Gay Teacher

Whoa, back up the truck! Where is it written that parents have no rights (“Gay Teacher Fights Defections From His Classes,” Dec. 30) when it comes to the education of their children? Why is the term “free choice” only selectively applied by liberals to such things as abortion and alternate lifestyles, but when parents make the choice that they don’t want their children taught by a homosexual, free choice becomes a stain on society and subject to a legal action?

I personally support and applaud the parents with the chutzpah to buck the prevailing winds of political correctness and do what they know is best for their children. It does not matter that James Merrick may feel discriminated against because of his sexual orientation, because it is the parents’ right--no, it is the parents’ duty--to do what is best for their children.

HARRY H. WILSON

Cerritos

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I noticed a sad connection between Al Martinez’s column, “The Silence of the Lambs” (Dec. 30) and John Glionna’s story about the gay teacher.

Martinez quotes Rabbi Marvin Hier saying that bigots are a “new danger to society” and says he sees them as “small and fearful people who, at a moment of despair, will find others to blame for their anguish, and the others, be they Jews or immigrants, are always the ones different from themselves.”

Glionna’s story quotes Carolyn LaRue, a co-owner of a local eatery, on Merrick’s admission of being gay: “ ‘He admits he’s gay?’ she smirked. ‘He should have kept his mouth shut in this town.’ ”

I think the “small and fearful people” in Bakersfield could benefit from a trip to the Museum of Tolerance. Unfortunately, though, it is all too often that the people who need the sort of message that a Museum of Tolerance can bring are the very people that wouldn’t be caught dead there.

ELISABETH CHATFELTER

Lake Hughes