Observer Forum: Letters to editor
In response to “Northwest link on I-485 may open by Thanksgiving” (Nov. 16):
Cold delaying I-485? Ha! Roads built in colder climes than N.C.
So Skanska would have us believe it needs perfect weather to complete I-485? I hope they don't have any contracts in states that actually have brutal winters.
We moved here from Colorado and in our few years there saw the start and finish of C470, which loops around Denver. The DOT needs to investigate Skanska's excuses and talk to companies that manage to complete projects while working with or around more severe extremes in weather than Skanska will ever see in North Carolina.
Laura Collins
Huntersville
Cheap-gas reprieve should spur us all to change our ways
$2 gasoline! Should we return to our gas-guzzling ways? Or should we see this as an opportunity to encourage energy conservation? Let's be innovative and take advantage of this reprieve so that when a gallon is again $4, we'll be prepared.
Our state governments should add a 50-cent energy independence tax to each gallon of gas. The money would be returned to the public as a credit for buying fuel-efficient autos.
Gary Moeykens
Fort Mill, S.C.
In response to “Taking representation away from the people” (Nov. 15 editorial):
Stop viewing everything through your ‘racism' lens
The subtitle was “Larry Gauvreau, two others would have board be all-white.” Your implication is that the primary motivation behind school board member Gauvreau's proposal not to fill two open school board seats was a racist desire to exclude black members. In fact, Mr. Gauvreau's stated desire was to streamline the board by reducing the number of members. Does Mr. Gauvreau also suspect that he will often disagree with the new board members? Probably, but so what? That doesn't make him, or his proposal, racist.
We just elected a black man president, a clear demonstration of the progress this country has made in race relations. Further progress will be evident when liberal newspapers quit viewing everything through the prism of race and unfairly impugning people with whom they disagree.
Steven P. Nesbit
Charlotte
In response to “Ring Around Charlotte” (Nov. 16 Citistates Report):
Your report overlooked Denver and missed a great area
Your writer must have had one eye closed. How in the world did you skip over Lincoln County and Denver?
It is the greatest area in which to work and live. We have stores, the lake, parks, lots of trees and open lands. In case your writer got lost, we can be found right along Lake Norman, long before you get to Newton.
Marie Krapovicky
Denver, N.C.
In response to “Referendum demonstrates tyranny of majority” (Nov. 17 Forum):
When majority vote wins, it isn't tyranny but democracy
Please explain to me when marriage between a man and a man or a woman and a woman became a “basic human right.”
Proposition 8 was indeed a textbook case of democracy. A majority of voters opposed supporting gay marriage. Show me anywhere in the Bible that marriage between people of the same sex is permitted.
David E. Verrill
Matthews
In response to “Banning gay marriage a victory for democracy” (Nov. 14 For the Record)
So-called ‘victory' rescinded right to marry the one you love
On Aug. 1, I married my love in a civil service in Napa Valley, Calif. On our wedding day, we had rights almost equal to those of most other Americans – the right to marry the person we love.
Now, after this “victory for democracy” our rights were rescinded by those who decided it was their “civic duty” to impose their religious beliefs on me and my husband. Is it for “the common good” that my marriage is put in jeopardy and Americans are stripped of a right they already had – to marry? You state, “The conservative Christian community has no desire to impose its religious convictions on anybody.” Oh, but it has.
J. Steven Chastain
Charlotte
In response to “If you can't read this sign it isn't meant for you” (Nov. 6 Forum):
Don't assume Spanish-speakers aren't born U.S. citizens
I was born and raised in North Carolina, but we moved to Puerto Rico five years ago. It's a U.S. territory, so Puerto Ricans are born U.S. citizens. The majority speak primarily Spanish, and even some who speak good English feel more comfortable reading instructions in Spanish – especially when it's something as important as voting.
It's ignorant to assume all American-born citizens speak only English. Next time you hear people speaking Spanish in public, the dirty look you give could be to a fellow American.
Cynthia Martinez
Rio Grande, Puerto Rico
In response to “Mom gives birth in hospital parking lot” (Nov. 14):
How do you bill parents when baby's born in parking lot?
I'm not sure which is more exciting: Monica Hickman giving birth in the parking lot with David Hickman's assistance or the creativity needed by the medical and insurance administration teams that will have to try to charge for labor and delivery. New item on the bill: “Delivery by nonmedical staff in parking lot – $10,000.”
Jeffrey Canipe
Huntersville
This story was originally published November 19, 2008 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Observer Forum: Letters to editor."