Dear Editor:
Re: Some beliefs have consequences, Letters to the Editor, Burnaby NOW, Sept. 14. Hugh Vincelette warns us (threatens?) that "the usual right-wing suspects," whom, he claims, are liars, slanderers and defamers, who have "an inherent disrespect for human and civil rights, and human dignity," have no right to be opposed to a "program meant to foster tolerance and non-violence." Oh, is that what he is doing in this letter?
He continues in this line of thought, smearing "the religious right," presumably Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Evangelicals and Jews, Muslims and Sikhs and the traditionalist Chinese religious, not to mention atheists who see the danger of the socialist agenda and of social engineering. Why would he think that we should hold our sound principles as if they were sullen prejudices? Have values become so unfashionable that they appear as popular prejudices? Popular culture, (and I use the term loosely) is openly hostile to Christian (and other) concepts and precepts, especially as they relate to sexuality and life issues.
Modern education seems to mean, handing down the customs of the minority and rooting out the customs of the majority. To people like Hugh, all property and family life were (are) bourgeois and ought to be abolished. Time will tell, Mr. Vincelette, about or shortly after the next school board elections. Sorry to hear about your lost youth and resources and, in the spirit of tolerance, I welcome you to the club.
Larry Bennett, Burnaby
