I write to correct multiple factual errors embedded in the August 25-September 7 “View From Planet Kerth” column that seems to proselytize in favor of abortion and teaching kindergartners about homosexuality and against a free people’s right to keep and bear arms. Like many people making such arguments, its author falls into the trap that lawyers call “hard cases making bad law.”
For starters, the mis-named “Don’t Say Gay” bill passed in Florida is hardly either “homophobic” (a misnomer in itself) or “ultra-conservative.” Rather, it flows from two common-sense observations: that parents have the first responsibility for educating their young children, particularly about such matters as sexual relations; and that schools should be teaching kindergartners through third graders how to read, write, and work with numbers and not the various permutations of sexual attraction.
Second, the overwhelming majority of shootings in the United States take place with handguns and not with so-called “assault weapons,” which no one can accurately or readily define. Tragedies like the Highland Park shooting are of course deplorable, but extremely rare. In contrast, for example, based on Chicago Police Department figures and other reliable sources, 2368 (that’s two thousand, three hundred sixty-eight) people were shot within the city limits of Chicago from January 1 through August 26, 2022, 416 of them to death. Banning the sale of the most popular sport and hunting rifle in America, the AR-15, will do nothing to abate that horrific loss of life.
Finally, contrary to popular modern mythology, aborted fetuses are not the sole source of “stem cells” for medical research. Even basic research would disclose that stem cells are found in limited quantities in adult human tissue, including bone marrow and fat, and more commonly and productively in newborn umbilical cord blood, which can be – and commonly is – harvested without jeopardy to the health of either mother or child.
Mr. Kerth is of course entitled to his own opinions, but not – in the words of the late James R. Schlesinger and Daniel Patrick Moynihan – to his own facts.
Respectfully,
David L. Applegate
Sun City resident
