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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 7, 2015)
Page 6A OPINION East Oregonian Tuesday, April 7, 2015 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher JENNINE PERKINSON Advertising Director DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Backlash to Monsanto hubris ignores science biotech traits. Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant last It recognized early the value of week attributed the public backlash patenting gene sequences that it could WRJHQHWLFDOO\PRGL¿HGFURSVLQ use in its own products and license to general, and to the company in particular, to Monsanto’s “hubris” in its competitors. The licensing agreements restrict promoting the technology. the traits produced by other biotech “We did really cool science and companies that may be stacked we worked within global regulatory with Monsanto’s, requirements,” limiting the market he told The for its competitors Independent, a Monsanto’s while enlarging British newspaper. heavy-handed Monsanto’s. “From where Monsanto we were the enforcement aggressively protects conversation with consumers was an allowed critics its patents, requiring farmers who buy abstract.” to paint the the seed to sign Grant’s admission agreements barring is decades late. company as them from saving But it is on point. a corporate seed from previous The company did an excellent job behemoth that crops. That rubs more in marketing to bullies family traditional farmers growers. But it was used to saving either oblivious to or farmers. seed the wrong it ignored the potential way. Monsanto’s for downstream enforcement was at objections. times heavy-handed. That behavior As a result, the advances in crop production already realized by the allowed critics to paint the company work of Monsanto and other biotech as a corporate behemoth that bullies companies are under assault by small, family farmers. critics who wield powerful emotional Though far from the only biotech arguments that aren’t backed by developer, Monsanto has become science. for critics the global symbol of an Monsanto was an early pioneer in industry they say is driven by greed biotechnology. In the 1980s it began and that is destroying traditional working on crop development, and in agriculture without regard for GLGLWV¿UVW¿HOGWULDOVRQELRWHFK the health of consumers and the corn that is resistant to corn borers. environment. “Roundup Ready” soybeans were But that brings us back to the LWV¿UVWFRPPHUFLDOFURSIROORZHG science. by varieties of corn, alfalfa, canola, *HQHWLFDOO\PRGL¿HGFURSVKDYH sugarbeets, sorghum and cotton. All been produced on a wide scale are popular with farmers, all are for more than 20 years without ill reviled by critics. effect to the people who consume It is cool science. Growers were them. Far from producing calamity, quick to adopt the technology biotechnology provides the best because it made their farms more prospect for feeding the world’s SURGXFWLYHDQGSUR¿WDEOH growing population with crops Monsanto applied equally engineered to resist drought and impressive innovations to its disease. business practices. And it is here the Not all consumers want biotech company’s stormy relationship with products. But none of the alternative the public probably took root. cropping methods promise to produce Monsanto bought up established the required quantity of food. seed companies that had already It would be a tragic mistake to developed traditional hybrids on punish the world’s hungry masses which Monsanto could stack its because of the hubris of one company. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. YOUR VIEWS Blue Mountain provides affordable education We believe in education, making investments in our community and planning for future generations. We support the Blue Mountain Community College bond because it involves all these important things. The region’s economic health depends on thriving business. BMCC provides affordable education and workforce training opportunities. With a strong workforce, companies will consider expanding, relocating or growing here. Without a strong workforce, community economic health will suffer. A trained workforce is the hope for family-wage jobs. The ZRUNIRUFHFRPHV¿UVWWKHMREVFRPH next. We are impressed with BMCC’s resilience to return to voters after a failed initial effort. BMCC immediately went to the public to get input, decreased the bond amount by nearly $5 million, and clearly communicated how the money will be spent and the difference it will make. To us, this demonstrates BMCC’s commitment, vision and sense of accountability. Consider attending one of the many community events where information about the bond will be presented. Make an informed decision, one that will protect the investment those before us have made in BMCC. We will be voting yes in May by returning our ballots by May 19. Dr. Andrew and Susan Bower Pendleton BMCC bond won’t cost much, will do much good The following quote by T. H. White from “The Once and Future King” is one of the many reasons I am voting yes on the upcoming BMCC bond: “The best thing for being sad … is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.” I live in an average home. By my calculations the bond will cost about “a dime a day.” That seems to be a bargain IRUWKHPDQ\EHQH¿WVRIKDYLQJDYLEUDQW community college in our region. Please join me in passing the bond. Kim B. Puzey Hermiston OTHER VIEWS T Same-sex sinners? he drama in Indiana last week most stubborn refuge for homophobia. and the larger debate over so- It will give license to discrimination. called religious freedom laws in It will cause gay and lesbian teenagers other states portray homosexuality and in fundamentalist households to GHYRXW&KULVWLDQLW\DVIRUFHVLQ¿HUFH agonize needlessly: Am I broken? Am collision. I damned? They’re not — at least not in “Conservative Christian religion is several prominent denominations, the last bulwark against full acceptance Frank which have come to a new of LGBT people,” Gushee said. Bruni understanding of what the Bible does Polls back him up. A majority of Comment and doesn’t decree, of what people can Americans support marriage equality, and cannot divine in regard to God’s including a majority of Catholics and will. most Jews. But a 2014 survey by the And homosexuality and Christianity don’t Public Religion Research Institute showed KDYHWREHLQFRQÀLFWLQDQ\FKXUFKDQ\ZKHUH that while 62 percent of white mainline That many Christians regard them as Protestants favor same-sex marriages, only incompatible is understandable, an example 38 percent of black Protestants, 35 percent of not so much of hatred’s pull as of tradition’s Hispanic Protestants and 28 percent of white VZD\%HOLHIVRVVL¿HGRYHUFHQWXULHVDUHQ¶W evangelical Protestants do. easily shaken. And as I’ve written before, these But in the end, the continued view of evangelical Protestants wield considerable gays, lesbians and bisexuals power in the Republican as sinners is a decision. primaries, thus speaking in It’s a choice. It prioritizes a loud voice on the political scattered passages of ancient stage. It’s no accident that texts over all that has been none of the most prominent learned since — as if time Republicans believed to be had stood still, as if the contending for the presidency advances of science and favor same-sex marriage knowledge meant nothing. and that none of them joined It disregards the degree the broad chorus of outrage WRZKLFKDOOZULWLQJVUHÀHFW over Indiana’s discriminatory the biases and blind spots of religious freedom law. They their authors, cultures and had the Iowa caucuses and eras. the South Carolina primary It ignores the extent to worry about. to which interpretation is Could this change? subjective, debatable. There’s a rapidly growing And it elevates body of impressive, unthinking obeisance above persuasive literature that intelligent observance, above looks at the very traditions the evidence in front of you, and texts that inform many because to look honestly at Christians’ denunciation of gay, lesbian and bisexual — David Gushee same-sex relationships and people is to see that we’re Evangelical Christian and demonstrates how easily WKHVDPHPDJQL¿FHQWULGGOHV teacher of Christian ethics those points of reference can as everyone else: no more or be understood in a different at Mercer University OHVVÀDZHGQRPRUHRUOHVV way. GLJQL¿HG Gushee’s take on the Most parents of gay children realize this. topic, “Changing Our Mind,” was published So do most children of gay parents. It’s a late last year. It joined Jeff Chu’s “Does Jesus truth less ambiguous than any Scripture, less Really Love Me?” published in 2013, and complicated than any creed. “Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the So our debate about religious freedom Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships,” should include a conversation about freeing by James Brownson, which was published in religions and religious people from prejudices 2013. that they needn’t cling to and can indeed Then there’s the 2014 book “God and the jettison, much as they’ve jettisoned other Gay Christian,” by Matthew Vines, who has aspects of their faith’s history, rightly bowing JDUQHUHGVLJQL¿FDQWDWWHQWLRQDQGGUDZQODUJH to the enlightenments of modernity. audiences for his eloquent take on what the “Human understanding of what is sinful New Testament — which is what evangelicals has changed over time,” draw on and point to — said David Gushee, an really communicates. evangelical Christian who Evaluating its teaches Christian ethics sparse invocations of at Mercer University. He homosexuality, he notes openly challenges his that there wasn’t any faith’s censure of same-sex awareness back then that relationships, to which he same-sex attraction could no longer subscribes. be a fundamental part of For a very long time, he a person’s identity, or that noted, “Many Christians same-sex intimacy could be thought slavery wasn’t an expression of love within VLQIXOXQWLOZH¿QDOO\ the context of a nurturing concluded that it was. relationship. People thought contraception was sinful when “It was understood as a kind of excess, like it began to be developed, and now very few drunkenness, that a person might engage in if Protestants and not that many Catholics would they lost all control, not as a unique identity,” say that.” They hold an evolved sense of right Vines told me, adding that Paul’s rejection of and wrong, even though, he added, “You same-sex relations in Romans I was “akin to FRXOG¿QGVFULSWXUDOVXSSRUWIRUWKHLGHDWKDW his rejection of drunkenness or his rejection of gluttony.” all sex should be procreative.” And Vines said that the New Testament, Christians have also moved far beyond like the Old Testament, outlines bad and Scripture when it comes to gender roles. good behaviors that almost everyone deems “In the United States, we have abandoned archaic and irrelevant today. Why deem the the idea that women are second-class, inferior descriptions of homosexual behavior any and subordinate to men, but the Bible clearly differently? teaches that,” said Jimmy Creech, a former Creech and Mitchell Gold, a prominent United Methodist pastor who was removed from ministry in the church after he performed furniture maker and gay philanthropist, founded an advocacy group, Faith in America, a same-sex marriage ceremony in 1999. “We which aims to mitigate the damage done to have said: That’s a part of the culture and history of the Bible. That is not appropriate for LGBT people by what it calls “religion-based bigotry.” us today.” Gold told me that church leaders must be And we could say the same about the made “to take homosexuality off the sin list.” idea that men and women in loving same- His commandment is worthy — and sex relationships are doing something warranted. All of us, no matter our religious wrong. In fact the United Church of Christ, traditions, should know better than to tell the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian gay people that they’re an offense. And that’s Church (U.S.A.) have said that. So have PRVW$PHULFDQ&DWKROLFVLQGH¿DQFHRIWKHLU SUHFLVHO\ZKDWWKHÀRULVWVDQGEDNHUVZKR want to turn them away are saying to them. church’s teaching. Ŷ And it’s a vital message because of Frank Bruni has been an Op-Ed columnist something that Indiana demonstrated anew: for The New York Times since June 2011. 5HOLJLRQLVJRLQJWREHWKH¿QDOKROGRXWDQG LETTERS POLICY “Understanding of what is sinful has changed over time. Many Christians thought slaverly wasn’t sinful until we finally concluded that it was.” Gold told me that church leaders must be made “to take homosexuality off the sin list.” The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.