Un-Published Letter to the Editor, No Time Like The Present

Here's a letter to the editor I wrote some time back. I haven't had the time to bitch much lately so I figured I'd rehash an old moan of mine.

10/06/06
Writing an Editorial for the DNR means that you are able to write opinions that claim scientific backing; without quoting it, spreading non-information or propaganda. Friday's Editorial titled Saving Lives By DDT did just that. The editor wrote that "Milloy reminds us that the same people who spread DDT hysteria are now pushing the global-warming scare.”If they and others could be so wrong about DDT, why should we trust them now?"" Nowhere in the editor’s opinion does he/she say that DDT is an environmentally systemic pollutant that causes cancer all along the food chain and results in long term poisoning of any creature apart of that food chain. They simply stated that any opposition to DDT use is “junk science”, just like the global warming “scare”. To this editor, I respectfully disagree with your opinions both politically and morally on a regular basis but celebrate your right to express those opinions that differ with mine. On the other hand, when it comes to BASELESSLY claiming that good-science has no merit; such as the global warming studies that are backed up by years of trying research and the same with the research that keeps DDT use from giving US children cancer, you have officially crossed the line.

"Issues"

Dear Jocelyn White and other Citizens concerned about same-sex marriages

I question the validity of your argument which claims that by allowing our citizens freedom of choice (including same-sex marriage), we will somehow limit freedom of speech. How does it work in your mind that by limiting someone else’s freedoms, you are protecting your own, is this a joke! Are recent hate crime laws, invasions on our freedoms of speech and expression? Has our society gone astray by stopping racial slurs, sex-biased hiring practices, racial-profiling and by ensuring voting rights for all citizens?

I therefore say that you are not against same-sex marriage because of your “concerns” for your own freedoms, no it is because you are blinded by hate. Anyone who “hates” homosexuals or their lifestyle is the very same as the persons of our nation’s past who paraded our streets dressed in white sheets and hoods proclaiming hatred of a different breed but with similar sentiment. As a heterosexual man born 25 years ago I know very few people my own age who are openly homophobic (unless they have been raised by homophobic parents). I attribute this to a societal evolution in which we have come to understand homophobia to be a form of hate. This simple connection is a phenomenal change in our society. Join me in this understanding. Are you willing to tell your grandchildren that you were a bigot who detested someone else's lifestyle because it was different from yours (is there any difference between this and hating someone else who’s skin is a different color)?

Stop arguing that same-sex marriage will damage children, you might as well make divorce illegal if this is your platform for “saving traditional marriage” or keeping children safe from “grave physical, economic, and psychological consequences”. I just don’t know what to say to claims that children who are brought up within a loving marriage between two committed people could face grave physical consequences (are you insinuating a link between pedophilia and homosexuality?), economic consequences (children who’s parents face higher tax rates, inability to join in group healthcare together and higher rates across the spectrum currently imposed on singles would be better off?), psychological consequences (should these children be ashamed of their parents, are their parents bad people who deserve your hate?).

Labeling homosexuality a sin would not be a right stripped from our nations bigots because religious freedoms have been upheld since our constitution was written. Even though these same bigots might be forced to accept the resumes of the very persons they choose to hate, they would still uphold the constitutional right to tell those persons that they are headed to hell. Legalizing same-sex marriage would simply remind America that we as the citizens of this great county have a responsibility to overcome the mistakes and limitations on freedoms that we have inherited from our forefathers. The honorable Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have had more eloquent words than mine but I say to you now; Let God bring peace to your heart, let His teachings of compassion bring you closer to your fellow citizens and not further from Him as hate is designed to do.