Mr. Vance’s question (March 4, 2015) “What are we entitled to when we are offended?” isn’t the question to be asked. Rather, the question to be asked is “Why are we not offended when our elected officials decide we need their God?”
We already have a prayer to begin with, as Mr. Norris has so aptly noted. I lived through the same years he has mentioned, and I can attest to Mr. Norris’ words.
My husband is an immigrant to this country. He came from a country that discriminated against not only race, but religion as well. He has seen up close the results of “one man’s god over another man’s god’’ wars and was happy to live in a country in which religion – at that time – played very little part in our day to day lives.
He spent the day in the council room in order to testify against this motto. After several hours he said his piece and got up to leave. But wait. Out came the waving of the religious posters in his face, the hoots and hollers. A complete disregard for what their fellow citizen had to say. This is after he sat there for hours listening to their statements.
The religious people in this county are something to be seen and heard. If they feel that you are not “with them’’ they wave posters in your face, they refuse to listen to your statement, they hoot and holler as you finish. They have no respect for anyone other than people who echo their own voices. Certainly they have no respect for their non-religious neighbors in Clark County. I can’t imagine what their parents taught them about interactions with other people. Or perhaps that’s what the religious teachings make a person do.
These are the same people who write disparaging letters to the editor complaining about our president not following their god’s rules. These letters, and they are many, are a disgrace to the newspaper editor who decides to print them and they are a disgrace to the newspaper which prints them. It is nothing better or more than a high school newspaper.
Vivian E. van Dijk
Brush Prairie
