Conservative Christians can compromise, but don’t ask us to ignore our values

Religion extends past place of worship

Julie Rodgers means well, but her arguments are misleading. Phillips, the “Colorado baker,” was not refusing to serve gay people generally. He would and did serve them. However, he would not make a cake with an artistic and symbolic message that he believed to be morally wrong, for anyone. The Colorado Commission had previously upheld the right of bakers to do exactly that; they penalized Phillips essentially because they disapproved of his faith-based position.

As Chief Justice Roberts has noted, the Constitution protects free exercise of religion, not merely worship. Confining religious freedom to “worship” departs from our constitutional tradition and misunderstands religion. No serious religious conviction can simply be discarded when a believer exits the church, synagogue, or mosque. Compromise on such terms is not a solution.

Support carbon fee, protect our future

As recent Observer articles attest, extreme weather events affected by climate change are occurring globally. Jacob Abel says his generation will “have to pay for and suffer the consequences of inaction." But Europeans already experience record heat, Californians lose homes to massive wildfires, and coastal Carolina insurance rates soar due to rising sea levels. There’s no longer any doubt that human-released CO2 is harming the planet.

Mr. Abel believes putting a price on carbon and returning that money to U.S. households is the best and quickest way to address climate change. He’s right. Ask your congressional representatives to pass carbon fee and dividend legislation.

Actually, uptown Charlotte is pleasant

My wife and I and our 23-year-old son also went uptown to see a performance of The Book of Mormon at the Blumenthal.

We had a different reaction than Forum writer Dennis Gosney.

Uptown was vibrant, clean and felt safe. There were peoplesleeping on benches and I wish they could be provided shelter, but they did not bother anyone. We were asked for money twice but they were not pushy. There were some young adults riding scooters but we did not feel threatened. I did see two teams of police patrolling the sidewalks and I wish they did a better job at enforcing some of the laws to get people into safe and secure shelters. We really enjoyed spending the evening Uptown!

There is a lot of hate here in Charlotte

I moved to Charlotte from Atlanta. Atlanta had a lot of things wrong with it but had a great motto: “The City Too Busy to Hate.”

Charlotte has a lot of elected officials that are very busy hating. They voice their hate for the other political party. They hate people who are successful. They hate people of other races. They hate people of other sexual persuasions. They hate people of other religions. They hate people from the southern and northern suburbs.

What do I hate? I'd hate to see them get re-elected.

Pay good teachers, get rid of the rest

Higher salaries that enable recruitment of the best teachers for N.C. is a good idea if and only if local school districts have the authority and unhindered ability to dismiss current teachers who are not performing.

Dismiss the bad, encourage and help train the good, hire the best. This is a winning formula.

Voting Republican just makes sense

I hope that the intelligent nonbiased Democrats will read Hugh Hewitt of the Washington Post’s column.

He states the reasons for retaining Trump’s commitments to originalist judges, rebuilding the military, tax cuts causing economic growth, and more. Retrieve your Sunday paper, read the article and think wisely.

It makes good sense.