Letters the week of 6/10/04

Fight asphalt nation

Ari Armstong's "TaxTracks" paralleled the opinions of the Independence Institute, which advocates the continuation of our dependence on the auto-culture, a societal and ecological menace that our corporate overlords are exporting around the world (Liberty Beat, May 27). With concerns about climate change, destruction of wilderness, congestion, insurance and maintenance costs, a daily body count from accidents, etc., it's good to see that FasTracks is offering an option to the four-wheeled yokes GM and Exxon executives would like around everybody's neck.

Armstrong's assertion that only "economic illiterates" are lured by FasTracks' job creation is amusing, as there is hardly a functioning segment of our "free market" that isn't heavily subsidized-aeronautics, agriculture, electronics, computers, military (which comes in handy for our oil habit), mining and transportation. Simply to maintain U.S. roads in their current condition costs $25 billion per year, and we're spending $60 billion per year to widen existing roads and build new ones. Moreover, low-density community design (sprawl) has worked to further entrench our dependence on cars and secure increased earnings for narrow business interests that actively subvert public transit and "new urbanism" that would give people pedestrian and biking options. On a global scale, institutions like the World Bank subsidize massive road projects into regions like the Amazon, destroying ecosystems and indigenous culture.

Lost in the endless images of joy, freedom and security that car ads construct is the reality of road rage, car payments and worldwide traffic fatalities of nearly one million per year (quintuple that number for the injuries). Free people will recognize that they can develop options; FasTracks is one of these, and efforts like the Apollo Alliance are advancing many more. Jane Holtz Kay's book Asphalt Nation and organizations like the Alliance for a Paving Moratorium are valuable resources to burn the illusions that endless marketing and misinformation campaigns create.

Preston Enright/Denver

A+ for us

(Re: "Should CSAP get a failing grade?" news, May 20.) Thank you for the fantastic article on CSAP! You are awesome!

Carol Carminati/via Internet

How many rights?

(Re: "A perfect union," cover story, May 20.) Joel Warner repeatedly informed us that marriage confers exactly 1,138 "rights" that are therefore implicitly denied to homosexual aspirants. That's an awful lot of "rights" to be conferred by one simple ceremony. (You couldn't even read them aloud without seriously cutting into the reception and honeymoon!) Indeed, I'm surprised some divorce lawyer hasn't invoked the "blind aspects" of such a contract at some point in the long, long history of such proceedings. ("My client wasn't aware of Obligation 678 when he entered into this arrangement, therefore it should be rendered null and void...")

Could you please print or provide a source for these rights? With that many "benefits" available I might even consider marrying the mother of my son. On the other hand, the exactness, and the size, of that number makes me think of the late, great Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. (It's great that he's "late"!) I refer specifically to his infamous statement that "I have in my hand 57 cases of [communists in government]." As it turned out he had nothing specific either in his hand or his briefcase. Imagine if somebody had actually called him on that at the time. "Open the briefcase and show us the names, senator. You obviously aren't concerned about privacy or propriety so back up your statement!"

So, please, let us know exactly  what all these "rights" are-all one thousand, one hundred and thirty-eight. Or did Mr. Warner just pull that number out of his ass because a precise count sounds so much like a fact as to be unassailable? Then at least we can assess Mr. Warner as either an honest broker in this imbroglio or dismiss him as just another demagogue wannabee with this issue as his ticket to infamy.

Jeffrey H. Miller/Saguache, Colo.

(Editor's note: To see the January 2004 report by the United States General Accounting Office outlining the 1,138 federal statutory provisions in which benefits, rights and privileges are contingent upon marital status, go to www.nclrights.org/publications/pubs/2004GAO.pdf)

Aaron and marriage

(Re: "Marriage RIP," Consider This, May 20.) There are many people in the world whose thinking is muddled and incoherent, but the bizarre column by Thomas Aaron on gay marriage stands out. Surely in a town this size with a major university it would be possible for the Boulder Weekly to find someone to write an opinion on a subject that isn't based on sheer bigotry and misinformation.

Aaron bases his anti-gay marriage opinions on a mishmash of completely unsubstantiated hearsay and conjecture, and the fact that one Christian he knows converted to heterosexuality. But if you actually look at the studies, most of what Aaron claims is wrong. For instance, you can turn to a very standard textbook, Pyschology, by Hockenbury and Hockenbury, which backs everything up with studies of thousands of men and women. It has been proven that homosexuality is NOT caused by unpleasant heterosexual experiences or abuse, or any abnormal relationships between parent and child. Sexual orientation is determined long before beginning sexual activity, and once established, is highly resistant to change (Pages 428-430).

I wonder if Aaron has ever been around children. I knew a little boy, around age 3, who, every day when he arrived at preschool, headed immediately for the dress-up box and a particular pink dress. His straight Dad couldn't bear it and in public refused even to go near the child. I also know a lesbian couple with a son who liked dresses from an early age. But they treated him lovingly and with respect, even though their tastes run more toward football and baseball. In the long run I wonder who will have an easier time-the child whose father rejects him for who he is, or the one whose parents are loving and accepting? Among our friends, a few gay couples (of both sexes) have had the longest and happiest relationships of anyone we know.

A satire in the New Yorker magazine showed the obvious fallacy of Aaron's type of (non) thinking. The author suggested that only truly manly men should be allowed to marry only really feminine women. This makes as much sense as Aaron's ridiculous statements about the slippery slope downhill toward incest and polygamy.

Finally Aaron's words on postmodernism are as sloppy and lacking in substance as his rant about gay marriage.

Joan Harvey/Boulder

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