LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Marriage has checkered history

I get a kick out of the many letters describing marriage as "between one man and one woman since the beginning of time."

How do these writers, particularly the Judeo-Christian among them, explain the plural wives - not counting the concubines - of Old Testament patriarchs Abraham, Esau and Jacob? And what about the far more nuptially facile post-Genesis heroes, David and Solomon?

Do these defenders of marriage as an ideal recall that wives were essentially the property of their husbands, unable to bring lawsuits in their own names, for instance, until relatively recently? Do they recall that consistent with the wives-as-property principle, a man in Oregon could not be prosecuted for raping his wife in Oregon until 30 years ago, because what would have been rape with a stranger was not illegal with his wife?

If your religious beliefs compel discrimination against the domestic relations of those who differ from you, then pass your measures. Please do not, however, foist your ideal of marriage as between one man and one woman since the beginning of time on the culture as if it had historic or religious validity.

If you want to protect your ideal, shut down wedding chapels that also sell gas and fast food, stop licensing Britney Spears and the Gabor sisters, punish adultery and outlaw divorce. Please stop behaving as if same-sex couples who want the legal rights granted to all six (or seven or eight) of Elizabeth Taylor's husbands are a threat.

DAVID O. WILSON

Eugene

Class distinctions are real

"The white man," said Sitting Bull, "knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it."

Our nation's wealth is unfairly distributed by a president brazenly servile to the monied elite. His handouts to the super wealthy clearly harm the desperately poor, the working poor and the middle class. The air, water, earth and even God's wild creatures are being poisoned and destroyed by his radical, warmongering, billionaire-enriching schemes.

Yet, in a recent letter, Herbert N. Nill, claiming to be insulted by references to the upper, middle or lower class, pontificates that "As Americans we're all first-class citizens and shouldn't be referred to in any other class distinction."

All first-class citizens? Tell it to the wage earner whose job has been outsourced, the dedicated public-school teacher in a crowded classroom, the single parent struggling to get an education, the emergency-room doctor and nurse working at a frenzied pace, the elderly who cannot afford medicine, the veterans begging on the streets, the homeless sleeping in dumpsters.

All first-class citizens? The term is comforting swill for dupes who swallow the deceptions of this "compassionate conservative," this "Christian" president who promotes these grotesque inequalities.

Our children will pay the price for our hiding behind blind faith, for our wearing the beautiful American flag as a blindfold, for our foolish, unfair, counterproductive unwillingness to promote the common good.

JEROME GARGER

Yachats

Economy influenced election

Middle America has something right. It is about the economy, and they voted accordingly. They understand that you cannot continue to knock the bottom out from under the economy and expect it to stand.

Think of the economy as an upside-down pyramid with the basic industries at the base. These are farming, fishing and mining, with ranching and logging included in farming. Then in the layer on top of these are the industries involved in manufacturing and distribution of these products. On top of these are the trades, the retail businesses, building trades and everyone involved in the distribution of these products. On top of these is a much bigger layer of people who provide services.

At the very top of this upside down pyramid is the 51 percent of all the people whose living comes from the taxes of the 49 percent of the workers holding them up.

Urbanites don't seem to understand that if you take away the bottom of this upside-down pyramid, it will fall, taking all those above with them. It's the economy, people! The midland of America understands this. The urbanites, Eugene included, think you can fix the economy from the top down. It can't be done.

We need to start teaching basic economy in our schools. Instead, we teach our children and young adults in our colleges that farming, ranching, logging and mining are all bad, and we no longer need them.

JUANITA BACHELDER

Cottage Grove 

One nation under the Taliban

Since the election, many pundits have commented on exit polls showing voters cited moral values as the most important issue in the campaign.

While people differ as to what the term moral values means, in this case the reference is clear. To the largely Christian, conservative, pro-Bush voters who cited it, moral values means restricting others: no to abortion, no to stem-cell research, no to sex education, no to gay rights, no to science that contradicts religious faith, no to women's rights.

This morality runs directly counter to another moral tradition that demands we relieve suffering and meet the needs of others less fortunate than ourselves by feeding, clothing, sheltering and healing them. After caring for them, we leave them free to make their own moral choices.

The economic agenda supported by the conservative moral voters will ensure that our collective ability to meet basic needs is restricted: no guaranteed retirement income for the elderly, no health care for the poor, no welfare for the hungry. These kinds of assistance will be left to the business and nonprofit sectors, while government - the institution responsive to citizens - is shrunk to irrelevance.

The voters have spoken. Their choice, President Bush, said Muslim extremists attacked us because we love freedom. He is working to repair that defect.

As a nation, we have chosen to embrace restriction over freedom in the name of morality. We are becoming a nation the Taliban can look upon with favor.

DON REYNOLDS

Eugene

Conservatives redefine selfish

In response to Ron Richey's Nov. 5 letter: When did conservatives become so selfish?

Well that's easy. When conservatives started advocating for the unborn, while systematically murdering women and children with their bombs. When they let personal gains outweigh personal responsibility. When their leaders lied, straight-faced, about the danger in Iraq. When they turned out, en masse, to vote them back into office.

When they find it acceptable to spew their agendas of hate across our airwaves and in our papers. When they invade foreign countries and wage holy wars. When they realized their spoon-fed children will be graded at the same standard as the common folk at the University of Oregon.

When their mega-corporate hospital chews them up and spits them out in order to chase even bigger and better profits. When they voted with their pocketbooks until our schools were stripped bare, when our police force was reduced to bare bones because three HDTVs were not enough, they needed a plasma.

When we discovered that good Christians could condone killing and still have superior family values. When a Republican created the biggest debt in history. Oh, and since we're throwing the right's favorite new suffix out like candy, from now on they can call themselves Christo-terrorists.

Enjoy the next four years; conservatives have earned them, for good or bad. It will be hard to scapegoat us Democrats after eight years of the moral majority. But we'll still have to clean up their mess.

RACHEL SNYDER

Eugene

Obama is Democrats' future

Being one of those liberals coming out of the Great Depression, overseas service in World War II and recovery under the New Deal, I feel the pain of the outcome of the recent national election.

Living on my Social Security retirement benefits, I am alarmed at the threat to a lifetime of hard work being wiped out by privatization under the current administration. The apparent outcome of the recent election is frightening evidence of our nation having been kidnapped by the corporate world.

One very bright spot in that election gives us old discontents some hope that maybe all is not lost. I refer to the overwhelming election of Barack Obama of Illinois to the United States Senate. His opponent, the Republican candidate Alan Keyes, focusing on the passage of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and outlawing abortions, was drubbed, getting only 30 percent of the vote.

Obama, who had keynoted the Democratic convention earlier in the year, seems like a most likely Democratic candidate for the presidency in the next national election. Someone needs to rescue our country before it goes down the tubes.

KARL G. SORG

Eugene

No need to mourn dead Iraqi

I'm so mad I could scream, which I have been doing periodically at the TV.

I can't believe that any red-blooded American could be angry over our soldier killing an unarmed Iraqi. Are people also sad when the Iraqis are beheading our countrymen? Our servicemen and women are defending our freedom, our country. Shouldn't we be thankful? I am!

I'm thankful that I live in a country where I can express myself, so that's what I'm doing. To everyone who feels sad for the dead Iraqi - go to Iraq (just to visit). Go tell them how sorry you are for them. Just make sure you have a firm grip on the head on your shoulders.

CHRISTY TAYLOR

Springfield