor Feb. 02, 2010
Letters to the Editor Feb. 02, 2010
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CAN has many programs to help families’ lives be a little easier Success is a powerful word. It means a degree or measure of succeeding. Here at Community Assistance Network, success can be achieved in many ways. At CAN, I believe success means being able to help Del Norte and surrounding communities. CAN has many different services such as food bank, clothes bank, community garden, housing, etc. Every program is to help families’ lives be a little easier. I am Coordinator for the CANRecycle program. I have been given the opportunity to be involved in helping the community. I make a lot of phone calls, and do some running around, but what makes it so worthwhile is that the community is helping too. All the donations that are sent to Funding Factory go right back to CAN; and with the cash we receive, it is used to help the needy. It makes me feel so good when we receive donations because I know it will be helping someone. That’s what I call success; being able to help others less fortunate. Viola Merritt Crescent City
In seeking change in marriage laws, let’s not distort the facts Regarding the response by Carla Critz (“Prop 8 is discriminatory and violates people’s civil rights,” Jan. 19) to my missive (“All Prop 8 does is maintain what has existed for years,” Jan. 14), some basic statements of fact need to be countered. Women enjoy the right to vote because the people passed a constitutional amendment, something that would make gay marriage also a legal right. But women have always had an implicit right to vote under the equality principle of the Constitution. The amendment made that an explicit right. But never has there existed an implicit right for persons of the same sex to marry, so for that to be legalized would be a “new” right, not the granting of “equal rights.” Gays have the exact same rights and limits as straight persons. That right is the freedom to marry a consenting adult of the opposite gender. The limits being restrictions against marrying children, multiple persons, close relatives, and adults of the same gender. Dropping any of those limitations would be changing the definition of marriage. No one has a constitutional right to marry the person of their choice unless that choice is within the limitations of the state constitution. That is not legal discrimination since all citizens are under the same limitations, although it can be considered social discrimination since society controls what the law allows. But some things have always been unacceptable to most societies, although “the times they are a’changin',” slowly. As for civil unions being inferior to marriage, rights are not the same as privileges, such as spousal insurance coverage (not a civil right), joint custody, (ever hear of “full custody?” — one parent loses privileges), and federal taxation (the current tax code, and that in the health care legislation, discriminate against married taxpayers with two incomes. These differences don’t argue for a new constitutional right but for an expansion of the rights of civil unions, which would seem to be easier to achieve. But I’ve never heard anyone calling for that. Why? Because of sentimental reasons, the subjective attraction to a sanctified bond of monogamy. Which is understandable and far more beneficial to society than its opposite (unbounded promiscuity). But in seeking change, lets not distort the facts. Adrien Nash Crescent City
Money gives many advantages to those who have it. But it should not give its holders the ability to hold the American citizen hostage to them. We fought a revolution to get free of aristocracy and the privileged class of Europe. Now is not the time to lose our liberty to those in America who want to make the many support the desires of the few. Annette Drager Klamath
It’s time both sides stopped bickering and started working for us. Just saying no doesn’t achieve anything — when House Minority Leader John Boehner on national TV stated that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are “plotting and scheming,” it shows the language that is being perpetuated by the Republicans. It’s time for decency to return to Washington — lobbyists aren’t there for the majority, but Congress should be. Maureen Kevany-Jahn Crescent City |
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