All Citizens should be treated equally and other letters to the editors

All Citizens should be treated equally

For those experiencing distress and perhaps even panic over the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, be enlightened and have a little faith. The decision was not an endorsement of gay marriage or an attack on traditional marriage but rather an indictment of discrimination in law.

There are numerous benefits for the "married with children" class. When a group lobbies for privilege, there will be the inevitable and predictable blowback from those excluded from the circles of favor. One societal class has so fervently garnered benefits unto themselves that some unmarried couples have struck back at the law demanding they, too, ought to have marriage rights in order that benefits may be shared by them, as well.

Marriage belongs in the realm of the individual, not the government where it falls prey to manipulation by lobbyists and politicians. All citizens should be treated equally at the individual level and never at a higher, more collective level to avoid the creation of a class society. But that is not how it is, as most have wanted and enjoyed. Now we all will live with the recoil.

DAN C. JOHNSON


Highway 27 billboard does not belong here

On U.S. Highway 27 North, just outside Dayton, Tenn., a billboard broadcasts a portrait of Adolf Hitler and his warning about the confiscation of guns. This is a demonic reminder of tyranny and genocide.

I have traveled that road to Chattanooga since 1948; I pay property tax in Rhea County. This sign insults the sacrifice of the men who landed on Normandy. It embarrasses the voices of the black artillery unit covering the retreat of white soldiers out of Battle of the Bulge. As these soldiers loaded their howitzers and pulled the firing pins, they yelled: "Here's to you, Hitler."

There must be a better way to deliberate the meaning of the 2nd Amendment than whitewash history with the photograph of a conscienceless madman. What will happen when the last WWII veteran dies? Is East Tennessee in a state of amnesia? Will Churchill and Eisenhower be villains? Will the children of the Holocaust be lost in the dustbin of memory? Who will speak for truth?

Come on, Tennessee, tear down this billboard of lies.

KEMMER ANDERSON, Signal Mountain


Time to welcome unions back to U.S.

I read with interest the article "Bus Stop of Dreams" in the July 4 issue of this paper.

What I read is the death of the American Dream. The dream that our lives will be better than our parents' and our children's lives will be better than ours. To tell the truth it is not the American Dream, rather the dream of parents and grandparents all over the world. The American portion was what we once believed in. Other nations had long accepted the medieval model of life, where the nobility had all the wealth and the rest of us were peasants.

What has happened to us? Corporate America has become our noble class and stolen our jobs and sent them away to enrich themselves. Nike spends less than $20 to make shoes we buy for more than $100. Yet Nike so desperately needs to make more money for itself, it has to ship the jobs to manufacture these shoes to countries where labor is only $1 an hour. Nike is but one example of the corporate greed sucking the life and dreams out of America.

During America's greatest days, workers and workers in unions kept our noblemen in check. With the demise of unions, corporate greed has run unchecked. It is time to recognize that fact and welcome unions back to America.

JOHN MAC NEIL


N-word backlash is out of hand

With the further general moral decay of our society, profanity is commonly used on various prime-time shows without much backlash and criticism from the viewers. However, the use of the N-word in any form or fashion by someone other than an African-American is still strictly criticized.

One online dictionary defined that term as "the most offensive word in the English language." More offensive to me is that if Paula Deen had used God's name in vain 25 years ago instead of the N-word, it would not have even been deemed newsworthy!

JOE KIRKPATRICK, Cleveland, Tenn.

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