Letters to the Editor

(Editor’s Note: Views and commentary,
including statements made as fact, are
strictly those of the letter-writers.)
* * *
Typed, double-spaced letters written solely to this newspaper and/or Website are considered for publication. Hand-written letters that are double-spaced and legible
also can be considered.
Cards of thanks are not accepted as letters.
* * *

About prayer in schools, & other public locations
From Dr. Carroll Bierbower, pastor
Redwood Congregational Church, Cave Junction

We are all familiar with “the separation of church and state.” We have been so bombarded with this statement by the media that it might come as a surprise to know that this is not in the Constitution, but was first mentioned by Thomas Jefferson in an 1802 letter he wrote to a group identifying itself as Danbury Baptists.

While Jefferson’s letter is often cited to prove that the original intent of the 1st Amendment was complete separation of church and state, when actually it was to guarantee religion the freedom to exist without government influence, it makes no mention of the government being wholly separate from all religious activity.

Recent decisions by a liberal Supreme Court have wrongly interpreted the 1st Amendment to mean no religious activities, instead of freedom of religious activities. The amendment actually reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; - -.” No mention is made of the separation of church and state.

A public prayer is not the establishment of religion but the free exercise thereof. The purpose of this constitutional amendment was to grant freedom from having a national established religion such as England, France and Germany had at that time.

However, our Supreme Court actually made the unconstitutional term, “The Separation of church and state” the law of the land. By this action the Supreme Court has given liberal judges a free hand in ruling against any and all appearances of Christianity in schools and in all places of government property.

In schools, prayer is no longer allowed; and students and teachers are even forbidden to wear any symbol that represents Christianity. Teachers are also forbidden to mention anything related to the Christian faith and have been fired because they had a cross on their necklace or lapel pin.

In contrast, our schools allow the Islam religion to be discussed, Mohammed can be mentioned, but it is a crime to mention Jesus.

In fact, one California school actually taught the students how to pray to Allah. This is only paving the ground for the expansion of the Islamic religion that is at present the fastest-growing religion in our country.

This persecution of Christianity has now entered the U.S. Navy. A Navy judge, Anita K. Blair, recently ruled that a Navy chaplain preaching a sermon with a Christian content in the chapel on U.S. property is a “punishable offence.” Chaplain Klingenschmidt is up for court-martial for concluding his sermon with a prayer in the name of Jesus. When I was in the Navy during World War II the chaplains all preached the Christian faith.

In contrast to all this court interference with our freedom of speech or our expression of the Christian faith, it is interesting to observe that our Congress daily opens every session with prayer. The minister who offers it is paid for this service by our government. Seeing that it hires one to offer prayer in Congress while assembled in a government-owned building, then why has it become unlawful for the Christian to have prayer on public-owned property?

The practice of our Congress having daily prayer, and what most presidents what they call “breakfast prayer meetings” in the White House, thus shows that they ignore the lower liberal courts decision forbidding prayer in government buildings. Their activity leads one to believe they have a different understanding of the Constitution that the liberal judges.

When the courts legislate unconstitutional laws against our freedom of speech concerning the Christian faith, this becomes a very important issue. Unless the Christian community arises to the occasion, the courts will continue to rob us of our religious freedom and our freedom of speech one bit at a time.

As soon as the liberal judges win one case against Christianity they keep pressing the issue, step-by-step, picking apart the 1st Amendment, robbing us of our freedom of speech and the freedom to express our Christian faith.

Yes, Christian persecution of the Dark Ages is still alive and well in America, but as yet it hasn’t led to the death penalty as now practiced in Islamic countries.

 

Fourth write-in claims ‘choice, not an echo’
From Paul Grad
Cave Junction

Given the dismal choice the public faces in electing our next county commissioner, a choice between two branches of collectivism, I feel it my duty to place my name before the voters of Josephine County as a write-in candidate for this office.

I offer myself for those tired of the philosophy of collectivism, which tells the people they aren’t bright enough to manage their own money and must have a county manager (and his pension and benefit package) added to the weight of county bureaucracy. And I’m here for those tired of commissioners collecting salaries far in excess of the average American’s annual income.

I will use a libertarian, conservationist, free-market capitalist approach to issues, instead of the collectivism of the mainstream parties.

Our most pressing needs in the county are these: a 24-hour manned police station in Cave Junction, and a 24-hour presence of multiple deputies in the area between Selma and the border; bus service, either daily or tri-weekly, for our residents living between CJ and the border; and low-cost spay and basic-shots services for cats and dogs (the fee set at one-hour minimum wage for each.)

I am for providing a soup kitchen serving healthy food for the homeless and consider it more important than even more bloated benefit packages for county bureaucrats. I think that unconfined pit bulls and second-hand tobacco smoke should be controlled substances instead of medically useful plants.

I think that the sheriff’s office should use the jail kitchen to prepare meals instead of paying a caterer, and save money by substituting beans for meat.

Finally, I believe that a commissioner should show his dedication to the public by earning only minimum-wage with no benefits, and be required to punch in and out, as many of our hard-working county residents must do. All funds saved by paying me minimum-wage with no benefits (roughly $70,000 per year) would be returned to the taxpayer as a property-tax rebate.

The only way to reverse the financial catastrophe toward which collectivism is driving us is to vote for a free-market capitalist renaissance.

 

About those duckies; & helping high schools
From Giff Gates
Past president Grants Pass Rotary Club

It feels like Duck Season opened early this year.

People have been taking pot shots at the fourth annual Duck Race during the past few months. It appears that all the criticisms are based on misinformation. As last year’s Grants Pass Rotary president, I hope I can provide a bit of history on the race and clear the air. We need a positive climate to be able to run this charitable event successfully.

The Duck Race was a vision of local Rotarian, Bill Thorp, going back to the ‘90s. During 2002, several things came together to help start our Grants Pass Duck Race. One was Rotary’s 100th birthday. Each club was asked to do a centennial project. We felt a park in the Fruitdale area would be an asset to our community.

Local Rotarian, Charlie Morrison, graciously donated the land, and a project was born. Hundreds of thousands of dollars would be required, and it just so happened that the Duck Race concept was a good fit. For the past three years, the proceeds were donated to the completion of Morrison Park. The park funding was finished in 2005, leaving the Rotary clubs of Grants Pass without a Duck Race proceeds recipient.

This was new ground for our three Rotary clubs. How does one go about identifying a worthy cause? I felt that each of the three clubs should present viable projects and then try to reach consensus. One project seemed to have a strong Rotary connection: The Grants Pass High School track renovation.

Our GP Rotary Club has hosted a premier track meet at GP High School for more than 50 years. Upgrading this facility seemed to fit well. It benefited people of all ages and it is open to the public 24/7.

I have to compliment the wisdom of the Rotary clubs’ boards at that moment in time. They saw a political nightmare in assisting GP high schools and ignoring the needs at our other two public GP high schools. We immediately contacted the administrators/boosters clubs at Hidden Valley and North Valley. We offered the two schools the same deal as GP High.

If the schools had a booster club with nonprofit status, a project leader/liaison to communicate with our club, and an organized project to enhance a recreational facility at the school, we would match dollar-for-dollar their fund-raising efforts. This could be matched: for in-kind labor, outside grants or their own cash fund-raisers.

We had offered GP High a match of up to $100,000. The same figure was offered North Valley and Hidden Valley. This threw a little wrench in our plans, as we had hoped to raise $100,000 in this year’s race and then turn our focus to health or academics or some other area of need. We now had a potential of matching $300,000; which is more than we could raise in a single Duck Race.

Our plan will be to extend the offer next year if the nine-member Rotarian steering committee approves renewing our offer to the schools.

Again, I have to compliment Rotarians who once again wanted to make sure we didn’t leave out Illinois Valley High School since it is, of course, a Three Rivers high school as well.

This was a little different situation than our GP schools, but no doubt we could make it work. I contacted a Cave Junction Rotarian and asked him to drum up some business sponsors and volunteers while I worked with the administration/booster club at IVHS. My contact resulted in enthusiasm for the offer of matching funds, but the reality seemed to be that this year would be premature.

The IVHS Booster Club was close to nonexistent: There was no consensus on what athletic project might be ready to move forward. And finally, with the economics in the valley, the matching funds concept seemed a bit unlikely. Our Cave Junction Rotarian at the same time wasn’t able to drum up new business or volunteer support. I’m hoping we can renew our offer in 2006/07 so that IVHS can have time to prepare next year.

I did phone IVHS last week to see if there wasn’t some matching fund project we could help with. Good news, there is a small fund that had been set aside to replace the P.A. system in the IVHS gym, which we can match.

Fred Ball, owner of Bi-Rite Auto Parts in Cave Junction, has generously offered to be a Duck Adoption Center to supplement Home Valley Bank and Sterling Bank’s efforts in Cave Junction.

I hope this helps to clear up any misconceptions. All four high schools, GPHS, HVHS, NVHS and IVHS, were given the opportunity to participate in the matching fund program; and the three Grants Pass schools who signed on all have the same equal opportunity to receive our funds.

It’s a fun event for a worthy cause. People can help us make this year’s Duck Race a success by obtaining either an Adopt a Duck entry, a Pair, a Family Pack or a Super Quack Pack before the big race on Saturday, Sept. 23.

 

About 911 plus other aspects that pain her
From Sue Lily
Cave Junction

The Reign of the Oblivious has been using 9/11 as leverage to enlarge its industrial pump, while hanging out America’s underwear for all the world to see.

It’s a humiliating time.  I am so disappointed, heavier, and cut my hair.  I grew up near New York City, where my father worked and my niece does now.

My heart burst in sorrow and pride for “my” people who stood so straight and did what was needed during that horrible crisis, and they are still suffering without the resources that were promised, and we still don’t know what really happened.

Perverted by those terrifying experiences and forced out of our American dreams into a world webbed with grudges and pain, we are misled by a “remarkably incurious” president who managed to distort normal governance so completely that we’ve been shocked and shaken completely off our paradigm.

My heart in shards: wisdom is despised by this president; his administration deliberately inflames and disregards the will of the people, the rules of law, language, ethics, fundamental religious values; has ignored warnings of the impending Al Queda attack, ignored advisers, Congress, our Allies.

He has ignored the catastrophe of the hurricanes before and after, ignored international law and is ignoring the law in Southern Oregon:  Public road closure and logging is happening in Mike’s Gulch inside the National Roadless boundary before the legal review of Gov. Kulongoski’s case is finished.

Oregon’s rights are being overrun as log trucks roll through loop holes and Illinois Valley. Josephine County libraries are threatened with closure.

Simultaneously, the Human Genome Project showed us the journey of humankind by following the DNA trail to Africa: we are all related, all infants are born with equal capacity to learn and everyone needs fresh air, food, water, protection from the elements and relationships.  We could be gleaming, healthy and brimming with straightforward solutions working to clean up our nation’s messes and go into the future singing lightly, joyfully.

On 9/11, I celebrated the 100th anniversary of Ghandi’s nonviolent movement.

• Bob's Corner
• Calendar
• Classifieds
  
• Main Page
  

Subscribe
to the Illinois Valley News
Click Here

© Copyright 2005-2006 Illinois Valley News, All rights reserved.