Effects on businesses
Has the Arkansas Legislature considered that legislation that is damaging to LGBTQ rights is going to harm our business prospects, or do they care?
The NCAA and many organizations will not book events in a state with an anti-LGBTQ stance. This loss of events will harm the hospitality industry and our tax revenue. On the other hand, it will reduce the number of potential super-spreader events. At least we have that going for us.
WILLIAM BARGER
Little Rock
Because that'll work
Tyranny. To prevent tyranny. It's a common response to proposed gun-control legislation. Yes, tyranny indeed.
JERROLD HINES
Little Rock
How not to persuade
Re the letter from Robert Bemis printed Tuesday: I have several responses to your letter, Mr. Bemis. (1) It is not a good idea to insult someone to begin a letter intended to persuade. You did so twice in the first two sentences of your letter by calling "us" "Nazis" and then accuse "us" of using only a few brain cells.
(2) I believe you are misunderstanding the purpose of a vaccination. A vaccination is intended to prevent an illness, not to treat an illness. You say that one does not need a vaccination "when there's nothing wrong with them." Mr. Bemis, that is precisely why one needs a vaccination.
(3) I prefer that you not start the second paragraph with "So listen up." It comes across as authoritative, when you have no authority to exert.
(4) You are correct when you state that you have a right to refuse the vaccine. However, you follow that up by stating that you have a right to stay employed, which you do not. Capiche?
STACY "PETE" PETERS
Little Rock
It's not just voter ID
The political cartoon in the Voices section of the Monday Democrat-Gazette was nothing if not disingenuous. To say that the GOP's war on voting rights is simply about voter ID is unconscionably deceptive.
Voter ID is one thing; shortening voting hours, limiting early voting and radically limiting mail-in voting is another. The GOP-led limits on opportunities to vote will weigh most heavily on single working parents and workers juggling multiple jobs; in other words, low-income voters. Supporters of the state legislation have already admitted they want to limit Democratic votes.
I would suggest that, if the GOP recognizes that it's a declining minority, it should widen its appeal and voter base, not deny others the right to vote.
RON JACOBS
Little Rock
We're a laughingstock
In order to distract from its failure to meet the needs of Arkansans, the Legislature has launched triumphantly into the race-to-the-bottom culture war. As a gay resident, I am upset with the intent behind Senate Bill 289, which would allow an EMT to let me bleed out because they object to the "ethics" of something I had no say in.
Arkansas now shares a privilege often enjoyed by Jason Rapert and Leslie Rutledge: being a national laughingstock. Unpersuaded by arguments about the intent behind the bill, perhaps the Legislature should focus on its impact.
Arkansas has a considerable problem retaining residents who obtain a degree here; they cannot wait to leave. As a law student reading the text of this bill, I can understand why. The language is overly broad and would permit discrimination against practically anybody for any reason that could be construed as "moral," "ethical" or "religious." A liberal EMT might refuse to do chest compressions on one of the sponsors in the Legislature because of their onerous beliefs.
Corporations have stepped in to fill in the moral ground that should be filled by our political leaders. Just about every major company has a float at pride events, Walmart included. What business is going to look at the Legislature here and want anything to do with us? Their shareholders are watching, and our legislators are throwing away jobs and economic development with impunity.
It is a rite of passage for gay people to leave this state once they get what they need from it. I am an Arkansan. I was raised in Greenbrier, my family lives here, and I live here, dammit. I shouldn't have to leave to be treated with dignity. I was here before this legislative session, and I will be here after it is over. Adjust accordingly.
WILLIAM YANDELL
Fayetteville
Need return to sanity
I am 86 years old. I have lived under many presidents since Roosevelt. Some I liked, some I did not. There have been wars, serious diseases, threats from other countries. In my busy life, I failed to see how far my country has sunk into the ways of Satan. All that I trusted to keep us safe is gone; government, teachers, some churches, doctors ...
There is nothing I can do to bring America back to sanity and the ways of God except pray. God bless America.
TRUDY HENLEY
Sherwood
Paper all in for left
Thank you, Charles Hughes and Edward Chevallier, for your very correct letters to the editor. I take the paper for two reasons. I need the Sunday obits for a genealogical project, and I send the Sunday funny to a family member who enjoys and can't take the paper. I believe the paper is definitely pro-left.
PAULA CHISM
Bentonville