Airmen’s thinning ranks still deserve praise
My eternal gratitude to the Tuskegee Airmen who protected my B-24 bomber crew over 70 years ago. You done good!
JIM FLEMING, WWII CAPTAIN, U.S. ARMY AIR CORPS, CUMMING
Journalists don’t get religion
Leonard Pitts (“Paris attack wasn’t due to too much free speech,” Opinion, Jan. 18) joins other journalists who typically display their lack of understanding and ignorance of religious issues. He says the Pope got it wrong when he said one should not ridicule another’s faith.
Catholics believe God does not put limits on your free will to choose good or evil. However, if you are to be saved for eternity, Christ provides moral guidance to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. For example, don’t ridicule another’s faith. Considering the long line of Catholic martyrs exercising their freedoms, it’s incredulous Pitts does not recognize that which the Pope recognizes. Free speech goes hand-in-hand with freedom to practice religion, but has inherent, and oftentimes unjust, consequences.
Recognizing the Judeo-Christian heritage that underpins our laws and constitutional rights helps us to understand how the Islamic tradition is so strikingly different. Islamic terroristic acts may be abhorrent in the Western world, but in Islamic-dominated parts of the world, as one announcer stated, they are “righteous behavior.”
For the rest of the truth, the Pope specifically condemned ‘deviant’ religious interpretations that terrorists use to justify their acts in the name of God. He called upon Muslim leaders to condemn any extremist interpretations used to justify abhorrent violence.
BERWICK BABIN, DOUGLASVILLE
Cartoon’s black and white
Re: Mike Luckovich’s Jan. 16 cartoon:
Martin Luther was white. A German reformer who “protested” the Catholic church — Protestantism was born. Martin Luther King Jr. was black. An American reformer who peacefully protested for civil rights — helped improve American society. Barack Hussein Obama is of mixed race. A reformer who wants unequal and superior “rights” for blacks — all options for attaining these superior rights are on the table, whether civil or legal, and he has divided and retarded American’s social system.
HORACE SURLES, ALPHARETTA
One ‘Plan B’s’ been around awhile
Imagine our surprise when we read Charlie Harper’s disingenuous claim that we “appear to favor something while providing cover for doing nothing” (“Real solutions require hard choices,” Opinion, Jan. 20). Even more remarkable is that he criticizes “meaningless platitudes” while basing his judgment on one paragraph summarizing transportation ideas in a 500-word AJC op-ed summarizing our 2015 major policy ideas: “Optional tolls and an optional, more flexible local sales tax adds up to another $800 million a year in possible new funding targeted where the need is greatest and paid for by those who will benefit most.”
That summary is, in fact, based upon a 90-page study (http://reason.org/news/show/strategies-mobility-atlanta) our Foundation undertook with the Reason Foundation when the 2012 transportation sales tax referendum failed in metro Atlanta — and after the numerous times we heard, “There is no Plan B.”
It’s hardly constructive for Mr. Harper to respond to a comprehensive proposal after reading one paragraph and to allege, “this recommendation repeats the mistakes of 2010-2012.”
KELLY MCCUTCHEN, PRESIDENT, GEORGIA PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION
Others’ choices their business
Rev. Albert Mohler (” ‘Erotic liberty’ is precious,” Opinion, Jan. 18) fears that legalizing gay marriage “neutralizes religious liberty.” Actually, it does the opposite. Christian belief requires us to love one another, and legalizing marriage allows us the freedom to love one another, not just in permitting close physical relationships, but in fostering companionship and mutual responsibility. We may not always understand the choices other people make, but their choices are none of our business, unless what they do is personally harmful to us or others. Nearly 57 years ago, in my own Southern hometown, my decision to marry a “Yankee” was not highly regarded by some folks, one of whom warned me that “these mixed marriages will never work out.”
MARGARET CURTIS, ATLANTA
