Published: February 25, 2011 07:38AM

In his recent guest column (“Anti-science views of faith leaders cause concerns,” Opinion, Feb. 8), R. Dennis Hansen correctly points out that religion and science need not be at odds, but in our view draws the wrong conclusion that they are at odds to begin with, or that religion is the problem.

Alert! Alert! There is so much drivel in this ‘thesis’ that it isn’t worthy of point-by-point rebuttal. These three authors are involved with what they call the Foundation for Attraction Research. It is a transparent fraud. Go to its web page and it is readily seen that it is a very small and tight knit group of pseudo scientists who begin with a predetermined belief and set out to prove their hunches right. The problem with their hunches is that they are all based on religious fables.

They are not seeking riches or gold or the praise of the world. They are seeking the adoration of their church apostles and their devout neighbors and friends. They are looking to get praised in church every Sunday morning. They particularly want to come to the defense of one of The Twelve, Boyd K. Packer, to try to restore some dignity to his earthly  sojourn. This trio of lost souls is trying to find justification for the litany of sins their church has committed against gays.

These are scientists who believe that Joseph Smith saw God and that he was led to ancient Gold Plates and translated them into the Book of Mormon. They believe their church is the only true church in the world and that all the others are wrong. They believe that Three Nephites (Book of Mormon characters) are wandering the earth helping people until Christ returns, and that blacks were given a dark skin because they sinned in a pre-existent world. They believe in the superiority of males and that females should be submissive to their husbands. They believe the Book of Mormon is the most correct book of any book ever published, but the ‘most corrected’ book would be closer to reality.

The ‘prophets’ that taught them this stuff also taught them that homosexuality was a sin, and for some unknown reason, this is the point they have decided to prove as true. Of all the problems with the truthfulness of their religion, this is the one they feel compelled to defend.

Go at it boys. When you get that burning in the bosom be very, very careful what it might mean.

We suggest that true religion and true science, when they are found, are never at odds. While such a hypothesis may seem implausible to some, we can find a glimmer of this universally hoped-for condition in, of all places, the debate over homosexuality. True religion teaches a love for all people, including those who identify themselves as gay. Some people who experience same-sex attraction, however, do not wish to practice homosexuality or adopt a gay identity. And fortunately for such people, hope can be found in both true science and true religion.

As to science, contrary to a source cited by Hansen that same-sex attractions are of purely biological origin, Dr. Francis S. Collins, former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and the current director of the National Institutes of Health, reached a very different conclusion. Collins, in addressing the etiology of homosexuality in his book, The Language of God, offers the conclusion that homosexuality is “genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations.”

Interestingly, this scientific statement is remarkably similar to and supportive of Elder Boyd K. Packer’s recent statement

about homosexuality not being “preset.” Elder Packer, president of the LDS Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, also has a very long and well-documented history of teaching love for people with homosexual attractions. Contrary to media reports that sought to portray Elder Packer as intolerant and uninformed, he actually had the right religion and the right science, if people cared to look beyond the hype and headlines and consider his remarks in context.

Even the American Psychological Association, after a long period of supporting a purely biological view of the origin of homosexuality, recently adopted a position supported by Collins’ observations that homosexuality, like other traits, emerges from some combination of nature and nurture. As scientists would say, all human behavioral traits are polygenic and multifactorial. Janet Cummings eloquently summarized the evolution perspective on homosexuality: “The belief that homosexuality is always inbred flies in the face of available evidence that genetics, childhood environment, and personal choice are all factors. Granted, some may be more salient than others, but from a genetic standpoint alone, the genes responsible would have disappeared throughout the millennia from lack of reproductive activity.”

Collins offers the following additional insight on homosexuality: “There is an inescapable component of heritability to many human behavioral traits. For virtually none of them is heredity ever close to predictive. Environment, particularly childhood experiences, and the prominent role of individual free will choices have a profound effect on us. Scientists will discover an increasing level of molecular detail about the inherited factors that undergird our personalities, but that should not lead us to overestimate their quantitative contribution. Yes we have all been dealt a particular set of cards, and the cards will eventually be revealed. But how we play the hand is up to us.”

Other reputable scientists, some of whom personally support gay rights, have concluded that homosexuality is not invariably fixed in all people, including Robert Spitzer, a psychiatrist who is credited by some for spearheading the effort to remove homosexuality from the psychiatric manual.

Spitzer offers the following: “Like most psychiatrists, I thought that homosexual behavior could only be resisted, and that no one could change their [sic] sexual orientation. I now believe that to be false. Some people can and do change.”

It should also be observed that the type, degree, and potential for change vary with each individual, and many debates about change could be avoided by a more nuanced discussion about it.

Unfortunately, the dialogue about homosexuality has too often been reduced to a simplistic and divisive us-versus-them, religion-versus-science debate. When we bring true science and true religion together, however, they can and should unite us.

Dennis V. Dahle, John P. Livingstone and M. Gawain Wells are board members of the Foundation for Attraction Research. Dahle is a a Salt Lake City attorney and a FAR founder. Livingstone is an associate professor of Church History and Doctrine in Religious Education at Brigham Young University. Wells is a retired professor of psychology at BYU.

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© 2011 The Salt Lake Tribune

Re “Utah not a colony of Washington, D.C., Herbert says ” (Tribune, Jan. 27):

Gov. Gary Herbert is crying (again) about our federal government. Does he have a clue what he’s talking about? Consider this from Article I of the Utah State Constitution: “The State of Utah is an inseparable part of the Federal Union and the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land.”

How is it that extreme Utah partisans believe such a radically different interpretation of our founding Constitution? Herbert seems to think he knows better than 235 years of constitutional interpretation. Does he even know about the Civil War, which settled federal primacy?

Article III of the Utah Constitution says: “The people inhabiting this State do affirm and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries hereof.” These liars whine about a “land grab going on in our state,” when the federal government — we, the people — own the land that they are literally trying to steal from the public. If these clowns can’t even follow our own state Constitution, they shouldn’t be in the statehouse.

Mike Coronella

Moab

Writer and Filmmaker

Posted: January 23, 2011 01:59 PM BIO Become a Fan Get Email AlertsBloggers’ Index

A Tribute to Olbermann: Why He Is Different From the Pundits at Fox News

Read More: Bill O’Reilly , Countdown , Countdown With Keith Olbermann , Daily Beast , Fair And Balanced , Fox News , George W. Bush , Glenn Beck , Jeffery Smith , Keith Olbermann , Msnbc , Olbermann Special Comment , Rush Limbaugh , Sarah Palin , Sean Hannity , Media News

Black and white is easy; nuance is hard. Which is why it’s much easier to just lump media outlets and personalities into simple boxes: left v. right, or partisan v. objective, for example.

So if you want to play that game, it’s easy to dismiss Keith Olbermann, who broadcast his final episode of Countdown on MSNBC Friday. It’s simple to dash off a hack piece (like this one in the Daily Beast, which revealed its simple-minded bona fides by invoking the right’s favorite jab at Olbermann: he used to work in — gasp! — sports) that lumps Olbermann in with Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, as if they all do the same thing just because they are all loud and aggressive.

I know nuance is less popular, but I feel compelled to try and give Olbermann his due.

This is very good commentary on the difference between Keith Olberman and the creepy crawlies on Faux News. That there needs to be an explanation of the difference is only because those listening to Faux are unwilling to ferret out the truth. Lies, distortions and manipulations serve their purposes better.

The right hates Olberman because of the truth. The left hates Fox News because of the lies. Therein is the difference.

An analysis of how MSNBC (which uses a traditional journalistic approach to report facts, but then, ditching objectivity, critically assesses how the facts compare with the progressive take on issues) differs from Fox News (essentially a right-wing propaganda operation pretending to practice journalism, with no allegiance to facts) is a book-length endeavor and beyond the scope of a blog piece. But Olbermann’s approach reflects the difference between the two networks.

Anyone charging that Olbermann’s show was equivalent to Beck’s clearly hasn’t watched either of them. Olbermann wasn’t objective, but he was honest about it, not disingenuously claiming to be “fair and balanced.” But his shows were well-researched and relied on facts to make his progressive points.

To be sure, Olbermann used inflammatory language, and he wasn’t always as respectful as some thought he should be. But when he railed about something, he relied on quotes, polls, statistics and history (unlike the concocted charges offered by Beck as facts) to make his points. One (of many) examples was his 2008 response to statements made by President George W. Bush about terrorism and Iraq (with its much-discussed concluding line that Bush should “shut the hell up”). Does Olbermann use harsh language? Yes. Was he blunt and combative? Yes. But in doing so, did he use real evidence (facts) to refute the Bush statements that were getting heavy play in the news at the time? Yes. Consistently (including producing a photo of Bush playing golf months after the date he claimed to have given up the game as a symbolic sacrifice to support the troops).

To me, that was what made Olbermann such an essentially important commentator, especially during the Bush administration. Much focus is directed at how Olbermann made his points (his combative tone, his aggressive language, etc.), but it was the fact-based content that really mattered and separated him from his right-wing counterparts. The reason the founders accorded the press the protections of the First Amendment was under the belief that the press was, as Jeffery Smith described it, “A lash for government and a prod for the people.” Under this point of view, government was rendered more stable by a free press, since it exposed problems (and allowed for reform), preserving the liberties of the people. What Olbermann did on his show, day in and day out, was to carry out that function, shining a light on elected officials (of both parties).

That’s the difference between Olbermann and his Fox News counterparts. When Beck claims that radicals in the Obama administration want to kill 10 percent of the American population and overthrow the U.S. government, or Sean Hannity uses bogus footage to exaggerate attendance at a Tea Party event, or Fox News hosts give credibility to those claiming that the health care reform law included “death panels” or that the president wasn’t born in the United States, they are not shining a light on anything. Instead, they are using the cloak of “the press” to lie, exaggerate and use innuendo as a way of promoting an agenda.

And one of the strengths of Olbermann’s show was that he didn’t only take on government officials, but he devoted part of nearly every program to fact-checking the lies being spewed by major right-wing media figures like Palin, Beck, Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. Again, Olbermann was consistently looking to shine a light on the facts.

With Olbermann’s departure, commentators will be going for the easy story, lumping him in with other pundits who shared a combative tone, without going the next step to describe the very different content of their shows. These writers will simplistically decry “hyperpartisanship” (as the Daily Beast piece did), as if Olbermann and Beck (and the others) were interchangeable. I’m here to say they are not.

Instead, I will pay tribute to Olbermann for the important role he played over the last eight years.

Really, I want to use this space to say “thank you” to Olbermann.

Thank you for your humor and insight, which was consistently smart and observant.

Thank you for giving voice to the anger so many of us felt during the Bush presidency, when few on television would do so. People accuse you of being “over the top,” but when bad things are happening in the government or media, and too many are ignoring them, I don’t want political commentators to be subtle.

Thank you for talking about the lies and fake journalism at Fox News when so many of us knew it was going on, but few on television would talk about it.

Thank you for always backing up your charges with facts, at a time when so many television news personalities, especially at Fox News, don’t care about facts.

Thank you for having the guts to share your experiences navigating the health care system with your dying father, despite the personal pain doing so must have caused, all so you could educate viewers about the real experiences of those interacting with the system.

And thank you for regularly standing up for what was right, regardless of the consequences. You may not carry the objective legacy of Edward R. Murrow (whose “Good night and good luck” you borrowed for your sign-off line) into the 21st century, but you certainly embody his commitment to journalists playing the role of shining a light on the workings of government to ensure the American people have the information they need to be informed citizens. You consistently labored to urge politicians to act for the betterment of the country, adhering to longstanding American values of justice, equality and fairness.

Thank you.

The cartoon version of Keith Olbermann as a Beck-like screaming partisan will get a lot of play in the coming days. Sure, from time to time, Olbermann might have gone too far, but that’s going to happen when you push the barriers of your field. I urge anyone who buys the caricature of Olbermann to go back and watch some of his Special Comments (a bunch of them are collected here) and see past the bluster to the facts and logic at the heart of his words. The difference between Olbermann and his counterparts at Fox News will quickly become apparent.

The news media and our democracy will be much poorer without Olbermann’s daily reports. I hope he surfaces back on the air sooner rather than later.

Follow Mitchell Bard on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MitchellBard

By Larry LaCroix, Lehi

Published: January 2, 2011 12:38AM

Every time I read a letter like Kerry Myers’ “Voluntary tax increase” (Forum, Dec. 25), which suggests that those who want higher taxes should simply send their checks to the Internal Revenue Service because “what we already pay is adequate (or too high), and we have no desire to pay more,” I want to scream!

We are at war! People are being killed, and people are dying in the name of the United States of America. And for the first time, we had a president (George W. Bush) who convinced the country that we could fight two wars and spend more than $1 trillion while giving everyone a tax break. How absurd! The public does not care about the wars because they have been asked to sacrifice nothing. They are detached, busy complaining about how they’ve been taxed enough already. Give me a break!

Want to have a war? Pay for it! Raise everyone’s taxes. Have all Americans shoulder the burden! Pass a law that all wars must be financed by increased taxes, specifically called a war tax. Include in the war’s financing the full, lifetime benefits for veterans. Then see how quickly we give up fighting unnecessary wars of choice!

Larry LaCroix

Lehi

By Richard Burt

Published: December 31, 2010 11:11PM

Our extreme national debt that commenced under President Ronald Reagan has progressively gotten worse with each successive tax cut.

President George W. Bush’s tax cuts increased the debt by $4.1 trillion, and their continuation adds another $4.1 trillion over the next 10 years.

The public has been deceived into believing that wonderful things always happen when taxes are cut. Wonderful things do indeed happen for big business and especially Wall Street. Additionally, there is the temporary illusion of prosperity, with its attendant financial busts. However, the debt never lessens; it grows.

History will not be kind to those who promote tax cuts as the answer to our financial ills. George H.W. Bush was correct when he criticized Reagan’s tax-cutting philosophy as “voodoo economics.”

To eliminate the annual deficit, spending cuts must be made, but we also need taxes. As a percent of the total economy, U.S. taxes are lower now than in the 1950s. Out of the top 30 economies, the United States is 28th in taxes paid by its citizens.

If we are ever to stabilize our economy, there must be spending cuts and tax increases. I doubt either will be done to the extent necessary.

Richard Burt

Sandy

A recent University of Maryland study confirms that those who watch Fox News daily are significantly more likely than those who never watch it to believe that:

• Most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses. (It has created millions of jobs.)

• Most economists estimate that the health care bill will worsen the deficit. (Most estimate it will reduce the deficit.)

• The economy is getting worse. (It is improving.)

• Most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring. (Scientists are at near consensus that it is.)

• The stimulus did not include tax cuts. (Forty percent of it was in tax cuts to the middle class and small businesses.)

• Their own income taxes have gone up. (They have gone down.)

• The auto bailout only occurred under President Barack Obama. (The program was initiated by President George W. Bush.)

• Most Republican congressmen opposed TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program. (Republicans overwhelmingly voted for it.)

• It is not clear that Obama was born in the United States. (His birth certificate has been authenticated by experts.)

Fox News intentionally misinforms. It can better advance its far-right agenda when its viewers are ignorant.

Jim Sargent

Salt Lake City

A Reason for the Season (referring to Christmas)

By Eric R. Johnson

Updated: January 6, 2011 12:55PM
(Eric R. Johnson lives in Sandy and has taught high school and college classes in English and journalism for 18 years.)

In a Dec. 29 column titled “What if I just can’t believe the ‘Christmas story’?,” Robert Hammer claims that he is “99.9 repetend percent convinced that [God] does not exist.” While I won’t take any particular side with the Mormons, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims or any other religious group that acknowledges a Supreme Being, just because it is impossible to empirically prove God’s existence does not mean faith in a Higher Being is a losing proposition.

As Norman Geisler and Frank Turek write in their aptly-titled I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist: “It’s virtually impossible to know everything about a particular topic, and it’s certainly impossible when that topic is an infinite God. So there has to come a point where you realize you have enough information to come to a conclusion, even if unanswered questions remain.”

I believe there are good reasons why God’s existence makes more sense than no God at all. For one, Hammer admits that he might be wrong, “but I strongly doubt that, too.” By not being so skeptical of his own skepticism, perhaps this mindset deceives him.

He also complains that if he’s wrong he will confidently question God in the end with, “O Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?” Yet how did the Almighty forsake him? Psalm 19 proclaims, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” “General revelation” makes God’s existence abundantly clear.

Imagine if someone made a claim that a particular ballpoint pen had no designer. Do the insides of the pen — including the spring, the reservoir, and the clicker — just magically appear in exact order to form a functional instrument?

Obviously, somebody designed each intricate piece. In the same way, the universe’s cosmological design screams for a Designer.

Another reason for the existence of God is time. Those who claim that time is infinite must consider the “Kalam Cosmological argument,” a complex tool constructed by Muslim philosophers in the Middle Ages. How, they asked, could we ever have arrived at “today” if time consists of an infinite past?

If the universe did begin 12 billion years ago from nothing, then how did “something” (the first cell) get created if “out of nothing, nothing comes”? And the idea that things progress rather than digress when left in their natural state defeats the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

I believe the very existence of moral values is one more dilemma for nontheists. After all, from where do morals come?

Do they emanate from Mother Nature (the conscience)? What right does something lesser than I have to bind me absolutely?

Some would argue that others can determine morals through governmental laws, but is society always right? I think not, especially in light of Nazi Germany, the slavery and “back-of-the-bus” South, and Kim Jong-il’s North Korea. Maybe I can determine morals. But what if my name is Jeffrey Dahmer or Brian David Mitchell? If moral relativism is correct, then who really has the right to tell these men that they were immoral? Only something above us — a Moral Lawgiver — can determine right from wrong.

Notice that I’m not arguing for a particular God or saying that all theists (representing any number of religions) necessarily know or practice what is moral. I’m merely stating that there must be some set of objective moral laws that exist.

Finally, while Hammer says he has tried but apparently never experienced the Almighty, I have. By itself, I agree that this is not a good reason for him or anyone else to become a believer. Yet this very fact, which is real to me, is just as strong as Hammer’s perspective that God doesn’t exist because he never experienced Him. One of us is wrong. The consequences could be immense.

Skeptics need to refrain from throwing the baby out with the bath water. You may not have had a good experience with your church, with others who called themselves theistic believers, or with major tragedies that have occurred in your life. Yet God’s existence doesn’t hinge on your knowledge or experience.

You do not “lack capacity for this kind of faith.” It’s atheism that requires so much more faith. Therefore, go where the evidence leads.

Eric R. Johnson lives in Sandy and has taught high school and college classes in English and journalism for 18 years.

By Gregory A. Clark

Published: January 8, 2011 01:01AM
(Gregory A. Clark is an associate professor in bioengineering at the University of Utah. He has been teaching and conducting empirical scientific research for over 30 years.)

It is curious but telling that theists who so stoutly proclaim evidence for the existence of an Almighty God then fail to provide any. Of course, this depends on the definition of the word “evidence,” as it does on the definition of “God.”

Eric R. Johnson (“A reason for the season,” Opinion, Dec. 31) and Brian David Mitchell are among those who claim that they have personally experienced the Almighty.

We initially failed to post the opinion piece by Eric Johnson, but since we are posting this eloquent response by Dr. Clark we felt we should also post the opinion piece by Eric Johnson.

Of course, Brian David Mitchell’s testimony of the existence of God is a matter of public record. For those who don’t make the connection he is the visionary who kidnapped a 14-year old girl and married her on instructions from ‘God.’

Their statements could be entered as “evidence” in a court of law. But such claims do not constitute “evidence” for God in the objective, scientific meaning of the word.

As soon as considerations move from God as a metaphor into real-world specifics, scientific evidence becomes directly relevant. In reality, compelling empirical evidence indicates that the interventionist God of “Mormons, Catholics, Protestants, [and] Jews” (among others) does not exist — at least if the Bible is the literal word of God, as one-third of Americans believe.

Scientifically, the Bible is wrong from the very first sentence, and goes downhill from there. The earth was not formed “in the beginning” of the universe; fruit trees did not grow on earth before the sun and stars; birds and sea mammals did not precede land insects and reptiles.

The empirical evidence indicates a fundamentally different order. Likewise, there is no physical evidence that Yahweh (or Zeus, or Thor) hurls lightning bolts from the sky, causes rain via divine intervention, or stops the sun so that God’s chosen people will have more daylight to slaughter infidels.

But there is solid empirical evidence for the natural causes of meteorological events, and for a heliocentric solar system in which earth revolves around the sun, rather than the other way around — even if it did take the Catholic Church till 1992 to vindicate Galileo.

There is no empirical scientific evidence for a “Designer” of the universe. As the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial in Pennsylvania demonstrated, “intelligent design,” like creationism, is not science.

In contrast, there is strong empirical evidence for the cumulative power of natural selection and evolution. Again and again, biology screams unintelligent “design”: eye sockets for eyeless cave fish; sea mammals that breathe air; the panda’s “thumb,” jerry-rigged from a wrist bone; and men’s nipples. Such flaws are natural consequences of evolutionary and developmental constraints, but not of an omnipotent, benevolent designer.

There is no empirical evidence that progressing from simple to complex (from single cells to humans, for example) necessarily violates the second law of thermodynamics or requires divine intervention.

Dear reader, you did it yourself in only nine months.

The earth is a not closed system, and neither are you. The energy driving your progression came from external sources, most notably the sun.

And even theists acknowledge that the universe is expanding. The total entropy (disorder) of the universe is also increasing in accord with the second law, but this does not preclude an increase in localized order.

There is no empirical evidence for an omniscient Supreme Being.

Like other primitive religious texts, the Bible is full of blunders and contradictions, and is wholly devoid of modern knowledge such as Einstein’s equation or the genetic code. As with alien abductions, there is no tangible evidence that any advanced Being has communicated inside information to Mr. Johnson or others in their more recent close encounters with Him, Her, or It.

Thus, in rejecting God’s existence, most skeptics don’t worry much that they’re “throwing the baby out with the bath water.” A look in the tub readily confirms that there’s no baby there.

Gregory A. Clark is an associate professor in bioengineering at the University of Utah. He has been teaching and conducting empirical scientific research for over 30 years. The views expressed are his own.

Congratulations to Rep. Jim Matheson and the 111th Congress, which just voted to lower the standards of our military (80 percent favorable rating) to that of Congress (13 percent favorable). It’s no coincidence that most of the politicians voting never served in combat. Congress’ vote legitimized sodomy as normal and acceptable, elevating and celebrating it!

When at the crossroads, this “District of Criminals” (as some of us in the Pentagon called Congress) took the wrong fork. Working backward from preconceived conclusions, and unmoved by reason, evidence, timeless standards and history, they pandered for votes. Now the military is forced to reflect their shameful, upside-down, politically correct values.

Pentagon reports repeatedly voice concern that allowing gays to serve openly would lead to widespread and overt displays of effeminacy and disruptive, unhealthy conduct. As a combat officer with 30 years of experience, I know that commingling of out-of-the-closet gays and straights is a disaster in the making.

The only moral and practical solution to the impeached former President Bill Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is to reinstate the total ban on gays in the military.

This Congress is unwanted, unclean and a disaster! Have they no shame?

Retired Col. Gary R. Stephens

Layton

There is one thing to his credit. He signed his name. He thought ‘Retired Colonel’ would give him some credibility on the issue and a reason to express his strongly held view. What he didn’t say was that he is also a ‘ recently retired LDS Mission President.’

Since its very difficult to discern a grain of charity or kindness in his letter the church leaders are probably pleased that he used ‘Retired Colonel’ instead of ‘former mission president.’ His letter was certainly absent any portion of the Spirit of the Lord.

In fact, in all liklihood the brethern are squirming about this letter. At this point in time they are trying to figure a way out of the box they have already built for themselves and these kinds of vile, anti-gay blather coming from prominent members of the church is not what the church needs right now.

Stephens sounds as brash and out of touch as Apostle Boyd K. Packer’s speech in general conference that had the other general authorities on ‘damage control alert.’

Ret. Colonel Stephens has probably served aside many gays during this years in the military, and if he is a combat veteran of 30 years (which is probably an extreme exaggeration given that he would have to be in combat almost continuously during his military career) a gay soldier may have saved his life.

Another liklihood that Stephens probably isn’t even aware of is that he has children or grand children who are gay and they are in the closet out of fear of their grumpy old grandpa.

The attitude expressed by this letter reflects poorly on the church and the military.

There were many commentors who took him to task for his letter. We will reprint two comments that appeared in the Standard Examiner in Ogden. It was as follows:

Al 12/21/2010 03:28 PM

Gary asserts that, “The Pentagon’s report “repeatedly” said that allowing gays to serve openly would “lead to widespread and overt displays of effeminacy and unsavory conduct.”"

What’s fun about the internet is that when people quote things, other people can look up the quotes to see if they are accurate. No surprise, Gary’s assertion is entirely wrong. Here’s what the report actually SAYS (page 5, Gary; you wouldn’t even have to read that much):

In the course of our assessment, it became apparent to us that, aside from the moral and religious objections to homosexuality, much of the concern about “open” service is driven by misperceptions and stereotypes about what it would mean if gay Service members were allowed to be “open” about their sexual orientation. Repeatedly, we heard Service members express the view that “open” homosexuality would lead to widespread and overt displays of effeminacy among men, homosexual promiscuity, harassment and unwelcome advances within units, invasions of personal privacy, and an overall erosion of standards of conduct, unit cohesion, and morality. Based on our review, however, we conclude that these concerns about gay and lesbian Service members who are permitted to be “open” about their sexual orientation are exaggerated, and not consistent with the reported experiences of many Service members.

So, yes, it says what Gary argues it says, but only if you ignore the rest of the words.

Another commenter said:

Well, Col (Ret) Gary:

I’m a civilian who worked at Hill AFB for 27+ years, and whose husband served three tours in Vietnam with the US Navy. I am very familiar with the military.

I must say that you have blinders on, ignored what was going on around you during your career, and evidently are so used to people taking your word for things, that you think we’re all as stupid?

I guess now that you have to produce your own writings (instead of someone doing it for you), you’re not as concerned with accuracy? As Al has pointed out, you’ve pulled a Beck-Limbaugh trick of taking a sentence out of context and weaving a little fantasy around it.

When I first went to work at the base in 1965, the first young airman I met, became a friend and confided in me that he was “queer” (the word everyone used back then). During my career, I met many many other gay members of the military. THEIR FELLOW MILITARY KNEW THEY WERE GAY! Oh, a few got teased — but no one really cared.

My father served in WWII. We talked about the issue a few years back, and he remembers serving with two gay members of the US Marines, 6th Marines Division!

You, Col (Ret) Gary, also met gay members of the military. Many of them outranked you.

Shamefully, Col (Ret) Gary, you are totally unaware of the bravery shown by the gays serving in our military.

In fact, I am positive that you owe your life, to at least one gay person.

Published: December 18, 2010 01:01AM
(Ed Firmage Jr. is a fine-art photographer in Salt Lake City.)

From the beginning, America has been a land of opportunity. And because of this, Americans dreamed big.

Our optimism comes from the unique experience of starting our national adventure with a continent of pristine land at our feet. America before Europeans was of course not uninhabited or untouched by people. But the native inhabitants practiced a mode of living that left the land intact. They, therefore, as much as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, are our founding fathers and mothers.

And so, unlike any people since the Stone Age, settlers in America enjoyed the benefit of a continent of unspoiled resources. For as long as the frontier remained, Americans could look West and see a future that was theirs to make and enjoy. As historian Frederick Jackson Turner observed, our character stems from our relationship with a frontier that seemed to be never-ending.

In the years following the “closing” of the frontier in 1890, Americans found themselves enmeshed in global problems that were not of our making: the suicide of Europe’s empires in World War I and the ensuing collapse of the idiotic peace that followed. The “war to end all wars,” in fact, set the stage for a century of war that included not only World War II but also the Cold War.

Together, these three big wars and the countless little wars they spawned defined America in ways that we ourselves might not have chosen as pioneers on the frontier or as participants in the great constitutional debate that marked our debut as a nation. Modern America is certainly not the world that my ancestors, who came West to build the Kingdom of God, would have chosen.

The 20th century and the beginning of the 21st are in fact a detour from our appointed course. Our Founding Fathers, who created the world’s first democracy since ancient Greece, dreamed of a society that would work differently from that of Europe.

Thus, for example, the founders set in place a legal framework that made it difficult for the president to wage war. Subsequent American history has been the story of the undoing of this intent of the framers.

And so, in ways and to a degree that would shock Thomas Jefferson or George Washington, America finds itself today playing warlord in Afghanistan.

The tragedy of America is that, in spite of being “on top,” we’ve lost our sense of purpose, the true defining of which was interrupted by the century of Europe’s wars and their disastrous impact on the American soul. The tragedy is our present false sense of self as a superpower. It’s a tragedy because being a superpower is a fantasy, a dark fantasy, not a life’s purpose for ordinary people. Superpower is the dream of tyrants, not democrats.

What, then, is our course in the next century to be? Is it continuing the long detour of militarism and corporate empire building (Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex)?

Speaking for myself, I’d like to think that we have greater collective wisdom than that. I believe that our mission lies in the job, interrupted in the early 20th century, of creating a radically better kind of society.

The key now, as then, is having a frontier to challenge us. Free land is gone. But free power is everywhere, in sun and wind. Clean power, if we will embrace it, is the answer not only to our need for energy but our even deeper need, manifested by our present neurotic behavior, for high purpose in what we do.

And what purpose could be more inspiring than creating a way of life that will last!

Ed Firmage Jr. is a fine-art photographer in Salt Lake City.

Re “LDS half-measure” (Forum, Nov. 10):

The idiom “beating a dead horse” comes to mind each time I read a letter about non-acceptance of homosexuality by churches, religions, government leaders and the public in general.

Using examples of early American slavery or mistreatment of Jews throughout history to apply to non-acceptance of a lifestyle is ludicrous and an injustice to the memory of those events.

Religions have centuries-old doctrines and creeds that provide lifestyle guidelines to their adherents. Many religions — Christian, Eastern, Asian and others — do not view homosexuality as an acceptable practice.

Accusing individuals of intolerance or political incorrectness for not changing the beliefs that define their faith is the mirror image of homosexuals crying non-acceptance of their beliefs.

We all have the choice to accept or not accept lifestyles of others, while still maintaining kindness, compassion and civility. As we learned in junior high and high school, acceptance by one group or another should not define who we believe we are.

Bonnie Stone

Eden

Bonnie, gays aren’t trying to change church doctrines, just their behavior toward them, like perhaps trying The Golden Rule!! Gays are not mistreating religions. Religions are mistreating gays by restricting

I just finished Ron Chernow’s acclaimed Washington: A Life. I was struck how George Washington was consistently for a strong national government to solve national problems.

Washington was for a national debt when needed, and he definitely believed in national intervention to solve economic problems.

He had no sympathy for those who wanted to put states’ rights before the federal government.

Those who claim that the Founding Fathers didn’t intend to create a strong, pre-eminent federal government conveniently ignore the father of our country, who only led the Constitutional Convention and ran for president to create a strong national government.

Given Washington’s deference to elected legislatures as general and as president, amazingly, his opponents, those who championed states’ rights — Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, whose writings gave justification to the South in the Civil War — labeled Washington as a “monarchist.” Incredible.

You can’t read Chernow’s book without seeing contemporary parallels. Only today those who champion a national government solving national problems like health care, climate change and regulation of Wall Street aren’t called monarchists, they’re smeared as socialists, anti-Constitution and worse.

But just as before, it’s the anti-government name-callers who are leading the nation down a path of destruction.

Billy C. Hanson

Park City

© 2010 The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: November 17, 2010 01:01AM

You didn’t get mad:

• when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a president;

• when Vice President Dick Cheney let energy companies dictate energy policy;

• when a CIA operative got outed;

• when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us;

• when we spent more than $800 billion on said illegal war;

• when we tortured people;

• when the government illegally wiretapped Americans;

• when Bush rang up nearly $5 trillion in debt;

• when we gave the filthy rich half a trillion dollars in tax breaks;

• when we had the worst eight years of job creation in decades;

• when 200,000 Americans died because they had no health insurance; or

• when poor oversight caused Americans to lose $12 trillion in investments, retirement and home values.

You finally got mad as hell when a black president decided that Americans deserve the right to see a doctor.

Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, millions of job losses, stealing tax dollars to make the rich richer, and the worst economic disaster since 1929 were all OK, but helping fellow Americans to stay healthy … oh, hell no!

Sharon Davis

Salt Lake City

© 2010 The Salt Lake Tribune

“Don’t legalize dope” (Forum, Nov. 14) delivered a real shocker. The author, who owns a hammer (a drug treatment business), views all recreational use of mind-altering substances as nails (addiction). She seems truly shocked at the concept of addictive substances being legally available, but she makes no attempt to intellectually rationalize our treatment of the big three: alcohol, caffeine and tobacco.

Instead, she wants to talk about “drugs,” as though a plant that has a history of beneficial interaction with the human race for the entirety of our existence is in nowise different from something cooked up in the labs of Big Pharma at the cost of billions of dollars.

People, apples and cannabis have traveled the road of life forever, and the only reason we leave apples alone, legally, is because we don’t experience whatever good they deliver nearly instantly, as we do for marijuana. This fight against legalizing cannabis is completely about the right-wing nanny state: that people in a free country simply can’t be trusted to adopt all of the “right” values.

Darrell Prows

Murray

We generally post letters to the editor on the left side of our front page, but this letter was deemed worthy of front page headline. Way to go Mr. Keith Charles of Oakley.

This letter appeared in The Public Forum of the Salt Lake Tribune, a newspaper we greatly admire and appreciate for its wonderful editorial page section and its staff of news reporters who actually dig and discover and inform.

Published: November 19, 2010 01:01AM

Re “Ezra Taft Benson: Tea party pioneer” (Tribune, Nov. 14):

So, arch-conservative and eventual LDS Church President Ezra Taft Benson suspected while he was U.S. secretary of agriculture that his boss, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, was a communist. That makes sense.

After all, the World War II general-turned-president scrupulously and impressively kept America out of war during eight hot years of the Cold War and created the world’s largest public works project, the Interstate Highway System.

So it’s sort of logical for Benson to see Eisenhower as a pacifist wimp in defending America, and as a big-time violator of states’ rights to build roads — in short, as un-American.

In contrast, members of today’s tea party movement, of which Benson was a “confounding father,” patriotically supported the past decade’s rash rush into needless wars of choice.

And if President Barack Obama proposed a public works infrastructure project as massive as the Interstate system to help our economy, he would be demeaned by today’s evil label: socialist.

Obama is in the Eisenhower mold; the tea partiers are in Benson’s.

Regardless of camouflaging patriotic rhetoric and labels, I’m with the calm problem-solvers Obama and Eisenhower.

Keith Charles

Oakley

Published: November 13, 2010 01:01AM

Re “Same-sex attractions can change, 44% say” (Tribune, Nov. 5):

So 55 percent of Mormons persist in believing that gays can change (but only 20 percent of non-LDS). No surprise there, considering Mormons’ proclivity for believing myths over facts.

From a people among whom many don’t believe in evolution, what do you expect? If Mormons lived in Galileo’s day, they would be one of the last people to agree that Jupiter has moons and the Earth revolves around the sun.

Science: the other form of revelation.

Mike Waters

Salt Lake City

By Sen. Orrin G. Hatch

Published: Monday, Oct. 18, 2010 12:00 a.m. MDT

In a political move devoid of any policy rationale, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has recommended that the Office of Management and Budget cut the construction budget for the Central Utah Project (CUP).

This recommendation would cut CUP funding just as the decades-long project is nearly ready to deliver water to Utahns. Thus, Salazar would turn hundreds of millions of dollars worth of water infrastructure into a giant white elephant — one that sits in our mountains but does not actually deliver critical water.

The CUP is a federal–local partnership created years ago to build a system of reservoirs and pipelines to store Utah’s annual share of the Colorado River. Projects like the CUP keep the peace among the seven Colorado River Basin states by ensuring each state receives its share of the river.

Fully authorized by law, the CUP has been included in every president’s budget request to Congress since Jimmy Carter. There was an effort to give CUP funding a one-time boost in President Obama’s Stimulus bill, but I did not support it in that form. Otherwise, the project has never been a partisan issue, an earmark or pork. In fact, participating communities in Utah have already paid 35 percent of the cost of construction for the project, and the state’s water users would repay the remaining federal share with interest once the water is delivered. So there is no savings to the overall budget by cutting CUP funding.

So Senator Hatch opposed it for political reasons and now he wants to change his mind. Perhaps Obama listened to him the first time.

We happen to agree that here is another government project that needs to be funded, but what is Obama to do? Hatch wants to stop government spending—but not in his back yard.

Yes, fund the project, but please Senator Hatch, be consistent.

This begs the question of why the secretary would try to cut funding for this vital project. If he succeeds, he would stop the final delivery of CUP water to Utahns. He also would remove the requirement for Utahns to reimburse the federal government for its costs in constructing the project. Utah would be left with reservoirs and pipelines that supply no water and the federal government would be left holding the tab for this white elephant.

And what about the 35 percent share that Utah communities have invested in the project? By not delivering the water, the federal government would have to reimburse them for their substantial investment in the CUP. Therefore, Secretary Salazar would turn a successful budget-neutral program into a large fiscal and legal liability for the federal government. That makes absolutely no sense.

Again, I ask, why make such a move?

These are questions the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) should want answered. As the White House’s budget watchdog, the OMB should recoil from the new budget burden Secretary Salazar would place on the government’s shoulders. American taxpayers, Utah water users and the federal government would all benefit by completion of the CUP and be harmed by the secretary’s proposal.

It is my belief, after discussing the issue with the Deputy Secretary of the Interior, that as these points become clear, the recommendation to cut CUP may be reversed, and completing the CUP is something we can all get behind.

Orrin G. Hatch is the senior senator from Utah.

Wayne Steffner is correct when he cites the biblical references that denounce homosexuality, adultery, and bestiality (“It’s in the Old Testament,” Forum, Oct. 13). He shouldn’t just admonish us with his lurid interest in sexual behavior; he needs to follow all of his Bible’s “moral” teachings:

• Don’t work on the Sabbath; kill anyone who does (Exodus 31:12).

• Never wear clothing made of mixed fibers (Leviticus 19:19).

• Don’t eat pork, rabbits and shellfish (Leviticus 11:6).

• Men, do not cut your hair and don’t shave (Leviticus 19:27).

• Shun menstruating women; they and everything they touch are unclean (Leviticus. 15:19).

• Kill new brides who are not virgins (Deuteronomy 21:18).

• Force rapists to marry the women they rape (Deuteronomy 22:28).

• Parents may kill disobedient children (Deuteronomy 21:18).

As Steffner wrote: “We cannot escape our responsibility toward our fellow men; we should never sanction, facilitate or ‘tolerate’ any of these acts.”

People who use books written 2,500 years ago by superstitious Bronze Age goat herders, who claimed the world was flat and the sun revolved around the Earth as their moral code, scare the hell out of me.

Ken McCabe

Bluffdale

by Gary Watts, M.D., Provo, Utah

Most knowledgeable Mormons and ecclesiastical leaders know that homosexuality is experienced honestly and involuntarily and is not amenable to significant change.   I’m confident they were uncomfortable with Elder Boyd K. Packer’s most recent conference talk.  It is disappointing, however, to see them remain silent.

I’m reminded of Elie Weisel’s quote during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

I look forward to the day when LDS church leaders will reach out to our gay children, friends and neighbors, and figure out a way to enfranchise, rather than disenfranchise them.

Gary Watts

801 374-1447

by Boyer Jarvis

Many retired people in the United States of America depend upon Social Security as their major, or only, source of income. Since the program was established in the 1930s, both employees and employers have paid equally into the Social Security Trust Fund, from which, after retiring, the former employees are paid monthly benefits.

In 1983, Congress raised the retirement age from 65 to 67 and cut benefits for the average retiree by 13 percent. That action was intended to avoid a future deficit in the Social Security fund. As the baby-boomer generation retires, Congress again faces how to keep Social Security from falling into the red around 2035.

Some propose protecting Social Security by raising the retirement age to 68 or 69 or 70, and by making even deeper cuts in benefits. There is a better, and fairer, way to ensure a solvent Social Security fund for years. Simply remove the existing $106,800 ceiling on earned income that pays the Social Security tax, and collect the tax on all earned income. The additional flow of money into the trust fund will ensure the fund’s ability to pay benefits way beyond 2035.

Boyer Jarvis

Salt Lake City