Sometimes letters to the Voices column of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette defy description and such fits the letter of July 26, 2013, concerning the Declaration of Independence. The writer quoted the principles of the founding “that all men 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.” Then went on to state that the standards are not being followed. That is very apparent, but what he means isn’t what you might think. 

He claimed in his letter that through Rove v Wade that the standards of the Declaration were being met and now the states are trying to destroy Roe which is a betrayal of the founding standards. Have you recovered from the shock? The writer conveniently left out life as one of the principles he quoted. Without life, which God gives, nothing else matters. He also forgot the part about posterity in the Preamble of the Constitution. Without posterity there isn’t a future or the republic.

Next he dives off into unalienable rights with the unproven notion that being gay is genetically inherited, and since that is true, at least in the warped mind of the writer, homosexuals should have all the rights of any other human as outlined in the Declaration. What rights don’t homosexuals posses? As humans, they are created through the birth process given by God; they have life and can enjoy the liberty protected by the Constitution. The writer says that some states discriminate against them (presumably because men can’t marry men or women marry women.) Then the writer claims that some states treat gays and lesbians as criminals. Yes, they are treated as criminals when they commit criminal acts, but the Supreme Court has shot down all laws against homosexual behavior unless other criminal acts are committed.

The writer isn’t finished with his enlightened thinking. ID laws take away the ability of the poor and elderly to vote or so the writer thinks. ID is needed for just about everything in life, and to apply his thinking logically, the poor and elderly should never be inconvenienced with providing an ID for anything they might need to do. The next time the writer is asked to produce an ID for anything, refusal should be done under the guise of taking away some obscure right of not being inconvenienced.

Those wrongs must be righted by the people according to him, even though the writer might be seen as a member of the radicals who want to destroy state’s rights. A better definition for those of the mind of the writer is mindless. Actually, with upside down world regarding morals and rights in which we live, those of us who want to stop abortion, immortality and the ever intrusive government in all areas of life, we are the radicals standing alongside of the founders and framers who fought England for life liberty and pursuit of happiness. And by no stretch of the imagination did the founders ever countenance that abortion and homosexuality or other immorality was included in the pursuit of happiness. None of those behaviors bring happiness and the founders knew it since they were men who believed in God and followed the principles of the Bible.

It would be good if the letter writer knew some history and stopped trying to push historical revisionism in order to propel his wacky thinking. Maybe wacky isn’t the right word; convoluted would be better because when the Declaration of Independence is used in an attempt to justify abortion and homosexuality, there aren’t many words that fit the description. But maybe one more word is appropriate to describe the writer: dense.  

© 07-26-2013 DEC