ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 30, 1996 TAG: 9608300009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
I TAKE issue with your Aug. 15 headline, "Police target gay `cruising'.'' A more accurate adjective would be "male.''
Homosexual acts in public places, as well as exhibitionism and child molestation, are committed by men and women who are heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian or transgender, not only gay men. And just because the 17 arrested are male, that's no indication they are gay.
In fact, studies show that 90 percent of sex crimes against children involve female victims and male adults. What's more, most men violating male children also have records for female molestation, and do not define themselves as homosexual.
To label this legal issue as a "gay" activity implies a relationship between sex crimes and homosexual men. Such reporting serves only to feed society's misunderstanding and emotionalism about gender issues.
TERRY T. SMITH
ROANOKE
Beyer's vision is good government
JOHN GOOLRICK'S criticism of Lt. Gov. Don Beyer (Aug. 20 commentary, ``Beyer has charm, but lacks focus'') as lacking a ``clear philosophical focus'' is so inaccurate as to cry out for correction.
Beyer has been kind enough to speak to classes I have taught on political leadership at Virginia Tech (as have many other political figures from both parties). He consistently impressed sophisticated students and their cynical professor with his thoughtful, logically integrated philosophy of government.
What he does not have is a narrow-minded, ideological perspective that reduces very complex issues to simple slogans that can easily be characterized as fitting into one political camp or another. I suspect that it's the lack of such ideological blinders that drew Goolrick's fire.
While we can debate Beyer's positions on individual issues, it's wrongheaded to claim that he's without a clear vision of what state government can and should be. If that vision doesn't conform to conventional political labels, it's because he's more interested in finding effective approaches to solving public problems than in advancing an ideological agenda.
RICHARD C. RICH
Chair, Department of Political Science
Virginia Tech
BLACKSBURG
Bill Clinton must go
NOT LONG ago, Republican President Richard M. Nixon was forced to resign because he lied and misrepresented himself to the people of the United States. Another Republican president, George Bush, wasn't re-elected because he went back on his promise to the people not to raise taxes.
President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, has failed on his promise to give the middle class a tax break. Instead, he raised taxes, I am told, by the largest amount in history. He has lied to the American people on many occasions, yet no one has mentioned resignation or impeachment.
Compare the Iran/Contra incident under Bush with the Bosnian incident on arms under Clinton. Which got the most criticism?
Justice Department lawyers, with Clinton's sanction, have urged the Supreme Court to grant the chief executive temporary immunity from lawsuits. If granted, this will put President Clinton above the law. This shouldn't be allowed to happen.
Let's suppose drug users had been allowed on the White House staff by past Republican presidents. What would the press have said, and what would have been our attitude? Ethical and moral society must be at the base of a nation's freedom. If not, freedom will soon fail.
I'm not so much concerned about what Clinton is doing or saying as I'm disturbed at the people for sanctioning his actions - as if there's nothing wrong and whatever he does is OK. If Clinton was at bat and he missed the ball, he would say that it was the pitcher's fault and that he had nothing to do with it. And the people would go along.
I cannot support someone who demonstrated against this country, who wasn't willing to serve in the military of this great nation, and who also wants to cut or weaken our defenses.
Discrepancies must be corrected, and the only way to do it is to elect Bob Dole as president and re-elect Bob Goodlatte to Congress to support him.
ROBERT J. LOVELACE
ROANOKE
Justice system is failing too many
YOUR AUG. 22 article (``Rudd gives up law'') concerned a young attorney many described as one of the valley's most talented and aggressive trial lawyers. It seems several cases in which he was involved allegedly contained errors. These matters will probably never be settled since the attorney in question, who has experienced ``a disenchantment with the practice of law,'' has opted to surrender his law license. Lack of uniformity in some judges' decisions and an ``elitist attitude among some lawyers'' were among the reasons he cited for his disenchantment.
I feel our valley is poorer for the loss of Jeff Rudd in the ranks. He has devoted his life to the study and practice of law, and has seen it as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney. He has never represented me and I've never met him. However, I feel that he is a man with morals, a quality needed in greater quantities than we now have.
I would like to see Rudd take his ideas and principles into the field of politics. As an elected official, he would be in a position to help change the laws governing us, and possibly eliminate some individuals who give the law a black eye.
Today's justice system isn't interested in the truth. If an attorney can present a case by requiring you to answer all questions with a yes or no, he can make your answers look any way he chooses. This isn't truth and justice - it's a professional taking advantage of a person who is nervous and intimidated by the system. No judge should allow this. However, it's allowed day after day. And many people do not receive justice if they cannot afford the best (most expensive) attorney to represent them.
Whatever road Rudd wishes to follow, I wish him the very best life has to offer. He has served our valley well, and I look forward to bigger and more wonderful things in his future. May the Lord guide him in all his endeavors.
WALTER T. POWELL JR.
ROANOKE
The inflated value of animal research
I CANNOT objectively challenge Michael Fumento's personal, but patronizing, opinions (July 17 commentary, ``PETA's own lack of ethics'') in favor of anthropocentrism (the superiority of the human species), the holocaust perpetrated by humans against animals, abusive treatment of chickens by Frank Perdue or the view of ``pets'' as property. But his gross errors with respect to biomedical research must not stand uncorrected.
Crib death is indeed a tragic occurrence, but John Orem's now-defunct cat research would have achieved the same results as did other worthless cat experiments shut down by the animal-rights movement: absolutely nothing. Such misguided research, which was properly terminated, included cat studies to investigate human barbiturate addiction, gunshot wounds, falling injuries and eye disorders. Biomedical research was, in reality, advanced with closure of Orem's cat laboratories.
The correct dose, administered at the correct time, of the correct drug - methylprednisolone - to treat spinal-cord injury was not ascertained from animal research. Animal experiments resulted in contradictory results regarding dose and timing, and only use of methylprednisolone in human spinal-cord injuries clarified things.
Fumento was inaccurately advised by Dr. Wise Young, who typifies the vivisection industry by repeatedly declaring that all drugs were derived from animal testing. The discovery of anti-hypertensives and anti-depressives had nothing whatsoever to do with animal testing, anti-epileptics were known before they were tested on animals, and the anti-diabetic drug insulin was discovered by human observation and, characteristically, only dramatized in animals.
When facts are examined rather than the propaganda disseminated by the Federation for Biomedical Research - a lobby whose interest isn't human health, but experimenters' incomes - we see that animal research has played only a minor role in human health.
MURRY J. COHEN
Co-chair, The Medical Research Modernization Committee
ANNANDALE
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