Letters: Red Cross offers thanks

Red Cross offers thanks

I am the disaster services chair for the Monterey Bay Area Chapter Red Cross Hollister office. The volunteers of the Red Cross recently responded to a gas leak on the west side of town (Free Lance, June 20). With the help of Pauline Valdivia and the Community Recreation Center, we were able to provide the residences with a place to go during the evacuation. I would like to thank those who helped setting up the evacuation center.

Safeway and Savemart provided sandwiches, water and ice so that we could make our clients comfortable during this disaster. Thank you very much for your generosity.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of my volunteers who helped in this operation.

The American Red Cross is a charitable organization and not a government agency. We depend on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform our humanitarian mission.

To donate to your chapter, call 636-2100 or stop by the office at 357 Fifth St.

Howard Evans, emergency services chair

A reprieve for homosexuality

As gays and lesbians across the country rightfully celebrate their victory for marriage equality in New York, their counterparts in the East African nation of Uganda are struggling for the right to live, as the air they breathe has been filled with suffocating hate.  

In May, the Ugandan government decided, with much reluctance, to allow its proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill to expire, thus shelving the legislation for a future, Parliamentary session.  

Under the proposed legislation, homosexual acts were deemed capital offenses, while obligating the citizenry to report such acts by their neighbors, friends, and loved ones within twenty-four hour period. In addition, same-sex marriage was also criminalized.  

Despite the bill’s failure, prominent gay activists have already been assaulted and killed, an illustration of the support it has received among homophobic proponents.  

Officials within the Ugandan government fault foreign governments, notably those in the West including the United States, for the bill’s demise. According to one Ugandan official, “There has been immense, immense pressure from the outside, bordering on intimidation” (New York Times, May 13, 2011).  

Citing coercion and bullying for Uganda’s about face this official perhaps has learned a lesson about humanity and the resilience of the world’s oldest democracy as it celebrate its birth this weekend.  

The lesson is simple: all people (straight, gay, lesbian, etc.) “are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  

In passing its marriage equality legislation, the New York state legislature has demonstrated to Uganda and the world that it is the responsibility and role of democratic governments to protect these rights not destroy them.

Frank J. Perez, Hollister

The U.S. should bring war dollars home

Hollister and San Benito County are no different than the municipalities in the whole country. How interesting to hear that the Conference of Mayors across the United States convened a resolution asking congress to end war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mayors want to bring war dollars home. Municipalities and state governments need these dollars as our Grand Jury Report (Pinnacle, June 17) so aptly describes.

The mayors want war dollars to promote job creation based on a new economy built on sustainable and renewable energy. We need these war dollars to rebuild infrastructure including and expanding a new energy grid.

Please realize that these dollars actually are our own money, not new taxes. Just imagine what war dollars that stayed home would do for this community.

Mary Zanger,

Hollister