You've got to visit his Anoka County page - I love the barking bulldog you have to click on to enter. Classic Watchdog. And of course, if you access the link above, you'll find that Mr. Hamilton took exception to my views on Andover Representative Peggy Scott and Andover Council candidates James Goodrich and Val Holthus - I like Holthus, he doesn't. I don't like Goodrich. He does.
Like Mike Jensen of Anoka, who reviewed my own history in a recent Letter to the Editor, Henry goes into detail about me, too. Seemingly, it's only preferable to be rich entrepreneurs and businessmen, or the people working for people like Henry Hamilton, in Henry's world. Not so, hardworking public employees like Teachers and Social Workers and Child Support Officers and Snow Plow Drivers and Revenue Office Agents and Mental Health Professionals and Planners and Financial Workers and Librarians - especially those who made it a point to be activists in their unions working to get better wages, benefits and contract provisions that help employees perform their work in safe, secure environments. He raises up and stresses that Val Holthus and I belong to Education Minnesota and AFSCME, respectively, as if our union membership makes us somehow criminals for fighting on behalf of our fellow employees. As if those who work in public jobs should only settle for wage crumbs with no protection from being terminated every time as new party takes office and wants to dispense political favors to friends and family - you know, like the good old days in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Well, I'm proud to have been a member of both teacher associations and AFSCME throughout the 35+ years I've been part of the middle class workforce, Mr. Hamilton. I've been proud to be a part of the public employee payroll. I didn't set out to be rich. I set out to help people - first as a teacher and later working in the public assistance system in Minnesota. There are far more people in this world who need our help, Henry Hamilton, than the One-Percenters like you, and I'm just one of many who chose to work in service to others - and expect to be paid our worth, to be safe at work, and to be protected from willful employers.
Gene Hodel, a Republican from SD 31 in Oak Grove, pushed my buttons this week. In a Letter to the Editor in the ABS Newspapers, Hodel wrote:
"Our Creator set the foundation of moral behavior. The Democratic party represented by their current platform and their history are on the wrong side of most moral issues. The social conservative side, represented by the Republican party is not without its flaws, but on most of these moral issues the Republican platform is correct.
Of course, it if you think it is a woman’s on demand “right”, to kill the human being inside of her, then you would vote for the Democrats. If you think that an active gay life style does not accelerate sexual diseases, bad influence on the youth and broken lives, then you would vote for the Democrats. If you think that gay marriage is the same as a marriage between a man and a woman for rising children and supporting each other, then you would vote for the Democrats. If you want your fellow human beings messed up on marijuana coming at you down the highway, vote for the Democrats."
http://abcnewspapers.com/2014/08/20/letters-to-the-editor-for-aug-22-2014/
Now, as a Democrat living in the area, as the DFL Chair of Senate District 35, as a pretty good, upstanding citizen, and as a fellow raised in the United Methodist Church, I took exception to Mr. Hodel's characterizations of what is and isn't moral.
So, I've penned a new Letter to the Editor (below), which I hope gets printed as a response to Mr. Hodel.
This election should be a referendum on Governor
Dayton and the DFL. But social issues
still rear their ugly head. Gene Hodel wrote, “On most of these moral issues
the Republican platform is correct,” in an August 22nd Letter. Of which moral issues did he say Republicans
are right and Democrats are wrong:
terminating pregnancies, blaming sexual disease on gay lifestyles, gay
marriage and marijuana use?
Life would be much simpler for voters if
his old canard that Democrats are undeserving amoral libertines, while
Republicans are God-fearing model citizens was true. Alas, it isn’t. As Chair for District 35 DFLers, it’s been my
pleasure to “politic” with a lot of your friends and neighbors, who are bright,
community-spirited Christians – and Democrats.
Republicans don’t own the concept of “morality” in this community, any
more than they own “bigotry”, “intolerance” or “patriotism.”
Is it moral for Christian Republicans
like Gene to continue their determined disregard of the Roe v. Wade decision, which provided a legal basis for “life” does
not begin at conception, that a child does not legally exist until birthed, and
that there are limitations to how far into a pregnancy abortion is legal?
Is it moral for Christian Republicans like
Gene to rely on their interpretations of the laws and customs of 2000-year old
Biblical societies to determine 21st century morality? Who
decided that being gay or different is immoral?
Is it moral to reject the common decency
and fairness of providing legal equality through same sex marriage? Is it moral to go sticking one’s nose into
what goes on in other persons’ bedrooms?
On marijuana, it’s hardly a moral issue;
one will find many Democrats, myself included, who have reservations about
legalizing it, even for medical purposes, and similarly, one will find many
libertarian Republicans who fully support less-restrictive laws on marijuana.
I haven’t even started on the moral
issues of fighting poverty, the rich getting richer, equal justice for
minorities, or easy access to assault weapons.
No party has a monopoly on morality, Mr. Hodel. Oh, and about that referendum – my side
should win!
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