Letters - Saturday

Human rights still suffer

President Barack Obama, the media reports, has overwhelming popularity and support after his "State of the Union" address this week for his significant proposals on the economy and health care. Why is it then that the most fundamental human rights values America has given the world are ignored as the major issue facing us both at home and abroad? Currently the United States violates its own obligations in this regard.

These are continuing the Bush-Cheney commission of war crimes by bombing sovereign countries in the Middle East, killing civilians and turning those nations against us, activating the Bush-Cheney states' secrets doctrine to protect the current CIA practices of extraordinary rendition and unreported torture practices from public investigation, perpetuating warrentless spying by the NSA on Americans, and requesting the federal courts to honor the Bush doctrine of "enemy combatant" status to summarily and indefinitely imprison persons without trial or legal representation (14,500 in Iraq alone).

And now the attorney general states that it will be hard to close down Gitmo in a year.

But it is harder to live each day imprisoned without human rights.

I was brought up by my parents, schools, government and church to respect all human beings and, as a civil rights attorney, to defend such values. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "governments are instituted to secure these rights."

When may we begin to hope the Obama administration will seek not only real change but the immediate restoration of these fundamental human rights for all people?

Bill Durland, Colorado Springs

Moral laws come from religion

This ongoing discussion of legislating morality or, more specifically, religious morality is becoming tiresome.

It should be clear to everyone that all law is based on morality. The fact that a moral view is embodied in religious doctrine does not convert the view or the doctrine into religious intolerance. After all, murder and theft are proscribed by almost every religion I am aware of but it does not undermine our statutes against homicide and larceny.

There is nothing in the Constitution prohibiting legislated morality. The document is silent on matters of same-sex marriage and homosexuality. Therefore, the issue rightfully belongs to the states and their people.

Same-sex marriage proposals have been brought before the citizens of 30 states and in all 30 the proposals were rejected.

Apparently, the people of these states see same-sex marriage as harmful to their society.

The question is what the community is entitled to define as harmful to others. A breakdown in its own moral and cultural standards would certainly qualify. An unwanted change in moral environment may surely be seen to be as harmful as the possibility of physical violence.

Physical danger is not the only category of activities society may seek to prevent by legislation, and no activity society thinks is harmful is victimless. If the people of these states view these proposals to be harmful to them, why should they not be counted as harmful?

Attempts to change morality are constitutionally protected, but defiance of laws based on morality is not. The states are required to enforce the will of the people as long as that will does not violate constitutional rights. Same-sex marriage has no textual or implied support in the Constitution.

Those who deny elected representatives the right to base law on morality simultaneously claim for themselves the right to create law on the basis of morality, their morality.

Donald D. Wonders, Falcon

Obama leads cheers, not people

All President Barack Obama needed Tuesday night was a pom pom in each hand and to go leaping about the podium shouting "rah-rah-rah, sis-boom-bah," and like all cheerleaders whose team is getting their hind-ends kicked, he hopes they can come from way behind and win the game but he doesn't have a clue himself what it takes to do this because he's never been a coach (economist) or a player (retailer, manufacturer or any other job creator). But can he cheer.

For the sake of the country I hope the field or court isn't clogged with so many clueless cheerleaders getting in the way that the job creators find it impossible to win.

James Spieth, Cañon City

Stimulus package a joke

What is President Barack Obama's stimulus package doing for the poor working stiff who has a family and was paying rent on the home they lived in but have now been evicted and are living in their car?

Where is Roosevelt's WPA and CCC when we need them? I was living during that other bad depression and the Dust Bowl. I know what my parents had to do: They worked for the WPA, and the young men went to CCC camp.

I read the "Back Pages" on page 2 of The Gazette every morning, and the reports from 1930 to 1934 tell about what went on here in Colorado during those hard times. The unemployed were offered minor job opportunities.

They did some hard and menial jobs and they were paid a menial wage and survived on as little as they could. But survive they did! Now Obama talks about giving them a $400 break on their income taxes. What income taxes? They're not even getting a paycheck.

With the "help" that is being doled out now, the CEOs and executives are lining their pockets with our tax dollars. Somebody put a stop to this foolishness

Evelyn K. Luddeke, Colorado Springs