Published: August 09, 2009 03:41 pm      

Letters - Monday, Aug. 10, 2009

America needs to make something

Delphi is squawking, GM and Chrysler, too. Why is that, they have money to pay executives enormous bonuses?

At one time, all of these factories had plenty of work. Now their floors sit empty. We are and always have been a resourceful country. Why do we not make American products to put out to the public?

Our factories have abundant space to make anything they can make overseas. Give us a fair playing field to play in.

In America, you cannot find a TV or VCR or DVD made in America. Stop writing us off as idiots. We made this country great together. If I went into a store and saw American made products on the shelf, I would choose them because I am an American. I would bet most of you would, too.

As for the ones who do no, do not complain when you have no money.

Make America, America, we are not foreign. We need to stand up and care for ourselves. Our future depends on each other now.

If we buy and sell American-made products to each other, it will stay in America. All of the products made from other countries, the proceeds go back to them.

It’s no wonder they are better off than we are.

Sandra Roe

Kokomo

Shouldn’t stand in way of marriage

Most Americans today oppose gay marriage. It is also true that in 1950 in the South most Southerners opposed integration and that the majority of Americans in 1850 opposed women’s right to vote.

In Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education, it took the Supreme Court to uphold the rights of the minority to attend good, integrated schools. If the 14th Amendment and its “Equal Protection Clause” did not protect gays from being discriminated against than it does not protect atheists from marrying Jews, Catholics marrying Baptists or blacks from marrying whites because that wasn’t the intent of the writers of the 14th Amendment originally.

Do we want to take such a narrow view of the law and allow the states if they so wish, to determine who can marry? What if Alabama said two atheists couldn’t marry? What if Georgia said no Mormons need apply?

Our nation and government is made for all citizens: Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, atheists, men, women, gays, whites, blacks, etc. and should not just reflect just the religious beliefs of the majority. By all means, if your church doesn’t want to marry gays or atheists, then do just that, but the government has to serve all citizens. Our nation is a history of progress and an extension of rights and liberties, since its beginning women, non-property-owning men, blacks have gained the right to vote. Blacks and whites have gained the right to marry each other. Let’s continue that progress forward and not hinder it.

Jerry Anthony

Kokomo