LETTERS

Evidence was needed

The death of any person can be a tragic time. My prayers go out to the family and friends of Trayvon Martin.

Many have raged on about this being a race issue. Unfettered rage can only stoke the fires of racism.

If anyone can bring forth undeniable and irrefutable evidence that could have convicted George Zimmerman of murder, the courts would like to have seen that. Without that evidence, the judge and jury could not justify a conviction of murder.

CHUCK MUSHETT Bella Vista

Intelligence lacking?

I wonder about the IQ of the people on the George Zimmerman jury. They were picked because they hadn’t heard or read anything about the case. Doesn’t that also show that they did not have the intellectual curiosity ever to read about things that happen in the world?

During the trial, they took many notes. Were they notes about the trial or were they just doodling? By the verdict they rendered, I am convinced that the jurors showed their low intelligence.

JEAN KRESS Rogers

Change signs of times

What’s next? Watching the news, I heard about a new reality show in which the participants are naked. I could not believe my eyes.

I thought of my dear, long-gone grandmother who would tell us that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Being young, we really didn’t know what she meant. As I got older and saw the world changing, especially concerning morals, I finally knew what she meant. She wouldn’t believe her ears or eyes today. It seems the entertainment world is doing all it can to completely destroy young people and the morals of everyone.

There was a time when folks would have risen up and protested such programs, boycotted the stations and all sponsors of the programs. We have become so used to all that is going on that we say, oh well, sign of the times. It is time for America to wake up. Take a stand. Demand decent programs to watch. I am glad my grandmother is not here to see it all. I don’t think she could take it.

Even Adam and Eve knew they had sinned. They realized they were naked and tried to cover themselves. They tried to hide from God, but they couldn’t hide from him.

VIVIAN MEINS DeWitt

Not source of identity

Pride parades. He’s gay, she’s gay. Wouldn’t you like to be gay too?

Well, no. I do not make my sole identification based on a sexual act or any of my identification: “Hi. I’m Bob and I am heterosexual. You don’t need to know anything else about me. My sexual preference is all that matters. My sexual preference has determined everything that has ever happened in my life. Everything. All of my existence is bound up in my sexual preference. Every job I ever had, every decision I ever made-all because I am heterosexual.”

Homosexuality must be tremendously confining.

BOB MERRIMAN Hensley

Backward and mean?

Philip Martin’s recent column on marriage equality seemed to imply that the billions of adherents to the Koran, the Bible and the Torah are “the backward and the mean” for defining marriage as a union between one woman and one man.

I wonder if he considered President Bill Clinton “backward and mean” in1996 for signing the Defense of Marriage Act.

The debate on the definition of marriage addresses its two components (a legal act and a religious institution) as one entity, which they are manifestly not. If Hawaii recognizes a civil union between same-sex couples, then the other 49 states are legally required to legally recognize such unions. That’s freedom of association, equality under the law, and federalism.

However, marriage is more than a contract; it’s a sacrament developed by religious institutions. When my marriage-the religious sacrament-is treated by the state and society as the moral equivalent of the relationship between a woman, two men, a dwarf goat and a unicorn, then the religious aspect of my marriage is demeaned.

My solution? Allow consenting adults to enter into either a civil union recognized by every state or a marriage recognized by their religious faith-or both-without treating those two things as if they were the same. I would not deny the rights of same-sex couples to enter into civil unions, but I would oppose anyone’s efforts to force me to give such unions the same religious or moral meanings as the institution of marriage.

Or am I just being backward and mean?

STEPHEN DAWSON Little Rock

Some news to chew on

Three recent articles in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette caught my attention:

First, a British company, Serco Inc., has been “awarded the federal contract to administer the rollout of President Barack Obama’s health-care law” and will open an operation in Rogers, adding 800 to 1,000 jobs. In no way am I disparaging this British company, and I am elated that Serco elected to operate and bring those jobs to Arkansas, but isn’t it a sad commentary on the current state of this once-great nation that it now takes a foreign company to interpret and administer even our own laws?

Second, while I do not live in Little Rock, it is nonetheless refreshing to see the Little Rock Board of Directors engaging in a healthy debate on whether or not its mayor should be given a $19,000 (12 percent) raise, and even considering the deeper question: Does Little Rock really need both a mayor and a city manager?

And third, from the business section: U.S. and Canadian meat industry groups are suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to block labeling rules which will require them to specify where animals, which they are packaging and selling to the American public, are born, raised and slaughtered. I believe American consumers have every right to know where their meat is coming from. The article noted: “The producers contend that new labeling equipment alone might cost the industry more than $192 million.”

Those must be some expensive printers!

LAUREN RUPERT Maumelle

Give those two a hand

I was not shocked or even dismayed by Daniel Ellsberg’s incredibly self-righteous piece, reprinted in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, praising PFC Bradley Manning and Mr. Edward Snowden in their, I believe, blatant violations of their sworn oaths to protect the secrets of the United States.

His description of these two miscreants as brave heroes fits in well with his narrative justifying his own betrayals of some 40 years ago.

It would be most interesting to hear the views of the shades of the millions of Cambodians slaughtered by Pol Pot’s minions, or the countless Vietnamese lost at sea in a desperate attempt to flee a blood-soaked Marxist-Leninist tyranny, concerning Mr. Ellsberg’s revelation that U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia was “illegitimate from the start.”

When this country is attacked again (I believe it’s not a matter of if, but simply of when) by the fanatical and murderous followers of that vile doctrine of extreme Wahhabist Islam, perhaps we should thank PFC Manning and Mr. Snowden for their sterling efforts to help these thugs and criminals by ensuring that law enforcement is not intercepting their communications.

OTIS E. YOUNG III Cabot