ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 23, 1996 TAG: 9601230031
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
I READ the Jan. 10 letter to the editor by Richard K. Culbertson (``Let's wait for gun law's results'') about a law that is another example of unfairness in our government today. Although this isn't a major issue, I think it's time for someone to say something about it.
Culbertson talked about the law that says a person may not possess a permit to carry a concealed weapon until age 21. Such a provision is unjust.
How can a state or country not allow you to drink, own pistols or carry concealed weapons until you are 21 years old, but still ask you to lay down your life for those who have these privileges? Such laws only hurt the American martyrs who have died to help this country.
Such laws discriminate by age. It's OK to restrict certain things from minors so they won't hurt themselves or others, but to restrict things from certain adults because of age suggests that persons from 18 to 20 years old are invalids. Thus, they should be treated like minors.
I see only two options:
Lower the ages in all the laws mentioned above to 18.
Raise the age when one changes from a minor to an adult, and when one may enter the military service, to 21. This, however, is unconstitutional, leaving only option No. 1.
VIRGIL GRANT
BLUE RIDGE
Look to other tax sources for schools
I READ with interest David S. Courey's Jan. 6 letter to the editor (``County taxes are already too high''). Five years ago, I wouldn't have agreed with him, but now I think he's correct.
We're going to be asked in Roanoke County to have our real-estate taxes raised to pay for a new high school. And, although I'm in favor of the new school, I wonder if other methods of financing can't be secured.
As Courey mentioned, most of us in the county pay assorted taxes that seem to single out property owners to pay for everything. My personal-property taxes last year were $500 - and I'm a retiree - when everyone reaps the benefits. Why not use a more equitable method of financing - for example, a local sales tax? It might also be fair to get our portion of the lottery proceeds, promised to localities for education. (I understand that the lottery department's surplus this year went for bonuses for their employees!)
I'd like to see the new school built, but I'd like to see our county officials use other methods of financing, i.e., the lottery proceeds that are being held hostage by Dickie Cranwell and others in Richmond, and a sales tax of 1 percent earmarked for the schools.
PATRICIA P. HAMMOND
ROANOKE
Diversity indeed enriches Roanoke
THE QUESTION heading Myer S. Reed's Jan. 5 letter to the editor - ``Does prejudice thrive here?'' - is most aptly answered in another letter printed that day from Cathy Burdette (``Show respect for U.S. traditions''). It seems that prejudice most certainly does thrive here.
The first letter addressed the controversy over the ``Diversity Enriches'' ads in Roanoke. The second one is a crude and heavily prejudicial response to a previous letter concerning the practice of celebrating Christmas in public schools.
We should all keep in mind that most people in our country came from somewhere else, be it Italy, China, Africa, Iran, England, etc. Anyone who has a problem with the diversity of the United States is free to return to the land from which they came. Our Constitution still allows freedom for all people, no matter when they arrived here or what their beliefs.
If we open our eyes and ears and use our minds to think, we will realize that there is much to be learned by each of us from all the rest. In all aspects of the fine life available in Roanoke, it's obvious that diversity enriches.
BENNIE MENDELSON
ROANOKE
Article was tilted in VMI's favor
AS A STUDENT who objects to the Virginia Military Institute's all-male policy, I was eager to read David G. Savage's Jan. 2 article, ``VMI: Final gender frontier?'' I expected a summary of the issues, so this biased and misleading ``analysis'' was disappointing.
Most unsettling is that he provided readers with incorrect information. He described the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership at Mary Baldwin as a ``military training program.'' The president of Mary Baldwin College wrote to me on Oct. 13, 1994, saying, ``But the program, apart from an ROTC requirement in the VWIL, is one of leadership education, not military training.''
Savage spent too much space examining opinions concerning this ``separate but equal'' education program without looking at the heart of this issue - that the two programs aren't equal.
While he admits ``a far greater number'' of women disagree with VMI's all-male policy than support it, he allowed three paragraphs for their opinions. A much larger amount of space went to women who support VMI and warn that a ruling against VMI could hurt private, single-sex colleges. While this may present a risk, I resent the larger amount of space given to a minority viewpoint and the comparison of private women's colleges to the state-supported VMI.
In addition to the differences in tuitions are the motives behind policies to exclude the opposite sex. Women's colleges strive to empower women by offering opportunities in and out of classrooms that wouldn't often be available to women, due to sexism, at co-ed institutions. VMI supporters claim that admitting women would end VMI's tradition and lower its standards. This isn't a policy of empowerment; it's discrimination.
I also take issue with the article's headline. The United Nations found worldwide that women perform two-thirds of the work, but receive only one-tenth of the world's income. Erasing state-supported gender discrimination is a step in the right direction, but women still have a way to go before we reach equality.
ELIZABETH JONES
GOODVIEW
Market does not a downtown make
KUDOS to Hoskins Sclater for his Dec. 27 letter to the editor (``Costly new bridge should be razed'') regarding a name for the pedestrian bridge across the Norfolk Southern tracks.
I suggest the name Assumption Bridge because it was built on the assumption that Hotel Roanoke guests would go into downtown Roanoke. If this assumption should happen to be true, then logically the name ought to be City Market Bridge. Everything of interest to a hotel guest is within a block of the City Market, including Center in the Square and many fine restaurants and businesses.
A new year's wish for Roanoke city: I would have Mayor David Bowers and members of City Council visit their favorite ophthalmologist or optometrist. The mayor needs to replace his rose-colored glasses through which he sees Roanoke as a tourists' mecca, and City Council members need correction of the myopia that prevents them from seeing beyond the corner of Jefferson Street and Campbell Avenue.
There is life out there, and, distressingly, less and less life in downtown Roanoke.
A. LYNN BEAVERS
HOLLINS
Goodlatte didn't sit on the sidelines
IN HIS Jan. 11 letter to the editor (``They're looking out for No. 1''), Phil Dalton attacked Congressman Bob Goodlatte's role in the government shutdown. Perhaps if Dalton had read the newspaper a little more, he would have reached a different conclusion.
In fact, Goodlatte played a key role in ending the government shutdown and getting federal employees back to work. Instead of standing on the sidelines complaining or engaging in partisan politics, he rolled up his sleeves and came up with his own plans to end the impasse.
Yes, most folks I know don't like government shutdowns. Yes, folks do want a budget agreement in Washington that balances the budget while still taking care of those in real need.
Well, we've got Goodlatte who does something about it. From what I read in The Roanoke Times of his efforts to put federal employees back on the job while still getting a balanced budget, I'm pleased. We should all thank God for a public servant with such integrity.
HAROLD D. GREER
ROANOKE
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