Abuse of power
Abuse of power is wrong. It is time our nation wake up and see what is taking place on a daily basis by all sides, as it is tearing apart the fabric of our country.
In the name of winning, it is OK to force one’s thoughts and ideas on those who disagree. Whether here in Maine with our governor, who interfered in Good Will-Hinckley’s decision to hire House Speaker Mark Eves, which he had no right to influence, or nationwide, where in the name of gay rights people are forced out of business, abuse is abuse.
We should all be cognizant of the fact that someday anyone of us could be on the wrong end of this misuse of power, as history has taught us time and time again. Will we ever learn?
Phillip Pitula
Winterport
Feeding the hungry
The midcoast of Maine has an abundance of good people, and that is never more evident than each June, when Mimi Bornstein’s Midcoast Community Chorus gives another rousing, sell-out concert at Strom Auditorium to benefit a local good cause. This year they chose hunger, and the $10,000 proceeds of their June 13 concert came to Area Interfaith Outreach food pantry and emergency assistance.
It’s a huge effort. The chorus invited one of us to rehearsals to tell them more about local poverty and how at every rehearsal they hauled in food for the pantry shelves. In the end it was more than three-quarters of a ton.
The chorus community so clearly made themselves a part of Area Interfaith Outreach’s community, which is Knox County’s community, all of us concerned about the rising levels of poverty around us, all of us hoping to make some difference.
We are announcing the launching of a new program: Adopt a Backpack — Feed a Child. Nearly half the children in Knox County qualify for free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches at school but often are underfed on weekends. Area Interfaith Outreach is raising money this summer to send food for the weekend home in 200 book bags next school year.
We are immensely grateful to Mimi, her choristers and helpers. What a fine thing they did; what a shining example of the good that can happen when a few people have an idea and make the effort.
Sherry Cobb
President
Area Interfaith Outreach
Serving Knox County
Union
LePage is right
Most of the Bangor Daily News’ letters to the editor attack Gov. Paul LePage. Reacting to the headlines in our leftist media, they are completely uninformed by the propaganda put out by the BDN and the Portland Press Herald.
If they reported the whole story, they would have to admit the money the governor threatened to hold back from Good Will-Hinckley if it hired House Speaker Mark Eves was legally under the governor’s discretion.
But all that was withheld from being reported by the media. So we have the the leftists doing their thing babbling about how bad our good governor is. He has tried to stop the flow of wasted money that has made our state fiscally irresponsible, but it’s hard when the other side is against him.
There is no compromising with Democrats. It’s their way or the highway. They are the ones who tout compromise but never practice it. I think these people should meet the governor. They would find he is a good man, trying to straighten out the state of our state. That’s what we elected him for. The governor is right that it’s wrong to hire a man who is against charter schools as the president of one.
Howard Cutler
Dixmont
Orono road of shame
What a shame for the town of Orono. The section of Stillwater Avenue from Exit 193 on Interstate 95 to Bennoch Road in Orono is the roughest road around. Stillwater Avenue from the Bangor Mall to I-95 has been paved twice, but this little section of road remains untouched. Those new lines that have been painted sure make it smoother. I wonder what the people who come to visit the University of Maine think?
Larry Meyer
Old Town
Protect churches
We now have the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage, and our churches had better wake up. The Supreme Court also said in the ruling that churches did not have to accept the edict when they were deciding who can be married in their churches.
The participants in the Bangor Pride Festival were not talking this way, and neither were the participants in the gay pride parades across our nation. They were saying the court’s decision was wonderful, but they would not let up until our whole society accepts their lifestyle as good and normal.
Already, there are rumblings among nationwide evangelicals that they plan to hunker down and ignore what the court has done and just preach Jesus and get people saved. They think this will safeguard their tax-exempt status, which many fear could come under fire if they don’t accept same-sex marriage. If they never peep beyond their church walls, everything will go fine for them, they think.
We must deem any attack on any one church’s tax-exempt status or that church’s right to refuse to consummate any marriages outside one man and one woman unions as an attack on all churches. We must help any church in their fight in the court to keep their religious rights protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Let’s use all legal means to keep churches free of government interference. But we shouldn’t try to force the gay community to accept our beliefs. Still, we must not allow our constitutional rights to slip away.
Jim McKeen
Bangor
Where’s the troop support?
The next time the Bangor Daily News prints a news story and photo-op of the governor supporting the troops, I’ll remind everyone he and his wife conspicuously were absent from the event at the Cross Insurance Center to welcome home Vietnam veterans on June 14.
One also has to wonder why the BDN did not cover of the event.
William D. Skinner
Bangor