All " Levitical picking and choosing " is local !

Children need to live in nurturing homes

Letters to the editor - San Angelo Standard Times

July 21, 2006
Editor:

Apparently I missed the fireworks while celebrating my parent's 50th anniversary in Virginia. In addition to the usually outstanding Pops concert and the annual trashing of Twin Buttes Reservoir, Ty Meighan wrote a column on legislative efforts to restrict gays serving as foster parents. I did get back in time to read Ken and Cheryl Rindeikis' response.
My wife and I know several gay couples who have raised children or are planning to do so. One couple is adopting an orphan while the other has three grown children, all heterosexual, all married professionals.
Might Meighan's point have been ''why reduce the pool of loving, caring parents for foster children in need?'' Our friends planning to adopt will provide a loving, nurturing home to a child in need.
The now grown children in the other family experienced a different form of abuse than Meighan described.
As little more than toddlers, they witnessed their father beat their mother so badly she permanently lost hearing in one ear.
The mother fled with her brood for their lives. Later she entered into a long-term committed lesbian relationship. This relationship cannot be legally recognized in Texas thanks to current law and the Texas Constitutional amendment passed overwhelmingly by 16 percent of eligible voters last fall.
I know of no parents who engage in sex in front of their children. Likewise, I know of no children who desire to watch their parents have sex. Most find the mention of this possibility beyond unpleasant.
The Rindeikis' letter is based on assumptions as to how people become gay and why their lifestyle is ''unnatural.'' My wife and I find our friends to be completely natural; after all, we grew up with them. One of them is my sister.
They stand as two data points that contradict Rindeikis' assertions. They're loving persons and wonderful parents. From my perspective, they are also loved children of God, made just as they are by our creator. That the Rindeikis' cannot see that is unfortunate.

They pick and choose from Levitical laws what should apply in modern times and what should not.

They say their position is Bible based, yet Christ never condemned homosexuality. Many ministers look at the word of God and come to different conclusions. My father is one of them.
Today, a significant number of our elected leaders think like the Rindeikis. Just last fall the Republican Party worked hard to make Texas safe from the specter of gay marriage.
I guess the logic is if you aren't good enough to marry, you aren't good enough to parent. How might this hurt the people who need help the most, the foster children ? Bless them all that they may find loving homes.

Alan Prest
San Angelo

source: http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/news_opinion_letters/article/0,1897,SAST_10318_4859319,00.html
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Children should be in safe homes
July 23, 2006

Editor:

If you start a journey with a faulty roadmap, you're likely to end up in the wrong place. Similarly, if you start a logical argument with a faulty premise, you're likely to end up with a wrong conclusion. In his letter July 9, Robert Gaston started his argument against allowing homosexual couples in the foster parent pool with not one, but two, faulty premises.

First, he assumes all homosexuals are promiscuous and likely sexual predators of children. Since I have known homosexuals who are neither, this premise is false. Second, he assumes all heterosexuals are not promiscuous and not likely sexual predators of children. One has only to read the paper or watch TV news to know that this, sadly, is also false.

Before I came to San Angelo, I was a family counselor at two drug and alcohol rehab centers for about five years. I facilitated weekly group sessions with family members of patients in rehab. I got to know the ''significant other'' of half a dozen or so homosexuals. They were in long-term monogamous relationships. They were more faithful to their ''other'' than many heterosexual family members I knew in this job.

It is never appropriate to say that ''all'' of any group have a particular characteristic. When dealing with foster parent applicants, it is important to deal with each applicant as an individual. I'm all for foster children being in ''safe'' homes. This requires Child Protective Services to have the resources to evaluate each applicant on their fitness to be a foster parent. Some homosexuals would fail such a fitness test, as would some heterosexuals. But it is equally certain that some homosexuals would pass that test, and it would be stupid to keep them out of the ''pool'' just because some people are homophobic.

Mitchell Krasny

San Angelo

source: http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/news_opinion_letters/article/0,1897,SAST_10318_4864820,00.html