Letters 04-18-2016

April 15, 2016

Fairness Legislation

North Carolina’s new law aimed at blocking anti-discrimination rules for the LGBT community requires transgender people to use public restrooms that match their biological gender.

Let’s see how this would work in actual practice. A transgender male who dresses like a woman would have to enter a men’s public restroom, or a transgender female who looks like a man would have to use a women’s public restroom. See any problems here?

Now, in order to prevent a transgender male dressed as a woman from entering a women’s restroom, a guard would have to be stationed at a strip search booth in front of every women’s public restroom, and then trust the search would not be frustrated by the surgical alteration that some transgender men undergo.

And then there is the problem of hiring suitable strip search guards who, even though being of static gender, may have applied for the job out of some unnatural deviant motivations.

Perhaps a simpler solution might be to eliminate all public restrooms, and resort to the universal use of urinary catheters.

But the best solution of all would be the requirement that all politicians stop introducing mindless legislation that has as its only practical purpose the attempted acquisition of right-wing votes.

Bob Ross, Pellston

The Ironic Fall Of Trump

Citizen A plans a murder, contracts with a hitman, names the date, drives the getaway car, enters the scene of the crime, cooperates with the hitman in every way except for the actual pulling of the trigger, and drives away.

Is Citizen A in any way guilty?

No, not if the crime is abortion, which the pro-life movement defines as the taking of innocent life. Though pro-lifers wish to criminalize abortion, it seems that the most severe punishment for a key perpetrator is deep remorse (optional), a standard by which thousands of criminals currently behind bars would dearly love to be judged.

How ironic that Donald Trump, the king of irrationality, might be toppled in no small measure because he vocalized the irrefutably logical assumption that, should abortion become illegal, the woman who orders and facilitates the crime should bear at least some of the criminal responsibility for its commission. Ted ("abortion is murder, no exception for rape") Cruz is way too smart to be logical. His arguments against holding women responsible, as well as his disingenuous arguments in opposition to peer-reviewed climate change science and in favor of shamefully transparent "voter fraud" legislation, demonstrate the political acumen of the savvy senator from Texas.

Unlike the hapless Mr. Trump, Ted Cruz fully understands the critical importance of intellectual dishonesty in this Republican primary season.

Bill Smith, Traverse City