In reference to Weston Kosova's article concerning our president's supposed lying ("Whoppers!," September 4), it is clear from the article that the author is biased. Why could you not write the same article without mentioning that George Bush is Republican? Is it because you want to show that you have to be Republican to lie? If President Bush has misspoken in the past, it is clearly because he did not have such creative speechwriters as his Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden.
However, I must agree with your point. President Bush should try to emulate the political integrity and honesty illustrated by the former Democratic leader of the House, Jim Wright. Now there was a man beyond reproach. (Why did he quit, anyway?)
Kosova is quick to call Bush a liar because he is a Republican, but remember, the public would rather elect a liar (and indeed will re-elect one) than face another four years of Democratic ineptness and wanton waste like we experienced in the late Seventies.
Bruce Budwig
Miami
GUARANTEED WEIGHT-LOSS PLAN: TAKE TWO WHOPPERS BEFORE MEALS
Reading "Whoppers!" has ruined my lunch today. It's not that the article recounting George Bush's lies exposed anything new to me, but it disturbs me to think that since you devoted so much space to this, perhaps the population is unaware of the situation. So on that account, you are to be commended.
Another thought comes to mind, however. As much as I dislike the policies of the president and the Republican Party, I wouldn't mind them so much if they were used to improve the problems we face here. Just think how effective Mr. Bush could be in a war on crime, for example, if he were to wage one.
I don't consider George Bush to be a president as such, but more of a "benevolent dictator" whose priorities do not match mine.
Michael Arak
Miami
STRIKE ONE!
Your article about Greg Baldwin, "Politics and Power," was excellent and informative. T.J. Callahan's letter (August 28), however, was the usual tired paranoid-reaction formation and name-calling voiced by bigots afraid of any group of human beings different from Callahan and his (or her) cohorts.
In the media-overloaded world of Nineties America, I find it unbelievable that any adult would fail to notice that all groups of people are not treated equally regardless of the human freedoms granted to all people by the Bill of Rights.
The groups of humanity outside the white Christian heterosexual male majority are not asking for "special treatment or attention" or "additional rights." Those things could only truly occur after the reality of living with equal rights. Minority groups fight for any attention or treatment to actualize this reality of equal rights without distortion, discrimination, bigotry, or hatred.
Furthermore, from what lofty field of expertise does T.J. Callahan judge "biological correctness," or equate sex between consenting adults with such vastly different situations as necrophilia, bestiality, or pedophilia?
K.G. Gibson
Miami
STRIKE TWO!
I would like to respond to T.J. Callahan's letter by saying that homosexuality is not a choice or a sexual issue. I do not have any more choice than Mr. Callahan as to who I am in love with. Furthermore, I am not asking him to condone my sex life any more than I would condone his.
It is completely unfair for gays and lesbians not to be allowed to marry or enter into other legal, financial, and emotional commitments simply because they are of the same sex. Maybe Mr. Callahan has never felt discrimination or prejudice the way I have. Personally, I'm tired of prejudiced people like Mr. Callahan confusing sexual orientation with sexual perversion.
Ophelia Staton
Miami
STRIKE THREE, AND CALLAHAN FANS!
I want to thank T.J. Callahan for his letter concerning the Dade Action PAC. Mr. Callahan has eloquently summed up one of the leading misconceptions many heterosexuals have about the gay and lesbian community and what we want.
We do not want any "special consideration or additional rights" or any form of "supremacy" as Mr. Callahan suggests. This is the same kind of stuff we heard from the segregationists about black people when the Civil Rights Act was pending before Congress in the Sixties, and it's untrue now just as it was back then.
We do not ask anyone to "approve" our lifestyle, nor do we seek any rewards for being gay or lesbian. All we want is equality under the law, the very same rights and protections already afforded all other citizens of this state.
Mr. Callahan thinks I "chose" to be gay and that therefore it's okay for the police to call me names, for me to be fired from my job or denied a security clearance. Frankly, I have no idea why I am gay. One thing I do know, however, and contrary to what Mr. Callahan thinks, is that I never made a decision to just one day become gay instead of heterosexual. I just happen to be gay, the same way a person happens to be white, black, Jewish, Hispanic, or whatever. The only choices I ever made on this subject were to accept myself as a gay man and not to cower in a closet for the rest of my life.
Besides, even if being lesbian or gay were a choice, so what? One's religion is a matter of choice, yet we routinely prohibit discrimination on that basis, don't we?
We in Dade Action PAC do not picture ourselves as people who are "gay first who just happen to be human beings," as Mr. Callahan says. We picture ourselves as human beings period, and as human beings we want equal rights under the law with everyone else.
Gregory A. Baldwin, chair
Dade Action
