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

DATE: SATURDAY, November 27, 1993                   TAG: 9312060199
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BRIEFLY PUT . . .

NO HARD feelings? That may be too much to hope for. But the Rev. Carl Tinsley, chairman of Roanoke's Democratic Party, is right: By deciding to hold a primary election next year to nominate its candidates for City Council, the party may avoid some of the long-lasting hard feelings that result from mass meetings when certain special-interest groups can stack the decks. By holding a primary - its first in 25 years - the party will open wider the nominations process and almost surely generate increased public interest in an important local election. That's good for democracy, and probably for Democrats.

\ THE RESPONSE to Beth Macy's "Pregnant and Proud" story last week about unwed teen mothers-to-be ranged from reasoned outrage to hate-filled vitriol. But at least one letter was loathsome: from a writer who seemed to regard such young women as less than human, suggesting that "these females" be licensed like dogs and "spayed" if they continued "breeding like animals."

The fathers, too, should be "spayed" if they fail to support their offspring, she suggested. The latter, of course, is anatomically impossible, but the writer's meaning is clear. Also clear is the underlying racism that reduces legitimate indignation to hate-filled prejudice and compounds rather than addresses a moral and social crisis.

by CNB