Safety Valve: Letters from readers

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Safety Valve: Letters from readers

Saturday, June 9, 2012

True learning

I heartily agree with Columbia Elementary School teacher Connie Siepman’s decision to allow her fourth-grade students to take on one last service project these last weeks of school while most classes are drilling for the MSP exams. She took it one step further with a pink-hair challenge. They meet their goal, her hair turns pink! Her students have, as she mentioned in her May 20 letter, used reading comprehension to research their project: How can malaria be eradicated? They used math skills to chart, graph and record data as they promoted their penny drive to purchase mosquito netting to be sent to malaria-stricken areas.

The lessons learned, however, coming together as a class and as a school to contribute to the welfare of children in dire conditions, taught them more than is required for state standards. They have learned that as a group they can raise awareness of a condition that most did not know existed. They have learned that together they can do what one alone cannot do, and the gratification that comes from helping someone who will never know your name.

It is true that without the academics they could not have pulled off the project, but if you ask these students 10 years from now what they remember about their fourth-grade year at Columbia Elementary, I bet they will say they remember Ms. Siepman’s pink-hair challenge that gave them the impetus to challenge their schoolmates and the way in which they were able to “be the change they want to see in the world.” (Ghandi)

Susan McAnally-Gelatt

Substitute teacher

Wenatchee

Discrimination campaign

Yet again, a trip to the grocery store brought me face to face with the “Protect Marriage in Washington” group petitioning for support of their discriminating viewpoints. Wake up, Wenatchee. This referendum is an attempt at promoting and perpetuating discrimination, inequality and hate. Will someone please explain exactly how allowing all to marry, regardless of sexual orientation, harms the sanctity or security of YOUR marriage? In what way does allowing gays and lesbians the right to have lawful recognition of their relationship somehow jeopardize or change your marriage? There is no legitimate reason to deny anyone the right to marry whomever they choose.

It deeply saddens me that in this worrisome time of war, terrorism, violence, failing education, recession and drastic cuts to vital children’s programs we have a group who has nothing better to do than sit at a table all day in front of my community’s places of business and assault others with a plea to support a legislative action that is wholly unnecessary, and does nothing but breed discrimination and intolerance. You folks who are pushing this measure — for every 10 of you, at least one of you has a family member who is gay, maybe your spouse, child or grandchild.

How tragic it is that you are teaching our children that it’s OK to deny another human being rights just because their life is different from yours. We are handing our children a world that already suffers from hate and the violence that accompanies it, and you are further polluting this legacy of hatred that my children will have to remedy. Shame on you.

No, I am not gay. I have been happily married for 21 years. But, I will fight until the day I die to protect the human rights of all.

Terra Boden-Garcia

Wenatchee

Paving a path to Pybus

I have no idea who came up with the idea to put foot traffic on the railroad tracks, but they should have their heads examined. Have you ever seen how many people get killed or maimed trying to hurry across railroad tracks? We have two underpasses and a pedestrian bridge across the tracks now from downtown, how many people in wheelchairs want to be wheeled across the tracks? Do they all live downtown?

I think a better idea for the money would be to help keep our police and firefighters working and fix some of the roads and streets that have potholes and lousy repair jobs.

As far as more artwork, the railroad tracks are what they are and we don’t need to spend any more money on artwork. For instance, the three piles of dirt beside the post office cost a fortune, and it has a fence around it so no one can even sit on it and watch the police and firemen who will soon be laid off.

I think whoever thought this up should be removed from office. Let’s see if that will cut the Wenatchee budget a little. I hope they aren’t paying you for such a stupid idea. We don’t even know if the Pybus building will make a go of it.

It is obvious that you have not been to Safeco Field. It is hard to walk on those streets, much less ride a bike or push a wheelchair. I know this won’t help but it looks like the people who put Town Toyota Center in without a vote, are still calling the shots.

What a mistake.

Donna Ellis

East Wenatchee

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Faedrus 11 months, 2 weeks ago

Terra, exactly. The good news is that a federal court has ruled a similar law, Prop 8 out of California, as unconstitutional -

"Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples," the court wrote in February.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/court-rejects-appeal-overturn-prop-8-ruling-case-171244320.html

Cherick 11 months, 2 weeks ago

Terra-Boden Garcia asked; "Will someone please explain exactly how allowing all to marry, regardless of sexual orientation, harms the sanctity or security of YOUR marriage?" Her letter was well-written and contained all the requisite cliches and propaganda of the homosexual agenda. I wish I could answer it, but it's the wrong question. For the past fifty years, our public school system has been teaching us, our children and our grandchildren that there is no God and that evolution is true. In such a fantasy world, Terra-Boden Garcia is absolutely correct. "There is no legitimate reason to deny anyone the right to marry whomever they choose." If there is no God, then we "religious people" are certainly the troublemakers. But if you look at the situation logically, homosexuality proves positively that evolution is a lie and the Bible is true. The Bible says that sin will increase in the last days and so it has. If evolution was true, homosexual behavior would have become extinct long ago. If you read Romans Chapter One very carefully, you will notice that homosexuality is God's judgement on a Nation for failing to give God the recognition He deserves; in other words, teaching evolution. Ms. Garcia says; "But, I will fight until the day I die to protect the human rights of all." Mark 8:36 says; "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" I'm sorry the petition-pushers bother you and I understand. But the problem is much bigger. People who are not saved go to hell when they die. This is not religion, it is a fact. Do you really love your friends and family? Look up at the Big Dipper tonight and recognize that Constellations are impossible without Someone holding them in place. Then read John Chapter 3 in the Bible and ask Jesus to save you. He will answer your questions.

Norm 11 months, 2 weeks ago

"I wish I could answer it, but it's the wrong question."

No, its the right question, and here's why: People who oppose gay marriage nearly always make some variation of the argument that allowing gays to marry is some kind of "attack" on "traditional" marriage which they (anti-gay people) are "defending".

If you want to make the claim that you are defending something, then it is fair game to ask you what is the harm that you are defending against. If you can't name any harm, then your claim fails without any further examination.

"For the past fifty years, our public school system has been teaching us, our children and our grandchildren that there is no God and that evolution is true."

You are bearing false witness here, Rick. The public schools are neutral about God; they don't teach that God exists and they don't teach that God does not exist. Schools, and particularly science classes, instruct students exclusively about the Natural world. God is Supernatural, beyond nature and beyond the curriculum of the public schools. The process of evolution is firmly rooted in the Natural world; whether or not God was the designer and or prime mover behind evolution is a question about the Supernatural world, not a proper subject for the government to take any position on.

The root of your mistake is your belief that anything that isn't actively pro-Christian is anti-Christian. When public schools don't teach the Bible, they are no more anti-Bible than they are anti-Talmud, anti-Koran, or anti-Book of Mormon.

"If there is no God, then we "religious people" are certainly the troublemakers."

It's not God's fault that some "religious people" are troublemakers. Please take responsibility for your own beliefs and actions.

"But if you look at the situation logically, homosexuality proves positively that evolution is a lie and the Bible is true."

Please explain the logic behind these two claims:

1) Homosexuality proves that evolution is a lie, and

2) Homosexuality proves the Bible is true

"If evolution was true, homosexual behavior would have become extinct long ago."

Please explain the facts and logic upon which this conclusion rests.

Norm 11 months, 2 weeks ago

"If you read Romans Chapter One very carefully, you will notice that homosexuality is God's judgement on a Nation for failing to give God the recognition He deserves; in other words, teaching evolution."

Actually, in order to reach your conclusion about what the first chapter of Romans says, you have to be trying to interpret It that way. Its not a "careful" reading, its a manipulative reading.

To begin with, you seem to be claiming that when Paul addresses sexual impurity, he is not including heterosexual impurity. It seems to me that the clear language of the Scripture does not exclude any form of sexual impurity from its condemnation.

Next, the Scripture clearly states that it is talking about "every kind of wickedness" and lists a number of examples:

"evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy"

You seem to be claiming that the Scripture is exclusively about homosexuality (and, somehow, evolution), when it clearly is not. Please explain why this is not bearing false witness.