Love is love
This is in response to a letter from a Johann Christoph Arnold in last week’s Saugerties Times where he asks in his letter, “I wonder how happy these (gay) couples are,” referring to the recent approval of same sex couples being able get married in New York State.
Well I will tell him they are very happy, as any couple would be who truly love each other would be to have their relationship acknowledged. All I can say is it’s about time.
This “pastor” goes on the say that recognizing same sex couples will “confuse” and give “emotional trauma” to our children. Perhaps he would rather our young people who are struggling with their own sexual identity who are most likely gay, commit suicide rather than deal with being gay. I’m curious to know what he says the “lies” are that are being proclaimed as truth? That gay people shouldn’t be accepted as created and loved by God? I don’t know which God he is referring to then.
I am a 72-year-old gay man who just celebrated my 13th anniversary with a very loving partner. I feel very fortunate to have recognized who I was at an early age while I was in art school. So I feel I am one of the lucky ones who was very accepted by my family and business associates for who I am.
I feel if it were up to people like Pastor Arnold we would retreat back to pre-Stonewall days.
Mark Smith
Saugerties
Thanks from the animal shelter
On behalf of the staff of the Town of Saugerties Animal Shelter, I would like to thank the following groups for their generous donations to the shelter for the benefit of the pets that are housed there while waiting for new homes:
The staff and workers at the Ulster-Greene ARC in Kingston, the leaders, members and parents of Saugerties Girl Scout Troop #60009 and the staff and students of the Cahill Elementary School. All contributed food, toys, blankets and many other items to the shelter.
It is encouraging and heartwarming to have the support of groups such as these that continually give support to our facility Bless you all for caring.
Marie Post
Shelter manager
Different sort of debt crisis
What seems to be missing in the recent “debt crisis” debate is the question of America’s priorities. Do we really value life? Patriotic fervor and revenge has our children killing and dying in faraway lands. Thousands are maimed psychologically and physically. Back at home, politicians and corporate profiteers never allow us to see the real carnage we have caused. Americans have a debt more toxic than the trillions in loans that fund these oppressive wars. We have a moral debt to our children to end the madness of Afghanistan.
David Radovanovic
Saugerties
Quotable quotes
A few more tidbits to think about from one of the people who brought you the United States,
Thomas Jefferson:
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
Barbara Terwilliger Ambrosano
Saugerties
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