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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 10, 1993                   TAG: 9303100402
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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MANIPULATION OF KIDS APPALLING

THE MISUSE of children as advocates for a political agenda they neither understand nor, in all likelihood, care a hoot about is always shameful. It betrays contempt for them, and reveals that the manipulator is reluctant to rely on appeals of reason to carry the argument.

President Clinton's use of children to promote his gay-rights agenda is - even for this made-for-television president - particularly execrable. Without wishing to suggest that gays ought to be made to live apart or are somehow evil, I am unable to think of any good that can come from delivering the presidential imprimatur of homosexuality directly to pubescents wrestling with adolescent sexuality.

It appears that, wholly bereft of personal honesty or any capacity for shame, the president's capacity for embarrassing the nation is bottomless. ROBERT M. FELTON ROANOKE

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