ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 3, 1996 TAG: 9610030001
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
``CHARACTER doesn't count.'' Is this the kind of country that one-fourth of my Naval Academy class and all the others died for? My father believed and taught me that moral character was more important than money, fame and high office. Am I in a minority in passing this on to my children and grandchildren?
What are the issues? President Clinton has adopted the Republican agenda. And after calling the ``Contract With America'' a ``Contract on America,'' he claims these accomplishments as his own. Once claiming that family values have no place in politics, he now espouses them. We could go on. Contrary to propaganda, Republicans haven't proposed cuts in Medicare, education, school lunches, etc.
In essence, there is only one issue left: After the election, whose character can be trusted to carry out promises?
When we examine character, we find that Bob Dole is admired and complimented by all, including Democrats, for his honesty and integrity.
In contrast, Clinton promised welfare reforms, balanced budgets and tax relief. Despite controlling Congress for two years, he accomplished nothing except a tax raise opposed by many of his own party. He spent the next year vetoing Republican efforts to implement his own promises, and this year adopted the Republican agenda. He promised a ``squeaky clean'' administration, but the White House is loaded with impropriety - not his fault of course. Evidently, he isn't in charge.
His closest associates admit that Clinton has no core beliefs; that he will do and say anything to get re-elected.
A lucky survivor of a war, a police action, a depression, drought, dust storms, locust plagues, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the Great Society, etc., I've experienced many disappointments. Through it all, I never lost faith in the character of America. But now I am saddened by the prospect that this election may reveal that character no longer counts.
JAMES F. PHELAN
BLACKSBURG
Why the hatred toward gays?
I AM AMAZED that in the year 1996, intelligent people can be so unaware and narrow-minded on an issue about which there is so much information available out there.
I had naively assumed we had reached the point where gays had stopped being blamed for the entire AIDS virus, as in Calvin Rains' Sept. 17 letter to the editor (``Homosexual activity must be stopped"). For someone to honestly believe because two men choose to have sex (even if they do not have AIDS, as he implies) that they are feeding the AIDS epidemic is ridiculous and grossly misinformed. If all gay men stopped having sex today, AIDS wouldn't disappear. The disease would still be spread to new people by infected heterosexuals, to babies from infected mothers, and to intravenous drug users from needles shared with other infected users, etc.
I barely know where to begin with Rains' statement that "the only way homosexuality can survive is through gays' recruitment of others into the lifestyle.'' Being gay isn't like being in the military. Anyone who chooses to act on homosexual feelings by having sex with another man is putting everything in his life - friendships, family - at risk. Because gays are so hated, why would anyone allow himself to be recruited into a lifestyle where he will be harassed, judged constantly, possibly beaten up on a regular basis and hated by the public?
JESSICA WALTHALL
GLADE HILL
A 20-year-old is no boy
IN AN ASSOCIATED Press news article (``Down Syndrome boy loses fight to play ball'') in The Roanoke Times on Sept. 13, you refer to 20-year-old Gabriel Lane as a "boy." You owe this young man an apology.
CHAD BLOSSER
BLUE RIDGE
Federal workers aren't the enemy
FAR TOO often I find news reports and letters to the editor referring to federal employees as being something separate from the everyday citizen and the community. Federal employees are good neighbors and contribute in many ways to our great community.
During the repeated government shutdowns earlier this year, there was some attempt to break down that amorphous mass into individuals who are the federal employees. Individual news articles were presented, and viewers and readers realized that the person next door could be one of those "federal employees.'' Several articles pointed out the number of jobs in the Roanoke Valley that depend on the federal payroll, either directly or indirectly.
But one point wasn't mentioned: Federal employees are important members of their communities.
At the Salem Veterans Affairs Medical Center, we asked employees to tell us what activities they were involved with outside of their jobs. The list was amazing! Virtually every charity was represented, as well as enough Little League, basketball and soccer teams to hold our own Olympics. Civic clubs, churches, theater groups were on the list. In fact, many of the responses were so impressive that I was embarrassed at my meager list of activities.
So, why am I writing this letter? I just want to point out that as the elections draw closer and the federal government - its size and its duties - becomes a major topic, federal employees are not some foreign enemy. We're your neighbor, the deacon at your church, the volunteer at the charity, and even the coach of your daughter's softball team. We strive to perform the best we can as employees and as neighbors. We're all individuals: Being a federal employee is only one part of what comprises each of us.
Heck, sometimes even federal employees don't agree with government policies! So, as you decide where you want the federal government to go in the future, make that decision logically. And don't let anyone convince you that federal employees are plotting anything - we're too busy just being average Americans.
KENNETH M. SOSNOWSKI
Employee Association
Veterans Affairs Medical Center
SALEM
Stop the partisan bickering
IN RESPONSE to Grace Roberson's Sept. 23 letter to the editor, ``Is Clinton guilty by association?'':
I live in a home with a huge deck overlooking the mountains. I feed many species of birds, and they certainly don't flock together, except in migrating. Dove against dove, cardinal against cardinal, male against female, etc. I don't understand Roberson's expression, "birds of a feather flock together." Not true! Old wives' tale.
As far as Clinton and his campaign adviser Dick Morris and his prostitute, let me remind Roberson that Morris also was adviser for - God help us all - Sen. Jesse Helms and numerous others. So, if she thinks birds of a feather flock together, then Morris had a real good teacher: the Republicans and their cronies.
Thank God for a true, caring and unselfish President Clinton who will lead this country in the right direction into the next millennium, in which I hope we can stop this mean, partisan bickering and jealousy.
SHIRLEY YOUNG
COLLINSVILLE
No limit to their extremism
WHAT DO President Bill Clinton, Rep. Rick Boucher and Planned Parenthood have in common? All are pro-abortion extremists. Their support of partial-birth abortions is one example of this extremism.
If Nazi German doctors had tortured babies to death like the doctors do in partial-birth abortions, they would have been tried and convicted of war crimes. Yet Clinton, Boucher and Planned Parenthood defend this horrific abuse of babies.
Their chief excuse is that this kind of abortion is sometimes necessary to protect mothers from serious damage to their reproductive organs. However, this excuse raises an important question: Should one human's reproductive organs be protected from harm by killing another human? No.
Clinton, Boucher and Planned Parenthood use high-sounding, deceptive rhetoric, but they are exposed by the facts. Their pro-abortion extremism apparently has no limit at all.
MARY RIGNEY
RADFORD
LENGTH: Long : 148 linesby CNB