LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Homosexuality is biological

Ron Richey's May 15 letter says homosexuals' rights aren't violated when their marriages are annulled or denied because they are free to marry someone of the opposite sex.

True, consenting people of opposite sexes can marry, be it for money, a green card, health care benefits, as a cover for homosexuality or on a drunken whim in Las Vegas. None of these reasons is to "produce children and raise them as a family," which Richey claims is the sole purpose of marriage. So why should two loving adults who want a family be denied this right?

The only studies showing early environment is the dominant factor in sexual orientation are done by crackpots with an agenda. Ask Vice President Dick Cheney and Alan Keyes what they did to turn their daughters gay. If environment is truly the cause, then why aren't all their children gay?

Actual scientists at the American Psychological Association, using real scientific evidence, have concluded that homosexuality is rooted in biology. Furthermore, a recent Swedish study showed that homosexual men respond to male pheromones as women do, with no response to female pheromones, bolstering the evidence that homosexuality is rooted in physiological makeup.

In 1967, those wacky activist judges on the Supreme Court declared interracial marriage bans unconstitutional while bigots argued that crossbreeding was against nature and damaging to biracial children. Today, that position is universally ridiculed. In time, Richey's position will be, too.

IRIS McCANLESS

Corvallis

Christians aren't persecuted

There seems to be an ever-increasing number of letters in the Mailbag from Christian readers expressing feelings of victimization, of societal and political exclusion and, in a few histrionic cases, of being persecuted by the population at large.

I've not actually heard of any Christian churches being burned to the ground by angry mobs lately, or of any decent, God-fearing worshippers being stoned to death by gays, or of any church that excluded significant numbers of its parish for voting for John Kerry losing its tax-exempt status.

Apparently, if individuals in our community happen to formulate, through life experience, a world view that does not adhere to the rules of an utterly confused playbook, a terrible threat to the stability of society is at hand. Yeah. As if.

So after a thousand years of dominating the Western Hemisphere by the sword and the rack, now all of a sudden, turnabout is no longer fair play? I often wish that those who think that nonbelievers should be made to be believers, at whatever cost, would just come out and say it, rather than play the victim card.

Maybe they could form their own little cult or something.

HILARY JONES 

Eugene

'Choose life' isn't just religious

Russell Sadler, in his pro-choice diatribe titled "Church-state divide has deep roots" (Register-Guard, May 16), declares that all this "silliness" over optional license plates would be solved if their supporters would just read the Oregon Constitution.

Well, I guess the feeling is mutual, because I have no idea how optionally supporting groups that promote adoption with a "choose life" license plate relates in any way to aiding religious services or benefiting religious or theological institutions. Apparently, in Sadler's world view any group that does not approve of abortion is, by definition, a religious institution. Furthermore, he makes sure to state that these groups receive generous contributions from churches, as if somehow this should disqualify them from receiving proceeds from an optional license plate fee.

Upon reflection, what really disturbs me is that this article has nothing to do with the church-state divide at all, but it has everything to do with abortion. This is yet another case of the pro-choice left trying to lead people to believe that supporting life over death is not appropriate because of their brilliant constitutional arguments. The fact that religious people tend to have a negative view of abortion does not make the issue of abortion explicitly religious.

The very same people who wrote the Oregon Constitution as quoted in Sadler's article did not support abortion. In fact, abortion in Oregon wasn't fully legalized until the 1970s.

CHRIS SCHUMACHER

Eugene

Freeze Oregon college tuition

Tuition for Oregon universities has risen 48 percent in the last four years. This year, along with thousands of other college students, I paid more than $5,000 in tuition. This is $1,500 more than students paid just three years ago.

Students and some legislators in Salem have been working together to create a much-needed tuition freeze for the next two years. If nothing is done to slow the rise, tuition will become unaffordable, and higher education will no longer be an option for thousands of students.

I come from a middle class family and have to take out thousands of dollars in loans even after working year-round and receiving help from my parents. Many students have to work more than they go to school and are forced to take fewer credits than normal. They have to attend school for six or seven years just to get a degree.

By raising college tuition at such an extreme rate, legislators are telling Oregonians that they do not value higher education. The tuition freeze would not be a solution to this problem, but it would stop the rise for a short period of time.

If we are not able to give students a small tuition freeze now, higher education will no longer be an option for thousands of students in the future.

KALENE ARDT 

Eugene

Taxes wrong fix for retirement

Well, here it comes, the solution to all our problems. It comes from Robert Rubinstein (letters, May 15): Just raise the taxes and take more of the people's money. Let's not help the people to save the money themselves by putting it in their own personal retirement savings accounts, because that would keep the money out of the government's hands, and we all know the government knows how best to take care of us all.

The thought is that only millionaire CEOs, rock stars and movie stars are the ones making more than $90,000 a year - not the guy who runs the construction company in town or who owns the nearby feed store. And if these people aren't even going to need or get their Social Security benefits later on, wouldn't it be the fairer thing to say they shouldn't have to pay into it at all instead of saying they should be made to pay more?

Then there is the idea that the government should pay back all the money it has borrowed. How, exactly, will the government do that? The only way the government gets any money is to tax people. So what are we - I say we, because we are the government - going to do? Pay more taxes so we can pay Social Security back, so we might have a chance at getting some of that money back when we are 70 or 80?

I don't know if Social Security can be fixed, but I do know it isn't going to be fixed if we use it to attack and punish people for doing better than us.

JOE RIMBECK

Eugene

Gender identity can be complex

Recent public testimony and letters to the editor have shown that one group of people believes that they were born with the body of one gender and the mind and personality of the other gender. Another group claims that gender change is simply a personal desire and that people are born with one gender and that's that.

One group of people has been ig- nored.

Annually, in the United States, 10,000 babies are born with anomalous gender. The baby's gender is not clearly defined at birth. Some have both sets of genitalia, more or less complete; others have the internal organs of one gender but the external organs of the other; and some have no genitalia or malformed genitalia of either or both genders.

These babies are usually surgically assigned a gender, most often turned into little girls because the operation is easier. Sometimes this is the right choice; sometimes it's not.

Sometimes the little girl grows up to be a happy, well-adjusted woman. But on other occasions the realization occurs that there's a boy's brain inside a little girl's body and the mistake is corrected. The surgical and hormonal changes are made, restoring the boy to his proper gender.

Given this evidence, why is it so hard to believe that a person's true gender can be different from their body? Any law or policy that we're considering must consider the existence of such people.

Arguments by superstitious, ignorant people about gender anomalies being a choice are thoroughly discredited by these people.

WAYNE FORD

Eugene

People aren't born criminals

I would like to see some attention given to mending the source of problems instead of treating symptoms - those criminals filling up our court system, jails and prisons.

I believe we have to ask some fundamental questions: Why do people commit crimes? What can we do to foster a community where people don't resort to drugs? How can we reduce alcohol abuse, which will lead to fewer drunk drivers on our roads?

What can we do to help troubled families before the domestic violence starts or before the addict father passes out with his baby in the car? How do we identify the people with sex issues before the neighbor sees them masturbating in the park?

Not to punish, but to see them get help - real, positive help. That is what makes a community safer - helping people, not hiding them away after someone gets hurt.

I don't have answers to these questions, but it seems to me when we come at issues from a place of fear, when we throw our money at programs that hide away the results of a broken community, all we create are more reasons to be afraid.

People aren't born criminals. The best way to relieve overcrowded jails and the overburdened district attorney's office is to correct the conditions that create criminals.

KRISTI CRAMER

Springfield