A candidate’s religion should be a non-issue
The days of “my religion is better than your religion” should be over by now — let alone “my form of Christianity is better than your form of Christianity.” There seems to be a lot of hand-wringing these days about the possibility of Mitt Romney (a Mormon) being elected president — and it has gotten downright nasty in some circles.
I’m fortunate to remember when John F. Kennedy was elected president. There were a lot of folks acting crazy because they thought he would be taking orders from the pope. (I think it wasn’t long ago that people were saying, “A black man as president? It’ll never happen.”)
It seems like religious bigotry should be behind us. Maybe it’s not, but I hope there’s about 80 percent of the population out there willing to give a candidate a chance — not based on his or her religion, but on that person’s actions, words and experience.
Jim Greenwood, Acworth
Bookman’s criticism of GOP legislators correct
Jay Bookman has it exactly right when he writes about Georgia’s Republican-run government focusing on making the state more business- friendly (“State must work on weakest points first,” Opinion, Jan. 4) .
While other states have focused on mass transit and more efficient infrastructure, Georgia politicians have ignored those things in favor of advancing their ideological agendas (such as immigration laws and voter ID). In Washington, the Republican House has stopped the White House at almost every turn. If a Republican majority in Georgia can’t do anything to help our state, what will a Republican president be able to do in Washington?
It’s time to focus on the path that Jimmy Carter started us on. It’s time to stop coddling banks and corporations, and to start holding them accountable. It’s time to preserve our natural resources. It’s time to look at the real cost of gasoline (but that’s for another letter).
Michael de Give, Decatur
‘The pigs have come back to the trough’
Dan Chapman’s article “Georgians on the hook for failed ethanol facility” (News, Jan. 5) almost made my teeth fall out. LanzaTech bought the remains of an ethanol facility that lost millions of taxpayer and investor dollars. They will seek more federal subsidies. The pigs have come back to the trough.
I saved a past email news release from Sen. Johnny Isakson’s office extolling the plant for creating jobs. Former Gov. Sonny Perdue presided over the groundbreaking for Range Fuels. Will Gov. Nathan Deal preside over the new groundbreaking for Lanza-Tech like he presided over the grand opening for ZF Wind Power last year? No renewable energy source can survive without subsidies.
Jim Rust, Atlanta
