Donald Trump, Kevin Johnson, Assembly, gay marriage, Boy Scouts

NBC is right to dump Trump

Re “NBC to Trump: You’re fire” (Page8A, June30): Congratulations, NBC. Growing up in the 50’s, I often wondered how right wing radicals could take control of Germany’s government. How could Christians accept hate and intolerance in their leaders?

Today, we seeing troubling signs in the Republican Party.

But good news is, there are Republicans who have the ability to govern, who understand the nuances of diplomacy, and are willing to work with their opposition to move America forward. John Huntsman is one of them. While I disagree with him on many issues, I believe he is a Republican who could govern – but it would mean rejecting the radicalism of their party’s extreme right.

So much for transparency

Re “Don’t rush into email purge” (Page B6, June 30): Sacramento city officials publicly espouse transparency and open government, but actions speak otherwise.

Led by Mayor Kevin Johnson, the city fought to avoid a public vote on the new arena under construction. Why? Presumably, they feared the public would reject the city ponying up funding.

The civil trial over arena financing has revealed questionable parts of the deal that most of the public, and some council members, weren't privy to.

Now the city proposes to delete email it deems unimportant and asks citizens to trust it to determine which ones are unimportant. And this in spite of the fact that it costs the city only $3,400 a year to store emails.

When will the citizens of Sacramento finally say "Enough" and demand that the city live up to it's claim of open government?

Who does own legislators?

Re “5 Issues face cloudy prospects in Assembly” (Page B1, June 29): Staff writer Alexei Koseff writes that Assembly Governmental Organization Committee members received $145,000 in campaign contributions from tobacco companies. While The Bee knows who owns whom, the same is not true of less informed readers. It would be enlightening to a yearbook-type pictures of legislators along with the company logos of the companies and special interest groups that have bought their vote.

Schubert and SCOTUS were right

Re “Ruling adds fuel to cultural wars over gay marriage” (Viewpoints, June 30): Political consultant Frank Schubert is right. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling adds fuel to the gay marriage wars, but he is wrong to think the Supreme Court was wrong.

Even if a majority of Americans wanted to continue to discriminate against gays, which I don’t think they do, it still would not be right. Discrimination is discrimination, even if you discriminate for religious reasons.

We all want freedom to do as we want, but with freedom comes responsibility. We have the responsibility to respect and protect the rights of other Americans, even rights of those we don’t agree with.

Marriage question is settled

I am surprised that Frank Schubert, a successful political consultant who no doubt understands the importance of public opinion, is suggesting another attempt to introduce a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between one man and one woman.

Those efforts failed to gain any significant traction even when public opinion was solidly opposed to same-sex marriage. I can only assume Schubert is unaware of the sea change that has occurred in the support for marriage equality since Prop 8’s passage. Fortunately, though, for Schubert and people who share his beliefs, the freedom to marry someone of the opposite sex remains intact.

A tragic lack of training

Re “Boy scout swept away in flash flood identified” (Page A3, June 30): The Boy Scouts of America is one of the most successful educational organizations in the country.

Ironically, this tragic death involves a failure to be prepared. It rains regularly somewhere on the Philmont Scout Ranch. This usually happens in the early afternoon in the mountains, but with that kind of daily weather fluctuation, nobody should be camping in any canyon which might be prone to flooding.

Careless, unthinking adults leading untrained children eliminated some of the thinking which should go into selecting a camp site and pitching tents.

Fifty years ago, a standard practice in pitching a tent was to dig a trench around it. Environmental concerns wiped out that practice. To stop thinking about what might happen if it rains makes no sense in a place where it rains regularly.

I hope that someone, somewhere, will wake up as a result of this very sad event.

This story was originally published June 30, 2015 at 5:01 PM with the headline "Donald Trump, Kevin Johnson, Assembly, gay marriage, Boy Scouts."