Diverse Community, Diverse Views

For those of us who have gay family members, friends, neighbors, colleagues and classmates (from Gilbert High School), the issue of gay marriage isn’t a theological debate between “God-centered” and “human-centered” principles (“Letters,” April 2012). It’s about fairness and civil rights. I don’t believe that the gay people in our community should be denied the right to marry any more than Mr. Atkinson and Ms. Gundlach (“On Casting the First Stone,” April 2012) should be denied theirs.

David Donihue

While Norfolk Now has the right to print any opinion the editors want, I believe they showed extraordinarily bad judgment when they printed Paul Atkinson’s letter (“Letters,” April 2012) and the accompanying View From The Green (“On Casting the First Stone,” April 2012). Would the letter have been printed if it had declared that it is a sin for women to own property, or for African Americans to vote? In the past, scriptural justifications have been offered for both these positions.

The accompanying editorial did nothing to distance the paper from the discriminatory language of the letter; suggesting “tolerance” is specious in this conversation—who are we to tolerate or not tolerate when we are talking about guaranteed civil rights?

Kate Neuman

People who presume to lecture us about our country (“Letters,” April 2012) should at least know its history. It is manifestly not the case that our founders were “God-centered visionaries.” In fact, the most prominent ones–Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Franklin–were deists, secular and not avid churchgoers. They were suspicious of the near-theocracy that had existed in New England and Virginia and what they considered the unfortunate influence of organized religion on the European courts. That’s why they created the doctrine of separation of church and state.

As for the issue at hand, if there be a caring God, let us pray that he sends us as many lesbians and gays as choose to live here. Let our churches brim over with their weddings.

Rinker Buck

We are writing to state with clarity that we believe the teachings of the God of Jesus Christ call us to love our neighbors without regard for their sexual orientation. This letter comes particularly in response to recent Norfolk Now writings dealing with same-sex marriage

In October 2005, Church of Christ, Congregational (United Church of Christ), Norfolk, approved a Civil Union Policy that allows the pastor to perform civil unions or weddings for same-sex couples. On June 24, 2007, we adopted an Open and Affirming statement that may be viewed in its entirety through our website, norfolkctucc.org. It includes the following:

We welcome into full membership and participation in the Body of Christ persons of every race, age, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, economic or marital status, and faith background.

The above statement is a product of our Christian faith; it is not derived from a vague or even secular humanism. It was produced through a thorough process of conversation and study, and it is our belief that its message springs from Christ’s command to love God fully and to love our neighbor.

There are many Scripture passages that prohibit behaviors (e.g., eating meat with blood in it, trimming one’s beard, wearing clothing of mixed materials) to which for a number of reasons we do not as Christians adhere. The Bible, while open to interpretation, is our life guide.

We further understand that sexual orientation is not a choice, it is something with which one is born along with skin color, family history and more.

While we agree to disagree on this matter, it is our hope that we may find common ground with others of faith and like mind in serving our neighbors with love.

The Rev. Erick Olsen, Pastor

and Julia Green, Senior Deacon; Jim Harrington, Nancy Herzig, Lyn Patrick, John Thew, Nels White, Deacons; Dr. Thomas Vergo, Heather Thomson, Kate Persons, Marie Civco, Leona Alley, Janis Graham-Jones, Council members; Elizabeth Allyn, Minister of Music; Christina Wignall, Director of Christian Education; Fred Herzig, Moderator; Lisa Auclair, Clerk

Examining the Statistics

To the editor:

We were all very happy and proud when Norfolk ranked highly among small towns in Connecticut Magazine’s Rating Survey. As the magazine pointed out, this ranking is important because “young families…look to the survey when casting about for a place with good schools or lower living costs”.

The editor of CM contends that “the findings are statistical not qualitative”. However, readers draw “qualitative” conclusions from “statistical” tables, which can be misleading as presented in her magazine.

CM ranks towns according to five criteria (Education, Crime, Economy, Cost and Leisure), then totals the rankings across the five criteria and ranks the towns from lowest to highest scores. Norfolk (ninth ranked), has a score of 55.5, which is 16.5 above Lyme, the town that placed number one. Eliminating the categories of Economy and Cost reduces this difference to 14.5 of which crime accounts for a score of 9.0 and education 3.5. Yet Norfolk has FEWER major crimes than Lyme (on average two fewer per year), and with respect to education, Norfolk’s SAT scores are only two percent lower than Lyme’s!

They say that there are “lies, damned lies and statistics.” On the basis of the shoddy work presented by Connecticut Magazine, “they” are right.

Jonathan Hirst