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
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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,
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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teacher of Christian ethics those points of reference can
as everyone else: no more or
be understood in a different
at Mercer University
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way.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.