Letters

Celebrate but prepare

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Someone for whom I have a lot of respect recently suggested I write less about what I do and more about what I think of the issues of the day. I’m fine with that, although I think people’s general yearning to separate what they do—how they act—from what they think is a big part of what’s wrong with humanity in general and this country in particular.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal, and the country reacted as expected, exploding in rainbows and hate rhetoric. Presidential candidates rushed to politicize it. Obama, of course, took credit for the ruling, and I have to think that if he had just left it alone, instead of immediately giving the opposition party something to be against, our country could have moved more easily toward unity.

I’m all for celebrating it, but it’s only a small step. To be clear, this ruling only affects the gay people who have already gotten married or want to get married. It’s as was said before, “If you don’t want to get gay married, don’t marry someone of the same sex.” It has no bearing on the vast majority of Americans.

In the meantime, broader battles go on. Gay people can still be fired from their jobs in 29 states for loving the wrong person. There is no federal law protecting LGBT workers against workplace discrimination. I barely need to mention that women don’t have guaranteed equality in the workplace.

LGBT people can be discriminated against in housing in most states, with landlords having the right not to rent to gay people— often because somebody else’s orientation violates their religious tenets. Or let’s talk about adoptions by gay couples.

Are you familiar with the term “dog whistle”? It’s a word or phrase that has a different meaning to some individuals than others. I hear the phrase “marriage equality” used in sentences with “attack on religious freedom” like a shrill squeal echoing back from the future.

It’s been the RN&R’s policy to call “same-sex marriage,” “marriage” for a while now. Celebrate the marriage decision but get prepared. The big battles are yet to be fought. —D. Brian Burghart brianb@newsreview.com

I feel irritated

Re “How do you really feel?” (Letters to the Editor, June 25):

This is sort of in line with “How do you really feel” regarding Homeland Security. Recently, I had the displeasure of picking up my 16-year-old daughter from the airport. I got a call from her mom explaining that her cell phone battery was dead but that she would meet me at the pickup area near baggage claim. I arrived there five minutes before the scheduled arrival of her flight and parked (staying with my vehicle as I have done several times before).

I was immediately approached by a security person who asked what my business was. I gave her the flight number, the time of arrival, and the explanation that my minor daughter was expecting to meet me at this place. Her curt reply was “You cannot stay here, the flight is running 20 minutes late.” I could park in a holding area about a half-mile from the terminal or in the garage and go inside.

There were no other vehicles in the area but several visible security guards. I amiably agreed to move, tried to find the holding area—called the cell phone waiting area—and ended up on 395 N. I took my time, stopped at a mini-mart and after about 20 minutes, returned to the airport pickup area.

Again I was immediately approached by a security person telling me that the wheels had just touched down and that I could wait in the cell phone area or park for free in the garage for 10 minutes. I asked what the criteria was as to when I could be there and was told “as soon as they start picking bags from the carrousel.”

To me this smacks of a greedy police state mentality. Firstly, how is one to know, to the second, when the bags have arrived? Secondly, 10 minutes—come on, this is obviously a way to generate money from parking in that it takes more than 10 minutes to walk from the garage and back (excluding meeting someone and getting their bags). I explained that I didn’t want to park a half-mile away nor pay their parking fees but that I’d just keep driving. I made five circuits of the airport loop, waving at the security people each time around, and finally saw my daughter.

At that point we were “actively loading” the vehicle and after a couple of slightly verbose comments about bureaucratic idiots, we drove away. I realize it’s not the guards’ fault. They just have a job to do. What if I had missed my daughter and something untoward had happened? Could there have been a lawsuit involved? How would a court view this? They tend to guard children’s rights tenaciously. How much federal money is wasted on this ridiculous, questionable security? The real question is, are these laws guarding or violating our security? John Bogle Reno

Abject terror

Why are the RGJ and RN&R scared of Sam Dehne? Legendary government watchdog Sam Dehne has more spunk, gumption and moxie than all the bureaucrats and media mouses added together. He proves it on the battlefields for 20 years. But the fear and envy of Dehne by the media mouses and their government bosses are destroying Reno. Watch Dehne in action: Live, extemporaneous and philanthropic.

Sam Dehne Reno

Editor’s note: It’s not fear, Sam. It’s awe.

Art in Artown?

Re “Single entendres” (Artown supplement, June 26):

Wow, some visual art in Artown! So excited, most visual art in this event is not worth looking at. Art in the Hood is fun, but since it’s pretty well-curated, it isn’t anything that is ground breaking. This looks like it could be very interesting. Kathy Letourneau Reno

Who’s smearing?

Re “Kindness counts” (Editorial, June 25):

As usual—and ever so predictably—the screaming meemies in the liberal media are concentrating on issues completely irrelevant to the subject at hand. The issue about the recent church killings in Charlotte, South Carolina, has absolutely nothing to do with a flag that was used as a backdrop by the deranged little piece-of-shit murderer. It wasn’t the flag that killed the Bible study group. It wasn’t the gun that killed the Bible study group.

It was a little pissant, candyassed doper millennial who was mollycoddled by Gen-X parents who killed the Bible study group. Nearly all of the attention has been placed on gun control and/or flag control as if somehow remedying the same prior to the incident would have made a difference. The only thing that would have made a difference in this case would have been the presence of a concealed weapon carried by a law-abiding worshiper during the Bible study group, and absolutely nothing else.

“Pre-intervention psychology intervention” would have been less than useless. Taking a flag down from a state capitol wouldn’t have modified the outcome one iota. Passing more laws—any laws ... would have been non-consequential. The answer is not gun control. Can’t happen here—pure and simple. The answer is more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens and the eradication of “gun free zones.” Go ahead and question the veracity of the above and try to hang a “gun-nut, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal” label on yours truly. This is the modus operandi of nearly all knee-jerk, panty-waist progressives: “Don’t argue the merits of the message ... just smear the messenger.” Try to overcome your preconceived notions of “what is right for Amerikka” however, and ask yourself the following: How many family members of those murdered would have preferred that there was present on site another gun carrying individual the night of the shooting? Game, set, and match ... to the Neanderthal!

K. R. Kollman Reno

Nice to be nice

Re “Kindness counts” (Editorial, June 25):

Whomever wrote this beautiful article should proudly sign their name to it and take some welldeserved credit! I, too, wish everyone would be a little nicer to one another! Melynda Mall Sparks

Money matters

Re “Going free” (Arts & Culture, June 18):

I was never a member of the Church of Scientology. When I discovered Hubbard’s tech in 1981, I knew there was something happening with it. So my dilemma was how to get the benefits of the auditing technology without becoming a card-carrying Scientologist. I found another renegade, and we co-audited to clear between 1982-1984. In 1984, the beginnings of the independent (now the Freezone) happened, to which I quickly aligned. Over the years as a CL-VIII trained therapist, I developed what is known as the “Scientology Completion Rundown,” an exit-counseling procedure designed to assist former CofS members disentangle from the Church of Scientology mess they’ve found themselves in. At Freezone San Francisco we offer a free session to former Scientology members wishing to put their lives back together. What’s wrong with Scientology is not the technology, it is the suppressive organization that wrested control of the church away from L. Ron Hubbard while he was in hiding. Most of the auditing procedures are more powerful than ever when delivered outside the suppressive dominion of the Church of Scientology.

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