note to editor - local paper

[ShangriLaTroubl]

I thought this was pretty interesting, in our local paper today : the Henry County Times..


A reader wrote a very in-depth and I thought intelligent response to one of the regular columnist..you can probably pretty much get the gist of what the columnist had said by reading the reader's comments..thought everything she said was well put, thought I would share :

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

-Larry takes his lumps (again) -

Dear Editor,

I write to respectfully disagree with just about everything Larry Stanford wrote in his column ("We've got to stop playing it safe") last week.
Where shall I begin? Let's start with free speech. Stanford expresses his displeasure at the Georgia Supreme Court for striking down a law banning "obscene and indecent" telephone conversation between consenting individuals; a law that is obviously unconstitutional (and frankly, would have been laughed out of most state courts decades ago).

You may not like lewd and lascivious phone calls, but just as you are free to not participate, those who want to are and should be. Dirty talk may not be jive with your person values (or even your church's values), but you have no right to demand, that others in this great free nation must behave or believe the same way you do.

Let's turn the tables: Just as Stanford finds the dirty phone calls hes not a party to offensive and indecent, I find the display of the Confederate Stars and Bars offensive and indecent. (If you hadn't already guessed, I am not a native daughter, though I sure do like it here in my new home!) To me, the flag is insensitive,callous, and combative, not only to black or Jewish Americans, but all those who mish to move beyong the racism and hatred I believe that flag represents. I greatly dislike being bombarded with this image, but I understand that to many people, the flag has quite a different connotation. Thought I would never display such a symbol on my car or clothing, I believe stronly that anyone who wants to, should. If it bothers me, that's my problem, not theirs.

But what irked me even more than Stanford's careless dismissal of the first amendment, was his assertion that what we need is for Christians to ride up on white horses and save the country from "the law." I didn't know whether to laugh, or cry! Our country is a country of law, and I can't imagine many people would wish it otherwise. Does Stanford really want his church to rule our nation? I know I don't. And furthur, I find it sincerely regrettable that Stanford chose to perpetuate the false, disruptive, and utterly misleading notion that only Christians have proper morals.

My mother is Jewish. She grew up in Nashville in the 1950's. Her Jewish grandfather, a native Southerner (and life-long Republican) who saved hundreds of European refugees from Hitler by providing them jobs in his factory, was the first white member of the NAACP. At a time when no other religious or political leaders would deign to have a black man enter their homes, he hosted NAACP meetings, marched on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and encouraged his peers to get involved in the cause.

It seems to me that Mr. Stanford might call my great-grandfather's forward-thinking solicitousness "good Christian" behavior - clearly, this would be a misnomer. Yes, "good Christian" is an idiom here in the South, but I ask you to step back and see how dangerous that language (and the thinking behind it) is.This simple saying perpetuates the notion that Christians hold some sort of monopoly on kindness. Why don't we just call it kindness? Why must good behavior be attributed to one particular religion? There was kindness before Christianity, and there is kindness outside of Christianity every day.

Now, I'm not here to say that Jews are better than Christians (my father, as it happens, is a Lutheran minister), but what I do wish to express is that Christians are not better than non-Christians. Indeed, being a Christian does not make you a good person, nor does it make you qualified to tell other people what to do. Loving your neighbor, living an honest life, giving to others - these are the things that make you a good person. Even if you make the occasional dirty phone call.

Sincerely,
Julia Dahl
McDonough, GA.