Letters: Apr 24/14

Apr 24, 2014

Re: Fair Elections Act

I have always thought that civility and respect for others were core values for conservatives. Leslie Frost, Bill Davis, Peter Lougheed, Robert Stanfield and Joe Clark were all great conservatives and they were all scrupulously polite and respectful.
Pierre Poilievre and Stephen Harper? abusive and impolite; purveyors of American gutter politics; Conservative impostors. Poilievre's attack on Marc Mayrand was eerily similar to the smear tactics used by Joseph McCarthy. These men have no business calling themselves conservatives. 
The Conservative Party of Canada has no business implying that it is conservative. They are not and it is not.
A vote for Stephen Harper is not a conservative vote. Stephen Harper is a right wing extremist, nothing more, nothing less. To vote for Stephen Harper is to vote against everything real conservatives like Frost, Davis, Lougheed, Stanfield and Clark stood for and built and defended. 
To vote for Stephen Harper is to vote against conservative's espousal of civility and to vote against conservative's sense of respect for others.

The "Fair Elections Act" is an unvarnished assault on democracy. Without the totally unwarranted patina of respectability provided by the word conservative, the Act would never have seen the light of day. The Reform 
Party could not have introduced this bill. It is supported solely by the word conservative and the shamelessly and wrongfully appropriated reputation of people like Frost, Davis, Lougheed, Stanfield and Clark.

The "Fair Elections Act" has placed Canada and members of parliament at a crossroads. Stephen Harper has used false dichotomies in the past to try bully Canadians into accepting bad legislation. Remember, "You are either with us or you are with the child pornographers". The "Fair Elections Act", however, is not a false dichotomy. It is a very real attempt to weaken the fairness of Canadian elections. It has been condemned globally. It has been condemned by one of Canada's most respected citizens, Sheila Fraser.

The only question that remains is whether Conservative Party of Canada members of parliament are with Canada, Canadians, Sheila Fraser, other voices from all around the world and Frost, Davis, Lougheed, Stanfield and Clark or with the regrettable Stephen Harper and his obnoxious 
underling Pierre Poilievre? It seems an easy choice. Then again, selling your soul and your constituents to Stephen Harper for a seat in parliament may be a bargain that some are willing to make.

Paul Isaacs

Liberals the only game in town

Even though I am a life-long NDP supporter, I have decided to vote Liberal in the next provincial election. I shall do this because the Liberal Party is the only party which is serious about renewable energy and, in fact, is responsible for all the solar panels which we see every day. Ontario has a huge challenge if it is going to transition to a clean renewable energy economy and even the Liberal Party has to be pushed to do more. We have to do more conservation, more in the promotion and integration of solar, wind power, biogas, and more in storage solutions. Transitioning from a centralized electrical system to a decentralized smart grid will not be easy and the pursuit of this goal will have to be single-minded and determined. Bold initiatives will be required. We have to vote for the Liberals to encourage them but also to put pressure on them to do more. For example, we have to stop building new nuclear reactors and refurbishing old ones so that there will be room on the grid for renewable sources of electricity. If we don't phase out nuclear, renewables will not be able to play the central role that they have to play in the energy system, and the economy in terms of manufacturing and jobs.

As much as they have done, the Liberals are moving in a tentative manner and they do not promote green energy as much as they should. More of us, Liberals, NDPers, and Greens have to speak publicly about the benefits of renewable energy and to support the Green Energy Act by voting for the Liberals. This might get them to act more quickly and comprehensively to bring green energy into the grid and to give them courage in the face of the scurrilous Tory and anti-wind special interest attacks. The Conservatives want to keep on relying nuclear power even though it would give us the highest electricity prices as new nuclear has become the most expensive way to produce electricity.

When it comes to renewable energy, the Liberals are the only game in town.

Wolfe Erlichman

Road maintenance: The Final Solution

Given that the Tryon Road, or as I accurately refer to it - "a suggested route of travel" - is pretty much un-navigable and has remained so (despite the groans from both the residents and their vehicles and pleas to the township for relief), I suggest that a parking area be constructed at the junction of Road 38 and our trail. From that point, the transfer to four-wheelers, or perhaps a township-sponsored bike loan program would do much to relieve the need to maintain the road to the most rudimentary standards.

I would have suggested the addition of a hitching post/shelter for horses, however, many of the potholes have an uncanny resemblance to groundhog holes, with their nasty potential to cripple the poor beasts.

My solution is completely in line with the federal government's plan to phase in community postal boxes, while encouraging our seniors to get their daily exercise.

J.R. Miller

Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Eastern Ukraine and Russia.

To use an old phrase: "Same song, second verse; a little bit louder and a whole lot worse."

Norm Hart

Re: Marriage & The Charter

I would like to thank Jocelyn Steeves for her letter (Re: Marriage & The Charter, Apr 10/14). Her information complete with statistics re: gay couples raising children satisfies my concerns regarding children raised by same gender parents. What matters most is a happy loving family in order to have well adjusted children. No more concerns.

Pamela Giroux

Re: Marriage & The Charter

I want to Applaud Clint Hammond in this response to the same sex marriage debate Re: Marriage and Charter, Apr 3/14).

Maybe this has been long drawn out in the discussions of so many editions of The Frontenac News, however I was disgusted, outraged and embarrassed for our community members of the obvious trivial arguments made to support only man-woman marriage.

But mostly, I want to point out the last comments made by Ms. Giroux (Re: Marriage and Charter, Mar 27/14) about a ‘normal family’. With all that we read about, with all the dysfunction of what we have called’ normal families’, I was shocked. What is a ‘normal family’? One that is brought of love, compassion, openness and acceptance to each family member? Or one that has expectations, rules, rigid and non- tolerance of being ‘different’ than others.

Children are abused, neglected and are the most vulnerable in our Society. Children Aid’s societies have been around for over 100 years—would that be because of the existence of ‘normal families’?

Divorce rates are higher than ever- is that because these adults came from ‘normal families’?

Domestic violence is so common in our Society we accept woman’s shelters to keep woman safe from violent relationships- is that because of ‘normal families'?

I dare say--- maybe we should all look at what we think constitutes a ‘normal’ family and maybe, just maybe, it is time to expand our rigid mindset to see how we can be more accepting in making ‘normal’ into ‘healthy and happy’ families.

Angela Hurren

Re: Marriage & The Charter

Jocelyne Steeves presents a one sided view of the same sex adoption issue (Re: Marriage & The Charter, Apr 10/14), in your April 10 edition of the Frontenac News, but I am confident I could present more studies proving the opposite from sources favorable to the "no same sex adoption" side. To avoid falling into that same trap, I have taken the position of submitting my personal concerns, which are based on facts, not opinions. In this I have some help from some notable people.

This topic is serious. The decision of whether to support same sex parents in adoption does not at all consider the choice of children, who have naturally come from a heterosexual parenthood and I am sure God had a good reason in defining parenthood this way by nature to be exclusively between a man and woman.

The homosexuals I know, as well as the lesbians, are amenable people, and while I do not condone their lifestyle, I cannot take away from their good attributes, on par with heterosexuals.

My concern though is same sex adoption is a major change in family structure to include families being headed by two men or two women. I see this as harmful for the children involved and great potential to emotional problems, sexual-identity issues, and resulting angst caused by difficulty or outright failure to adjust.

These same points are postulated though more diplomatically by Justice Scalia in the sodomy case of Laurence vs Texas but he and I do not agree on more than a few things, though he hits the bull’s-eye with the following words, more articulately outlining my concerns:

"Thus far, the evidence on gay adoption is inconclusive. As Robert Lerner noted in his book No Basis: What the Studies Don't Tell Us About Same Sex Parenting, most studies on same sex parenting do not deal with actual gay adoption but rather the natural children of one same-sex partner, or children who are the result of artificial insemination. The studies are also riddled with other flaws including failure to use control groups, lack of control variables, and unrepresentative and insufficiently large samples. One might reasonably argue that this means we should wait until more scientifically sound studies are completed before our society makes any decision regarding gay adoption. Yet by the time such studies are completed, gay adoption could be firmly entrenched in our society, making it very difficult to stop."

It is my information that the provincial agency in charge of adopting out children has indeed jumped the gun, and in its subjective zeal to accommodate the politically correct view, has done so irresponsibly without thoroughly studying the serious implications once again, the children, the silent minority.

Continuing back to Justice Scalia, I quote, "Indeed, there is no reason to wait for such studies. We already have an example, along with mountains of sound research, of what happens when our society significantly alters family structure. I am referring, of course, to the rise in the number of single-parent families in the last three decades. As Barbara Dafoe Whitehead shows in her book The Divorce Culture, as America liberalized its divorce laws and loosened its taboo against divorce in the late 1960s, many child-welfare professionals argued that "the happiness of individual parents, rather than an intact marriage, was the key determinant of children's family well-being." It would then follow that if divorce made the parents happier, the children would be happier too. In the years since, however, that theory has dashed itself against reality. Many studies have shown that children of divorce suffer higher rates of depression, behavioral problems, learning and developmental problems, and economic insecurity. Divorce also tends to damage their ability to forge attachments of their own, both in family and at work. It is indisputable that the dramatic change in family structure, from having both parents in the home to having only one, has done tremendous harm to the children of this country.

It is possible that the children involved in gay adoption would suffer no noticeable long-term negative effects. But it is not worth the risk. Given what we know about the results of one major change in family structure, our society should be, at the very least, reluctant to tolerate another one. The experience of single-parent families demonstrates that children are generally much better off in a household headed by a man and a woman. Since gay adoption deviates from that, it should be banned.

I will leave it at that, for now.

Edward Kennedy

Re: Marriage & The Charter

I would like to correct the record about Jocelyne Steeves' April 10 letter to the editor(Re: Marriage & The Charter, Apr 10/14, in which she quotes University of Texas researcher Mark Regnerus as saying: “Do children need a mother and father to turn out well as adults? No, if we observe the many anecdotal accounts with which all Americans are familiar.”

However, she does not quote the rest of his conclusion, which is different from what the partial quote implies.

Regnerus continues:

"But the NFSS [New Family Structures Study] also clearly reveals that children appear most apt to succeed well as adults—on multiple counts and across a variety of domains—when they spend their entire childhood with their married mother and father, and especially when the parents remain married to the present day.

"Insofar as the share of intact, biological mother/father families continues to shrink in the United States, this portends growing challenges within families but also heightened dependence on public health organizations, federal and state public assistance, psychotherapeutic resources, substance use programs and the criminal justice systems." *

Jule Koch

*http://www.markregnerus.com/uploads/4/0/6/5/4065759/regnerus_july_2012_ssr.pdf

Re: Marriage & The Charter

Over the last few months I have been following the editorials concerning where the Bible and Jesus stand on homosexuality (Letters, Re: Marriage and Secular Charter, Mar 6/14). I hope the following scriptures from the King James Version Bible will give you all the information and much more. Read in the following order:

1) Genesis 19: Verses 1 to 29

2) Leviticus 20: Verses 7 to 21

3) 1 Corinthians 6: Verses 9 and 10

4) Romans 1: Verses17 to 32.

I hope the verses will give you some insight into where Jesus stands on unrighteousness.

It is true that God loves each and everyone of us, but in order for us to have eternal life in Heaven we must commit ourselves to God our Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit forever. May God bless those who commit themselves, and may God have mercy on those who choose their own course. Have Faith.

Bernie Wood

P.S. We believe in our church that every man, woman, and child has unlimited access to hear and read God’s word.