Donate your blood to fill seasonal need
As the holiday season is closing in on us, the need for blood likely will increase because of travel, etc.
Take a little time out of your busy schedule to stop by one of the donor centers and donate a unit. Or consider taking a little extra time and donate platelets.
Remember that the rarest unit is the type you need and don’t have.
I was one of the original donors at Blood Assurance and can no longer donate because of a medication I have to take.
I am a 55-year donor and can assure you it will be an easy experience – and they will even give you a T-shirt.
Benjamin G. Keim Jr.
***
Opposition to gay marriage is biblical
I believe same-sex marriage is wrong and is a sin against God. It says so in Leviticus 18:20, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman, it is an abomination.”
If you were caught being gay in Bible times, you would be stoned, hanged, crucified or get your finger cut off. That is why God sent his only son, a man with no sin, to be crucified – so our sins would be forgiven.
I believe gay marriage is a sin against God. God created a man and woman to be married and not man and man or woman and woman.
Levi Alexander, Signal Mountain
***
U.S. still grappling with Bush dilemma
I recently came across two clippings.
From a June 2003 USA article from Cairo: “Already skeptical of U.S. motives and foreign policy, many here now openly despise the United States and blame it for setting off a geopolitical earthquake they dread will make their difficult lives even harder. And while some hope the war may open the way for reform many more worry it has only fed the flames of terrorism “
In July 2003, columnist William Raspberry wrote that “The University of Virginia’s Philip Zelikow once offered a checklist for deciding where the United States should intervene:
“Do the governments in the affected region care about the problem as much as we do, and are they willing to back up that caring with real commitment?
“Does the good we are likely to achieve outweigh the harm we’re likely to do in the place where we intervene?
“Does the good we do in that place outweigh the harm we may do to our nation’s interests elsewhere around the world?
“Is the problem something we can help to fix (and not merely to bomb)?”
As we face the dilemma the Bush administration created, may clear heads prevail.
Kate Stulce, Ooltewah
***
New leadership needed now, not 2016
If only a petition drive could be started that would reschedule the November 2016 presidential election to be held immediately. We need a new president immediately who has the will to deal with ISIS.
Clearly, this president is not going to deal with ISIS in any effective way. He claims he has a strategy in place that is working. He won’t even identify the enemy by the accurate term of “radical Islamic terrorists.” How can you possibly do anything if you won’t identify the enemy?
We witnessed the horror of the coordinated terrorist massacre in Paris last week that killed more than 125 and injured dozens more.
Obama said the U.S. needs to take in thousands of Syrian refugees. He said that there would be stringent vetting to not allow any terrorists in. There is no database over in Syria covering all the details of these refugees and their backgrounds.
How many more terrorist attacks and slaughtered, innocent lives is it going to take before this president will act aggressively? And is it going to take a major terrorist attack on our soil before he does anything? I hope not.
Jerry Johns, Ringgold, Ga.