ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 23, 1996 TAG: 9603260002
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
I SEE that Roanoke City Council has once again made a momentous decision to allow racing at Victory Stadium while bypassing issues of ``less importance.'' The smaller, less important issues I refer to are:
* Renovation of Victory Stadium.
* Renovation of Henry Street.
* Revitalization of downtown.
I'm sure these projects will soon be forgotten, as are all major changes in Roanoke. After all, these projects will not benefit many citizens. Racing at Victory Stadium will.
The only thing Roanoke has followed up on in the past 10 years is the pedestrian bridge, which should be more appropriately named ``Bowers Bust.''
If City Council needs an example of how to run a city and get things done, it should look to the west - to Salem.
RICHARD A. BOYD
SALEM
Agency offers a moral alternative
REGARDING Ernestine B. Frith's Feb. 20 letter to the editor, ``Voters will support Goodlatte's views'':
I'm shocked by the blind way many people approach this issue. I hope people realize that many of the ``statistics'' quoted in this letter were based on ignorance and blame rather than truth and research.
What concerns me the most, and I quote: ``Fortunately, a high percentage of citizens are fed up with Planned Parenthood and the abortion clinics that receive millions of dollars each year for the business of destroying life.''
A high percentage? Concerned citizens who take the time to educate themselves on this issue can tell you that Planned Parenthood's services are aimed entirely at preventing pregnancy, not promoting abortion. I'd like to think a high percentage of Christian, moral people would support an alternative to abortion. Planned Parenthood offers that for women from every walk of life, especially for teen-agers, who might not have the money or parental support to seek help elsewhere.
Understanding that this is one of the more emotional issues we face as a society right now, I'd still challenge pro-lifers and pro-choicers to look at it with less emotion and more of an open mind. We all need to be less quick to condemn each other, and more willing to back our words with actions instead of rhetoric and rarely questioned outdated slogans.
There are no easy answers. The world population is exploding, has exploded. Yet the Catholic Church will not condone using birth control. Education is the key to understanding this critical issue. Can Frith point to any other organization that could educate young people in the way Planned Parenthood does?
MARA E. BRADBURN
RINER
All who are average need not agree
AS AN ``average working-class American,'' I was pleased to be informed of our ``secret'' by Dana K. Padgett (Feb. 28 letter to the editor, ``Buchanan speaks our language''). Until now, I must have been foolishly influenced by those who believed an average is derived by including the entire population.
Apparently those who see no detriment from a social climate homosexuals ``create'' ingenuously believe that many homosexuals have an average, middle-class social conscience. Their view must have been obscured by the overwhelming harmony displayed in the heterosexual community. And I must have been the only component of the average who gave credit to a woman's ability to make a rational choice about reproduction.
What about banning prayer and God in schools? I had assumed that every student can follow his or her own beliefs without a state-sanctioned time and method for doing so. Have schools developed methods to expel God from students' private thoughts?
Yes, it's the message and not the messenger. If enough people are in on Padgett's secret, Patrick Buchanan will be elected president. But if it turns out differently in November, will that mean those working-class Americans who vote for him no longer contribute to the average? Not at all. As with every other ``erupting social culture,'' their votes count. We're all America.
DAVID SCOTT BOWERS
ROANOKE
Good pickings on Pat
I THOUGHT your Feb. 26 editorial on Pat Buchanan (``Buchanan's heart of darkness'') and your Feb. 27 Opinion page cartoon on his nibs derogatory. Congratulations!
CALE DICKEY
BEDFORD
LENGTH: Medium: 87 linesby CNB