OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 2016
The GOP’s gay freakout
Founded in 1873
By FRANK BRUNI
New York Times News Service
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago this week — 2006
Trees and lawn furniture soon will sprout from the concrete slab where
the old Astoria Safeway once stood. At Monday’s meeting, the Astoria
City Council approved a site plan for the downtown plaza and authorized
$90,400 to pay for eight benches, four picnic tables, 54 planters, a $6,500
portable aluminum stage, two trash cans, 29 trees and plenty of shrubs and
Àowering ground cover.
Astoria’s John Warren Field may not be every Clatsop County
resident’s favorite choice, but it’s the best option for locating a
new Clatsop Community College campus, college president Greg
Hamann told the Warrenton City Commission Tuesday evening.
“We are going to try to pick the best possible site based on
the criteria we developed for ourselves,” Hamann said during his
presentation of the “site selection process.”
Despite almost 30 years of experience building in Astoria, Jim Wilkins
failed to follow the proper procedures when he performed an excavation in
Uppertown that’s blamed for damaging more than two dozen nearby homes,
lawyers told a jury Wednesday in Clatsop County Circuit Court.
1o one was inMured when an Astoria police of¿cer’s gun acci-
dentally went off while he was arresting a suspect in the park-
ing lot of the Crest Motel, 5366 Lief Erikson Drive, early Friday
morning after a high-speed chase. The accidental discharge hap-
pened as Sgt. Brad Johnston drew his Glock 9 mm handgun as
he approached the man’s van, which had stopped in the park-
ing lot after a 70-mph chase that started at 39th Street at 1:52
a.m. The bullet went into the back end of the van, where the door
meets the Àoor.
“It’s a very rare occasion for an accidental discharge to hap-
pen in our agency,” said Astoria Police Chief Rob Deu Pree.
50 years ago — 1966
To the many things named for Lewis and Clark can now be add-
ed a nuclear submarine. The USS Lewis and Clark, SSBN 644,
was commissioned recently at Norfolk, Va., the 33rd type sub-
marine to join the field.
Development of a new industry in the 3aci¿c 1orthwest through
extraction of minerals from the vast deposits of “black sand” at the mouth of
the Columbia river was announced Thursday.
2f¿cials of the Washington Minerals 3ro¿t Corp., Tacoma, said a plant
would be built near Ilwaco for commercial processing of the deposits.
Astoria drag boat owner George Moskovita Monday alerted
the lower Columbia River area drag boat Àeet to the presence of
Russian trawlers ¿shing off the Washington coast.
Danny Hampton, operator of Moskovita’s trawler Rodoma,
reported ¿ve Russian trawlers ¿shing abreast about 25 miles off
the mouth of the Columbia River nearly ran him down Monday
morning. He said he had to take evasive action to avoid them.
Four blocks of city-owned land in West Slope addition will be offered for
public auction sale as a unit at a minimum price of $4,569 under terms that
require the purchaser to develop streets and sewers, the city council decided
Monday night.
Rep. Wendell Wyatt, Astoria Republican, told the U.S. House
of Representatives Thursday that the presence of four Russian
drag boats ¿shing on the U.S. continental shelf is an “outrageous
situation.”
Wyatt charged that the U.S. State Department has not shown
enough concern about this problem. He said he has protested
to the department repeatedly, calling for it to work toward an
agreement with the Russians under which they would observe
the same regulations for conservation of ¿sh stocks as our ¿sh-
ermen do.
75 years ago — 1941
A total of 65 Clatsop County manufacturers and processors of products
varying from wooden shoes to canned salmon are listed in a directory of
manufacturing and processing plants issued by the 3aci¿c 3ower /ight
company covering the Columbia basin area which it serves.
The directory, attractively bound and well decorated, has just came off
the press and is ready for distribution, according to Arthur Dempsie, district
manager for the company.
“Such a commodity index of the area is particularly timely now because
sudden demands of the national defense program have exhausted many nor-
mal sources of supply and purchasing agents frequently are hard pressed to
¿nd new ones,” Dempsie declared.
A new salary schedule for Astoria city schools, which provides
increases for teachers to continue through the seventh year of con-
tinued service, was adopted by the school board Tuesday night.
The existing schedule pays grade school teachers $90 a month
during their ¿rst year $93.75 second $97.50 third $101.25
fourth and $105.
ur infrastructure is inex-
cusable, much of our pub-
lic education is miserable and
one of our leading presidential
candidates is a know-nothing,
say-anything egomaniac who
yanks harder every day at the
tattered fabric of civil discourse
and fundamental decency in this
country.
O
But
let’s
by all means
worry about
the gays /et’s
make sure they
know
their
place.
Keep
them in check
and all else falls
Frank
into line, or at
Bruni
least America
notches
one
victory amid so many defeats.
That must be the thinking behind
Republican efforts to push through
so-called religious liberty laws and
other legislation — most egregiously
in 1orth Carolina — that excuse and
legitimize anti-gay discrimination.
They’re cynical distractions. Politi-
cally opportunistic sideshows.
And the Republicans who are
promoting them are playing a short
game, not a long one, by refusing to
acknowledge a clear movement in
our society toward /*BT equality,
a trajectory with only one shape and
only one destination.
They’re also playing a provincial
game, not a national one, and scoring
points in their corners of the universe
at the expense of the Republican Par-
ty’s image from north to south and
coast to coast, a brand that needed a
makeover — remember the broadly
ballyhooed “autopsy” following Mitt
Romney’s 2012 defeat? — and some-
how didn’t get so much as a tweezed
eyebrow or dab of blush.
Yes, two of the four longest-last-
ing candidates for the party’s pres-
idential nomination, Ted Cruz and
Marco Rubio, are the sons of Cuban
immigrants, but much of the oratori-
cal gun¿re they exchanged revolved
around who would be tougher on
immigration. The autopsy didn’t rec-
ommend that.
1or did it want Republican lead-
ers to spotlight divisive social issues
and hurtle anew into the culture wars,
which is precisely what *ov. Pat
McCrory of 1orth Carolina, who is
up for re-election in the fall, just did.
He hastily signed a sweeping anti-
gay and anti-transgender law that was
rushed through the state /egislature
as if the state’s security and economy
were in immediate peril.
t takes forever in this country to
build a new bridge, tunnel or train
line, but it took no time Àat for pol-
iticians in the Tar Heel State to con-
vene a special session, formally ostra-
cize 1orth Carolina’s /*BT voters
and wrap conservative Christians in
a tight embrace. Who says America’s
can-do spirit is dead?
What happened in 1orth Carolina
is a problem for Republicans atop the
I
Emery P. Dalesio/AP Photo
People protest outside the North Carolina Executive Mansion in Ra-
leigh, N.C., March 24, . North Carolina legislators decided to rein in lo-
cal governments by approving a bill that prevents cities and counties
from passing their own anti-discrimination rules. North Carolina Gov.
Pat McCrory later signed the legislation, which dealt a blow to the LGBT
movement after success with protections in cities across the country.
major trouble (Cruz, Donald Trump) lotte, that extended /*BT protections
that they already had. It exposes against discrimination to transgender
divides within the party that are ever people who want to use bathrooms
more dif¿cult to paper over and con- that correspond with their gender
tradictions that aren’t easy to explain identity. The law went so far as to for-
away.
bid any municipality from instituting
While the marriage of the party’s its own anti-discrimination protec-
evangelical and business wings has tions, lest they contradict the state’s.
never been a cuddly one, it’s espe-
Apparently conservatives love
cially frosty now, their incompati- the concept of local control when
ble desires evident in the signi¿cant the locality being given control tilts
number of prominent corporations right, but they have a different view
that have denounced the 1orth Car- when it leans left. Rural sensibilities
olina law and that suc-
must be defended while
cessfully pressed the
ones are
Who says cosmopolitan
Republican governor of
dismissed.
*eorgia, 1athan Deal, America’s
1orth Carolina har-
to veto recent legisla-
bors both. Its tensions
tion that would have
are America’s in min-
can-do
permitted the denial of
iature, and in terms
spirit is
services to /*BT peo-
of gay rights, they’re
ple by *eorgians citing
a reminder that the
dead?
religious convictions.
Supreme Court’s rul-
Corporations want
ing last June to legalize
to attract and retain the most talented same-sex marriage nationwide was
workers, and that’s more dif¿cult in hardly the ¿nish of the ¿ght.
states with discriminatory laws. They
That ruling was certain to prompt
want to reach the widest base of cus- the kind of backlash now occurring in
tomers and sow loyalty among young 1orth Carolina, *eorgia and elsewhere,
consumers in particular, and the best because the steadily growing majority
strategy for that is an /*BT-friendly of Americans who favor gay equality is
one, given that eight in 10 Americans not yet overwhelming, and the climate
between the ages of 18 and 29 support of acceptance changes greatly from
nondiscrimination laws, according state to state and county to county.
to a 2015 Public Religion Research
Institute survey.
oo many of us /*BT Americans
So they’re increasingly at logger-
and our allies were too busy cele-
heads with the *2P, whose gay-rights brating to stay alert to that. Too few of
advocates are still in the minority and us acknowledged the tenaciousness
whose socially conservative members of opponents who will resort to what-
still pro¿t from and promote a deri- ever they must, including the hallu-
sive view of gays.
cinated specter of male sexual pred-
What’s more, several major com- ators entering women’s restrooms, to
panies are so concerned about the sweep aside anti-discrimination laws
brew of misogyny, racism and xeno- that include us and to turn public sen-
phobia stirred up by Trump that timent against us.
they are debating whether to follow
They will lose in the end —
through with their usual sponsorship whether that’s 10, 20 or 30 years from
of the Republican 1ational Conven- now. Meanwhile, they’ll do undeni-
tion, as The Times’ Jonathan Martin able harm to the Republican Party
and Maggie Haberman reported last nationally and force tough, coali-
week.
tion-straining choices upon it.
They’ll also steal oxygen from
he party’s anti-gay efforts not matters more central to this country’s
only undermine its pro-busi- continued vitality and prosperity.
ness stance but also contradict con-
/ook, I used to be a restau-
servatives’ exaltation of local deci- rant critic. I know dessert is import-
sion making. The 1orth Carolina law ant. But if you want to make Amer-
was drafted and passed expressly to ica great again, you can’t waste time
undo and override an ordinance in worrying about who’s cutting the
the state’s most populous city, Char- wedding cake.
T
T
Open forum
Kudos
udos to Joshua Bessex for the pho-
tographs of the plane that was lifted
from the river on Tuesday. This type of
on the spot photojournalism will remain
in The Daily Astorian archives for many
years to come.
While all of us in Astoria empathize
with the families of the two people who
died in the crash, the fact will remain that
we, as a community, were there for them
in their time of need for closure. Thank
you to all the Clatsop County personnel
who contributed to this recovery. It was
very important.
BOB POTTER
Astoria
K
Don’t raise age
t seems as if some of the current crop
of political hopefuls in this presiden-
tial race would like to change the Social
Security system by increasing the retire-
ment age on bene¿t entitlements. There
is, at least, one big problem with this
concept.
Many of us have retired from jobs —
some of them with or under the auspices
of the federal government — that require
us to retire at 60 or 65 years of age. So
if the age to qualify for Social Security
bene¿ts were raised, it would require
many of us to ¿ll the gap by spending
the last 5 or 10 years of our working lives
slinging hash at Mickey Dee’s because
we would be unable to continue, by law,
with our previous careers.
Once again the powers that be in
I
Washington, D.C., would seek to pay
back the money that they have pilfered
from the Social Security fund by creat-
ing potential hardships for those who
would otherwise be entitled to bene¿ts
from the Social Security system.
This hardly seems equitable, but I
guess it must be an acceptable way of
doing business for the federal govern-
ment after all, elected of¿cials have their
own retirement plans that we, as taxpay-
ers, pay for, but have nothing to do with
the success or demise of the Social Secu-
rity system — so why do they care if the
system goes bust?
And, don’t even get me started on the
*I Bill, in the 1960s and 190s, or I will
run out of words to post this, for sure.
That’s what I think; I could be wrong.
DA9ID *RA9ES
Astoria
No LNG
ven the name Oregon /1* ran-
kles. A more honest name would be
ExploitingOregon/1*. There’s no Ore-
gon in O/1*, and nothing Oregon gets
from it.
Oregon /1* is a subsidiary of
/eucadia Corporation, a Wall Street
stock-holding company which special-
izes in investing in businesses that are
either distressed or poorly managed. Its
core strategy is to buy assets when their
prices are low and sell them after their
prices rise (Wikinvest).
In 200, /eucadia bought the bank-
rupt Calpine Corporation’s property
E
lease of 94 acres on Warrenton’s Ski-
panon Peninsula in a 1ew York bank-
ruptcy court for $4.25 million. /eucadia
pledged $500,000 to back its new /1*
Development Co.
To get its money back, /eucadia
needs to get completed permits to build
an /1* terminal on the leased Skipanon
land. Then it can sell the lease and permits
and walk away with a very fat pro¿t.
Any promises /eucadiaO/1*
makes about jobs or community invest-
ment, about environmental mitigation
or safety, are just smoke and snake oil.
They won’t be here if the terminal is
ever built. And the sad truth is, the state
doesn’t have anywhere near enough
inspectors to assure that any successor
company does what the permits specify.
The sole purpose of the O/1* effort
is to deliver a pro¿t to Wall Street inves-
tors. Meanwhile, the people, the busi-
nesses and the communities here suffer
extensive business and environmental
damage, endure years of disruption and
are placed in potential catastrophic
danger.
Warrenton’s City Commission must
support the ¿ndings of its own hearings
of¿cer, who listened to hours of pub-
lic testimony and studied the issues and
Oregon’s laws for months, and reject
Oregon /1*. Commissioners will be
long remembered either way, either for
standing up for their community, its peo-
ple and our special place to live, or for
selling out to Wall Street.
RO*ER ROCKA
Astoria