2
Wednesday, May 25, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I
N I
O
N
What about rights to
safety and privacy?
By Carol Lovegren Miller
Guest Columnist
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let-
ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be
no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.
To the Editor:
Thursday May 5, was the National Day of
Prayer. Not something new as the first call
for prayer was in 1775. Some of the found-
ing fathers of our nation with their faith -
public prayer and national days of prayer
became a long-standing and significant his-
tory in American tradition. The Supreme
Court affirmed the right of state legislators to
open their sessions with prayer in Marcs vs.
Chamber (1983).
The call to prayer has continued through
our history, including President Lincoln’s
proclamation of a day of “humiliation, fasting,
and prayer” in 1863. In 1952, a joint resolu-
tion of Congress, signed by President Truman,
declared an annual day of prayer. In 1988, the
law was amended and signed by President
Reagan, permanently setting the day as the
first Thursday of every May. Each year, the
president signs a proclamation, encouraging
all Americans to pray on this day. Last year
all 50 governors plus the governors of several
U.S. territories signed similar proclamations.
The National Day of Prayer belongs to all
Americans and that includes the Sisters com-
munity, too. A day to bring citizens of all
backgrounds that can transcend their differ-
ences. Another day of observance held all over
America on the steps of city halls, in schools
if permitted , businesses, churches and homes
… people stop their activities and gather in
prayer.
The National Day of Prayer which took
place in Sisters Country was its fourth annual
event. The Nugget was made aware of the
event and was also personally invited. The
May 11th addition of The Nugget highlighted
numerous events in the community … so
should it be considered and intentional that
a recognized National Day of Prayer isn’t
for Sisters … or is it that the Sisters Nugget
decided so?
In addition, the prayer breakfast provides
a secondary purpose to benefit the commu-
nity’s only private school, Sisters Christian
See LETTERS on page 38
Sisters Weather Forecast
Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Chance showers
Partly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
65/35
62/36
56/36
59/38
66/41
65/na
The Nugget Newspaper, Inc.
Website: www.nuggetnews.com
442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759
Tel: 541-549-9941 | Fax: 541-549-9940 | editor@nuggetnews.com
Postmaster: Send address changes to
The Nugget Newspaper,
P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759.
Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon.
Publisher - Editor: Kiki Dolson
News Editor: Jim Cornelius
Production Manager: Leith Williver
Classifieds & Circulation: Teresa Mahnken
Advertising: Karen Kassy
Graphic Design: Jess Draper
Proofreader: Pete Rathbun
Accounting: Erin Bordonaro
The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area.
Third-class postage: one year, $45; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55.
Published Weekly. ©2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. All advertising which
appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. assumes no liability or responsibility for
information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as uncondition-
ally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently
available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts.
In 2000, a girl at Powers
High School was banned
from walking in her gradu-
ation and made nation-
wide news when she took
a shower with the boys in
the boys’ locker room. This
spring, schools all over the
state of Oregon and nation
are being told they must
allow girls to shower in the
boys’ locker room and vice
versa. Huh?
The recent craze to allow
transgender people to choose
whichever restroom they
feel comfortable in overrules
the rights of 99.7 percent of
the population to safety and
privacy. Individual trans-
gendered people may not
be a risk, but the new direc-
tives open the door wide to
abuse by perverts and
pedophiles.
In response to North
Carolina’s new law, which
allows businesses to restrict
restroom use to biological
gender, Target announced
that people of any gender are
welcome to use whichever
dressing room or restroom
they like. Eleven days later a
girl in Target was distressed
to realize that a man in the
women’s changing room
was filming her as she was
dressing.
Perhaps our Oregon
Department of Education
was well-intentioned when
they recently released 15
pages of “guidelines” on
how transgender students
should be treated. But
there are numerous unin-
tended consequences to
the “guidelines,” which
already are being treated
as having the force of law
in Dallas, Oregon. Dallas
School District’s lawyers
have arbitrarily decided that
they would lose in a court so
they will not “cave to com-
munity pressure” to resist
the directive. Bizarrely, the
principal is offering alterna-
tive dressing arrangements
to the objecting students
rather than the more rational
approach of providing a sep-
arate dressing arrangement
for the transgender student.
A major problem in
America is sexual abuse
of children. School super-
intendents are expressing
grave concern about how
this could impact their stu-
dents’ safety. Many children
will be afraid to go to the
bathroom now that there are
no limits on who can be in
there. People who think hor-
mone-driven teens who have
been raised with easy access
to pornography won’t abuse
this “right” are delusional.
The American College
of Pediatricians has posted
a temporary statement on
the topic of children being
encouraged to express
themselves as the opposite
sex. “Conditioning children
into believing that a life-
time of chemical and sur-
gical impersonation of the
opposite sex is normal and
healthful is child abuse.”
Puberty-blocking hormones
and cross-sex hormones are
associated with dangerous
health risks. The authors fur-
ther noted that 98% of boys
and 88% of girls who are
confused about their gender
eventually come to terms
with how they were born
after puberty.
Transgender people have
an appallingly high suicide
rate. Why would anyone
want to condemn young
children to this fate, espe-
cially knowing that most of
them would have eventu-
ally accepted the actuality of
their biological sex? Their
biological sex is stamped
on every single cell in their
bodies. “Facts — not ideol-
ogy — determine reality.”
It seems like we
have fallen into Alice in
Wonderland’s nonsensical
world. We have moved from
civil rights based on immu-
table concrete criteria of
race and natural-born sex, to
civil rights based on a sub-
jective feeling.
Gender-confused people
deserve our compassion,
but the vast majority of
the population’s rights to
privacy and safety clearly
should trump a tiny minor-
ity’s desire to feel accepted.
Forcing people to feel vio-
lated, uncomfortable, and
unsafe will decrease accep-
tance of transgenders.
Our state and federal
governments are bulldoz-
ing America’s laws with
their arbitrary mandates
and threats to withdraw
funding. At what point will
we say enough is enough?
We can stop this mad-
ness only if we unite and
huge numbers of people
rise up now to oppose this
lunacy.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.