Masterpiece Bakery way more tolerant than the Red Hen

Sarah Sanders leaving, not kicked out as is widely reported, a VA restaurant is not anything like the Masterpiece Bakery case.

Sanders was asked to leave.  She did.  No cops.  No lawyers.  No lawsuits.  No scene.

Masterpiece NEVER asked any homosexuals to leave their store.

Masterpiece was asked to use their artistic talents outside the public enterprise that was their bakery to supply a special cake for a private homosexual union.

The corollary to that for the Red Hen would be if Sarah Sanders asked them cater a private event in the backroom of the restaurant or at her home.

Another big difference is that the people at Masterpiece demonstrated much more tolerance than those at the Red Hen.

A quadruple JG rant  

You have got to be kidding me.  You cannot be serious.  If the editorial staff at the JG ever wonders why the American people place journalist just behind pimps, prostitutes and pornographers on their “trusted list,” you need look no further than the dishonest headline the JG put over my letter, “‘Unchristian’ policies maintain order, safety” of Jun 24, 2018.    

The point of my letter, obvious to anyone capable of reading, is that it is not the policies that are unchristian, it is the lame brains who put children at risk by thinking that laws and rules do not apply to them. 

If the JG had any sense of fair play or shame it would issue and immediate correction.  For the record, an accurate headline for my piece would be:  Endangering children unchristian

While I’m tilting at this windmill, since the headline was obviously willful in its intent to mislead, an apology is also in order.   

'Unchristian' policies maintain order, safety

I encourage Daniel O'Neil (“Immigration policy un-Christian,” June 17) to engage in this thought experiment.

Imagine a man loads up a couple of kids in the neighborhood, promising to take them to Cedar Point. The man speeds down the highway recklessly at more than 100 mph. When the police pull him over, he cries that the cop is unchristian because he stopped him with his kids.

When he gets to the Point, he speeds by the parking attendant. When park security catches up with him, he cries foul because he's with his kid.

Then the man takes the kids to the side of the park and they all climb over the fence, entering the park without paying. When park security stops them again, the man is upset, demanding leniency because, after all, the kids.

Inside the park, the man walks past a long line of parkgoers, some with their own kids, and inserts himself and the kids at the head of the line. When people protest, he tells them that they are unchristian and that they have to let them go first because of the kids.

When the man takes the kids to the park store, he encourages them to take whatever they want without paying. Having had enough of the man, he is arrested and the kids detained. The man demands that the kids be returned to him to serve out their time in an adult detention center with murderers, rapists and thieves or turned loose back in the park if they promise to show up for a hearing on the matter scheduled in a year or so.

Now, just who is being unchristian? The people maintaining order and safety, or the irresponsible man who puts himself and the kids at risk and above the rules at every step of this journey?

Doug Schumick

Fort Wayne

Wow, Saturday’s (Jun 23, 2018) editorial page was really, really even-handed.  First, Fort Wayne’s own self-appointed soothsayer Terry Doran, in Christ-like fashion, separates the weeds from the wheat. 

He condemns to hell President Trump and all who might think enforcing a law passed by the duly elected representatives of the people and enforced by Presidents Bush and Obama before Trump is okay. Nice.

This is good to know. Heretofore, I thought Jesus was going to send angles to separate the weeds from the wheat on Judgment Day. Now that I know that all I have to do is check in with Doran, it changes everything.

Michael Romary’s snarky letter of thanks to Jeff Sessions with the obligatory Trump equals Hitler reference followed Doran’s.  Romary’s letter was followed by Thomas E. Sagendorf’s letter decrying law enforcement doing what they are sworn to do.

I encourage the JG to continue its one-sided assault on the Second Amendment and the rule of law as it applies to our borders.  Both are easily understood issues by Hoosier voters.

Here’s how the senatorial debate might go:

So Mexico Joe (Donnelly), is the Second Amendment directed at hunting rights, as the editorial staff at the JG seems to believe, or is it directed toward the natural right of American citizens for self-defense?

So Mexico Joe (Donnelly), are you for enforcing the laws congress passed governing who and how people can immigrate to the United States or do you still favor the open borders bill you co-sponsored in the senate that would allow 160  million un-vetted foreign nationals to enter the country?

What?  Mexico Joe (Donnelly) doesn’t think the number is 160 million.  Okay.  What is the acceptable number of terrorists, MS-13 gang members, uneducated, poor, low skill workers you are willing to let into the country?  Once that number is reached, how do you plan to cut off the flow?  Remember, border security apparently is out of the question.

'One-way ticket to hell' for policy's enforcers

There's a one-way ticket to hell reserved for Jeff Sessions who, in a talk about immigration right here in the City of Churches, blamed the parents for his cruel and heartless separation of children from their parents.

“They are the ones who broke the law; they are the ones who endangered their own children on their trek,” Sessions said. And he cited the Bible as his justification; his reasoning was backed up by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said “... it is very biblical to enforce the law.”

It apparently never occurred to Sessions to change the law. Or to actually read the Bible, where he would find this passage: “Woe to those who enact unjust statues and issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of fair treatment and withhold justice from the oppressed...” Or this one: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Seems pretty clear to me. Those families Sessions is sentencing to a life of hopeless despair, if they even survive, are the very definition of oppressed – fleeing for their lives, seeking hope and a chance for a new life in the richest country on earth, only to see the door slammed in their face and to stand by helplessly while their children are ripped screaming from their arms, including even an infant breast-feeding.

But Sessions needn't worry. He won't be alone. He'll have plenty of company.

Terry Doran

Fort Wayne

Done in our names

Thank you to Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his recent address to Fort Wayne's finest. He proved once again that this administration knows best. Donald Trump said he knew more than the generals (as Hitler said), and Sessions has added that he knows more than the priests and bishops when it comes to religion. Thanks for doing this in our names. Keep up the good work, Mr. Sessions. The City of Churches, as Fort Wayne was known when I lived there 38 years ago, appreciates it deeply.

Michael Romary

Ada, Ohio

Trump's vision rapidly replacing Lady Liberty's

On our Statue of Liberty are engraved these words: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...”

It happened on a sunny morning in June. Employees gathering at a well-known landscaping concern in Sandusky, Ohio. Suddenly, complete chaos. Shouting, fear, intense confusion. Immigration officials descended en masse with guns, chains and rope, rounding up confused employees like cattle. Donald Trump's gendarmes. Brutalizing people and taking them into custody without explanation. Soon to be behind bars, ghettos, separating them from families and dependent children. No communication.

This scene of cruel brutality was created by an out-of-control government agency. It's President Trump's idea of immigration policy enforcement. 

This is today's America. Raw, brutish power used by unaccountable government agencies, whether on the shores of Lake Erie or the borders of Texas and Arizona. A clear sign that our democracy is under attack.

Is this who we are? Is this what we've become? Will we stand by idly as Trump strips Lady Liberty of her torch, her majestic robes and her welcome to the “tempest-tossed” seeking a new way of life? Replaced by an image of “the Donald” himself wielding a sledgehammer with a sign that says “KEEP OUT!”?

The very foundations of our democracy are at stake, and it will continue to get worse until we loyal Americans resolve to send Trump to the place he belongs – the ash heap of history.

Thomas E. Sagendorf

formerly of Hamilton