From the August 26, 2006, edition of the Washington Times:
Voting against school choice
The editorial "A question of bias" (Tuesday) criticized the 2006 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll, which found that respondents opposed school vouchers 60 percent to 36 percent and that by 71 percent to 24 percent they preferred improving public schools over "finding an alternative system." The editorial then asserted that "school choice and voucher programs are popular with the public."
The truth, however, is that the PDK/Gallup findings are supported by the best sort of opinion poll, a statewide referendum vote. In 25 such referenda from coast to coast, voters have rejected vouchers or their analogs by an average percentage of two to one.
The PDK/Gallup poll also found that 88 percent of respondents rated their children's public schools satisfactory to excellent.
Edd Doerr
President
Americans for Religious Liberty
Silver Spring, Maryland
From the August 8, 2006, edition of the Washington Times:
Being free to be
Suzanne Fields' column "Storm in a small town" (Op-Ed, Thursday) was right on the mark. She wisely noted that our country's founders "bequeathed [to us] a government that separates church and state, protecting each of us in his or her faith." The narrow sectarians in a small town in Delaware who reacted angrily when a Jewish woman asked for "generic?" rather than Christian prayers at school events appear to have much the same mentality as the Islamicists in the Middle East.
Religion has thrived in America precisely because the wise men who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights had learned from Colonial and European history that separation of church and state is best for religion, best for democratic government and best for religious freedom.
Edd Doerr
President
Americans for Religious Liberty
Silver Spring, Maryland
From the August 7, 2006, edition of the Pensacola (Florida) News Journal:
Know, not believe
Jerri Justle ("God or man?" Letters, July 24) asks, "Are we to believe God or man?"
God "revealed" to the Bible's authors that He created a dome-covered circle and placed it at the center of the universe. Subsequently, to help Joshua commit wanton slaughter of the Am'or-ites, God ordered the Sun (purportedly revolving around the Earth) to stand still. Joshua waged this unprovoked aggression to usurp property. Not only is the story bad science, but bad ethics.
How can we trust God when He reveals contradictions about himself? Is God visible ("And the Lord appeared unto him [Isaac]." Gen. 26:2) or invisible ("No man hath seen God at any time." John 1:18)?
God claims to be all-powerful ("for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Rev. 19:6); and yet he is not stronger than iron ("but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." Judges 1:19).
I'll trust men and women of science who rely on empirical evidence; and I'll reject the proclamations of a capricious deity created by scientifically ignorant, ancient peoples. I want to know, not believe.
David N. Miles
Orange Beach, Alabama
From the July 24, 2006, edition of the Charleston Post & Courier:
Who's electable?
In his July 8 article, "Can a Mormon be president?" columnist Cal Thomas expressed his displeasure in a poll showing a high percentage of those questioned would refuse to vote for an otherwise qualified Mormon presidential candidate.
I certainly agree with Thomas' argument that a person's religion should not be the only reason to deny someone the presidency. A candidate's position on issues and overall character are what matter to me.
Experience shows that you cannot tell a candidate by his religious affiliation alone. Sen. Joe Lieberman, a presidential candidate in 2004, and Sen. Russ Feingold, now considering a 2008 run, are Jews who differ considerably on significant issues. Pat Robertson and Jesse Jackson, both Christian ministers, are former presidential candidates who disagree on every important political issue.
For more than four decades, the Gallup Organization has asked American adults, "If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be an ('X'), would you vote for that person?" In its last such poll in 1999, well over 90 percent said yes when 'X' stood for a woman, Catholic, or Jew. Only 79 percent gave a positive response to a Mormon.
Even so, one can still optimistically view the Mormon glass as 79 percent full. But two groups with much lower approval were homosexuals and atheists. Homosexuals had increased their numbers from 26 percent in 1978 to 59 percent in 1999. Atheists, on the other hand, only increased from 40 percent in 1978 to 49 percent in 1999.
An atheist presidential candidate is the only one for whom the majority of Americans would not vote, even if the candidate was well-qualified. In fact, I know of no openly atheist candidate ever elected to any public office at the national, state or local level.
Cal Thomas closed his column by pointing out that if he needed an ambulance, he would care less about how the driver worships than about his sense of direction to the nearest hospital. I assume this would also include an atheist with a good sense of direction.
Herb Silverman
Charleston, South Carolina
From the July 20 - 26, 2006, edition of the Other Paper (Columbus, Ohio):
The Columbus police continue to be obsessed with investigating massage parlors, as they have been for years (Is a massage all that parlor offers?, July 6).
But we have yet to hear them explain why--with prostitution being legal or tolerated in many countries--they believe such investigations are more important than investigating unsolved murders, rapes, robberies, burglaries, etc.
Are their critics right in saying the answer lies in the police division's written guidelines for investigating prostitution?
Those guidelines specifically allow undercover officers to get naked with prostitutes; to touch their genitals, pubic region, buttock, thigh, breast or other regions to the extent needed "to obtain the necessary elements of the offense"; to be masturbated briefly; and to "momentarily" have sexual intercourse if it's "in spite of all reasonable efforts of the officer to stop."
Because of these "requirements of their assignments," the policy directs that officers receive periodic training on sexually transmitted diseases.
Whatever the reason for their bizarre priorities and behavior, the police have been making themselves look like ridiculous fools. And sadly, the massage-parlor customer quoted in the article is far from alone in terms such as "scumbags."
Columbus desperately needs a new police chief who will end this nonsense and disgrace.
Joseph C. Sommer
Columbus, Ohio
From the July 9, 2006, edition of the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser:
Believer's claims not consistent
My eyes almost welled with tears when I read Drew T. Johnson's July 2 lament, "We Christians will be under attack until the end of time." But I am not sure that I understand the reason for his funk.
Johnson's born-again president has repeated the slogan "God bless America" ad nauseam. Ninety-nine senators stood on the steps of the Capitol and bellowed "under God." Some members of the Supreme Court call separation of church and state a myth.
Polls show that an atheist cannot be elected to political office, and it is unlikely that Thomas Jefferson, who rejected the divinity of Christ, could be elected president today.
America has never been more religious. During the past century church membership has grown from 25 percent to 65 percent of the population.
Johnson will tell us that his God is the most powerful force in the universe, and God's power is activated by Christian faith and prayer. In spite of all this, he claims that "Our nation is in a stage of spiritual and moral decay." And the cause is the apparent power of "those who would remove any vestige of Christianity from the American scene."
If Johnston believes that an overtly Christian government and fanatically God-fearing citizenry coupled with the omnipotence of his God cannot save us from this alleged "decay," then I suggest that he hitch his wagon to another horse. May I suggest a horse named Reason?
David N. Miles
Orange Beach, Alabama
From the July 9, 2006, edition of the Pensacola (Florida) News Journal:
No upside
Fundamental to the doctrine of intolerance expressed by Judith Holmes ("No tolerance," Letters, July 2) is the Christian conservative dogma that all beliefs and practices not conforming to its creeds are sinful.
Fundamentalist believers must embrace this concept; tolerance of others' beliefs would imply doubts about one's own tenets.
Intolerance permeates the Bible. The Old Testament is replete with God-ordered wars against nations solely because they did not worship Him. While Christ preached love and forgiveness, he never advocated tolerance for non-believers, and saw fit to condemn them to eternal agony -- "But he that believeth not shall be damned" (Mark 16:16). Intolerance is mandated by the Christian conservatives' god.
History and today's newscasts confirm that intolerance fosters hate and violence; it insures there can be no unity for mankind. At this very moment there are religious conflicts in: Iraq, Palestine, the Balkans, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Caucasus. Fortunately, the religion-inspired intolerance that festers in the Bible belt, e.g., for homosexuals and non-believers, is kept in check by secular laws.
I fail to see any offsetting positives for the evil that religious intolerance brings upon mankind.
David N. Miles
Orange Beach, Alabama
From the June 29 - July 5, 2006, edition of the Other Paper (Columbus, Ohio):
City Dems should love public-access TV
In displaying a flippant attitude toward public-access TV,The Other Paperappears oblivious to the harm caused by the increased consolidation and commercialization of the news media (Media Morsels, June 22).
The same attitude has apparently rubbed off on Columbus's Democratic city officials, who ended public-access TV service years ago. While they have shown little interest in reviving it, Democratic leaders elsewhere have promoted exactly the opposite policies.
After observing that 77 percent of the people who voted for George W. Bush not only thought WMDs had been found in Iraq but that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11, Sen. John Kerry denounced the increasing corporatization of the media and the resulting spread of disinformation.
He asserted that diversity of media content is "critical to who we are as a free people. It's critical to our democracy."
Our city officials need to start acting like real Democrats who are on the side of the public and the First Amendment. To help counteract the pernicious influence of giant media corporations whose only goal is to make profits, those officials should vigorously support the public's right to present and receive alternative viewpoints on public-access TV.
Joseph C. Sommer
Columbus, Ohio