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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 30, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Tuesday, June 30, 2015 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher JENNINE PERKINSON Advertising Director DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Guestworker imSasse shows need for reform )or the second year in a row, a comSuter failure has caused a farmworker shortage in the West. This renews legitimate comSlaints that the government’s system for aSSroving guestworker visas is unnecessarily comSle[. A hardware glitch Srevented the State DeSartment from Srocessing visas for H-2A guestworkers on the Me[ican border for nine days, Sreventing workers already hired by fruit and vegetable growers from entering the United States and delaying the Sicking of Serishable croSs. According to the State DeSartment, a hardware failure in its Consular Consolidated Database left it unable to Srocess visas or SassSorts at embassies and consulates worldwide. The Sroblem left thousands of foreign workers with Mobs waiting in the United States, but who had not yet had their visas issued, stuck in Me[ico. And it left growers in the U.S. scrambling to try, largely unsuccessfully, to arrange their legal crossing. ³We cannot bySass the legal requirements necessary to screen visa aSSlicants before we issue visas for travel,´ the State DeSartment said. ³Security measures Srevent consular of¿cers from Srinting a SassSort, reSort of birth abroad or visa until the case comSletes the required national security checks.´ While many emSloyers offered to Say worker e[Senses as they waited in Me[ico, many workers could not afford to wait and returned home. Dan )a]io, director of the Washington )arm Labor Association in OlymSia, is more than a little frustrated. A similar glitch last year caused delays in getting legal workers into the ¿elds and orchards of the West. Though the hardware glitches are unfortunate, )a]io says the Sroblem does not lie with the State DeSartment or its comSuters. The Sroblem is that the system deSends on the seamless coordination of si[ seSarate government agencies. )ive years ago the Obama Administration made the H-2A Srogram less user friendly. The Srogram requires emSloyers to ¿rst advertise Mobs to U.S. citi]ens, and to give Sreference to any local aSSlications that may come thereafter. Even when unemSloyment is high, local workers seldom take to the ¿elds. Growers have to Srovide transSortation and housing, and a guaranteed wage. And even if a grower meets all the requirements, any number of glitches can keeS workers on the wrong side of the border. The answer is meaningful immigration reform, Sassed by Congress and not by administrative ¿at. We continue to believe the answer is to offer illegal immigrants temSorary legal status and a Sath to Sermanent residency after 10 years if they meet strict requirements — no Srior felony convictions, no violations while awaiting residency, learning to sSeak English and Say a ¿ne and back ta[es. We think the border should be secured. EmSloyers must verify the work status of their emSloyees. And of course, a viable guestworker Srogram must be established without the Solitics and the nonsensical requirements. Whether taken Siecemeal or in a comSrehensive measure, it’s time Congress moved forward. 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 Court has no right to overrule the people I cannot believe how fast this country has become so immoral and unethical; ¿ve SeoSle can dictate to the maMority what is right. The maMority voted no to same se[ marriage. If you don’t want to believe in God it is your choice, but do not tell us that it is O.. The maMority vote in Oregon was no same se[ marriage, and yet the attorney general would not stand behind the SeoSle. If they want to destroy themselves then let it be on them — they have that God-given right, but the government does not have the right tell us to acceSt it. 'o not give us cow Sie and say it’s an aSSle. William Douglas Echo Pot must be handled justly The controversy over mariMuana seems to get more comSlicated daily. In a recent article in The New Yorker, May 8, 2015, a well-known surgeon, Dr. Atul Gawande, commented that a Colorado study found that the Sercentage of fatal motor vehicle accidents involving mariMuana had doubled since its commercial distribution became legal. In reading your Public Safety Log, I note that daily there are many citations for Sersons using or having mariMuana in their Sossession. It is Srobably true, some mariMuana is obtained by black market, but if Colorado’s statistics are correct, we must seriously decide how we Slan to handle the use of mariMuana in Oregon. One only has to look north to Washington to learn how much mariMuana is brought across the border. It causes a lot of Sroblems for the Solice and courts, Sroblems that cost ta[Sayers money. Most of those arrested are reSeaters. )inding a way to deal with this imSortant issue is not an easy task, but dealing with it Mustly is imSortant. I wish I had a solution, or even a suggestion. I do not. LETTERS POLICY Dorys C. Grover Pendleton 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 Man- aging Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. OTHER VIEWS Gay conservatism and straight liberation B at historic lows, with the millennial efore there was a national debate generation, the vanguard of suSSort for about same-se[ marriage, there same-se[ marriage, leading the retreat. was a debate within the gay Millennials may agree with Kennedy’s community about whether it was a ruling, but they’re making his view worthwhile goal to chase at all. of marriage as ³a keystone of the This debate was tactical (since the nation’s social order´ look antiTue. In cause once seemed Tui[otic but also their views and (lack of vows, they’re ShilosoShical. taking a more rela[ed SersSective, One current of thought saw Ross the institution of marriage as Douthat in which wedlock is malleable and oStional, one way among many to love, inherently oSSressive, Satriarchal or Comment live, rear kids — or not. heteronormative, better reMected or In this sense, the gay rights radically transformed than simSly movement has won twice over. Its conservative Moined. wing won the right to normalcy for gay This liberationist SersSective endured in academia, but mostly lost the Solitical argument. couSles, while raSid cultural change has made the de¿nition of normalcy less binding than the Gay couSles wanted the chance for normalcy, gay left once feared. straight Americans were surSrisingly receStive, In vain social conservatives have argued and so a conservative case for same-se[ that this combination isn’t a coincidence, marriage — the argument that marriage is that suSSort for same-se[ marriage and the essential to human dignity and Àourishing — decline of straight marital norms e[ist in a became the Sublic case for gay eTuality. kind of feedback looS, that an idea can have And now that case rings from every conservative consequences for one community SaragraSh of Anthony .ennedy’s marriage and revolutionary imSlications overall. ruling, from the ¿rst lines to the ³no union is This argument was ruled out, irrationally, more Srofound than marriage´ Seroration. as irrational, but it Srobably wouldn’t have But in one of the ironies in which the arc of history sSeciali]es, while the conservative case mattered if the courts were willing to consider it. Too many Americans clearly Must like the for same-se[ marriage triumShed in Solitics, more rela[ed view of marriage’s imSortance, the liberationist case against marriage’s centrality to human Àourishing was winning in and the fact that this rela[ation makes room for our gay friends and neighbors is only Sart of its the wider culture. aSSeal. Straight America has its own reasons You would not know this from Kennedy’s for seeking liberation from the old rules, its oSinion, which is relentlessly uSbeat about own hoSes of Moy and haSSiness to chase. how ³new insights have strengthened, not weakened´ marriage, bringing ³new Unfortunately I see little evidence that dimensions of freedom´ to society. SeoSle are actually haSSier in the emerging But the central ³new dimension of freedom´ disSensation, or that their children are better being claimed by straight America is a freedom off, or that the cause of social Mustice is from marriage — from the institution as well-served, or that declining marriage rates traditionally understood, and from wedlock and and thinning family trees (Slus legal Sressure family, Seriod. on religious communities that are e[ceStions The traditional understanding, which to this rule Sromise anything save greater rested on se[ difference, Srocreation, and real loneliness for the maMority, and stagnation Sermanence, went into crisis in the 10s and overall. 10s. But in the 10s, when The Atlantic The case for same-se[ marriage has been informed readers that ³Dan 4uayle Was Sressed in the name of the )uture. But the 5ight´ about unwed motherhood and today’s vision of marriage and family that made its Democratic front-runner fretted about the costs victory Sossible is deeSly Sresent-oriented, of no-fault divorce, there were reasons to think reMecting not only lessons of a long human Sast that a kind of neo-traditionalism might still but also many of the moral claims that insSire have Surchase in America. adults to Srivilege the interests of their children, 1ot so today. Since the µ0s, aSSroval of or indeed to bring children into e[istence at all. divorce, Sremarital se[, and out-of-wedlock PerhaSs, with same-se[ marriage an childbearing have climbed steadily, and the accomSlished fact, there will be cultural sSace belief that children are ³very imSortant´ to to consider these lessons and claims anew. marriage has collaSsed. Kennedy’s ruling PerhaSs. argues that the right to marry is essential, But seeing little such sSace, and little in Sart, because the institution ³safeguards recognition that anything might have been lost children and families.´ But the changing along the road we’ve taken to this ruling, in the cultural attitudes that Mustify his MurisSrudence name of the Sast and the future I resSectfully increasingly treat this safeguard as inessential, dissent. a Sotentially nice but hardly necessary thing. Ŷ And the same is true of marriage itself. Ross Douthat joined The New York Times as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009. His column America is not Tuite so ³advanced´ as certain appears every Sunday. EuroSean societies, but our marriage rate is If the Saw doesn’t ¿t, the state must acquit The (Bend) Bulletin, June 28 1aturalists couldn’t be haSSier about the growing number of wolves in Oregon. )or them, the return of wolves restores a missing Siece of the ecosystem. But almost in inverse SroSortion, ranchers are not so Sleased. We don’t want to make light of the serious issues that divide naturalists and ranchers, but there are great mystery stories in the state’s wolf kill investigations. The reSorts are how the state determines if a wolf is guilty of killing livestock. They helS measure the imSact of wolves in Oregon and can earn ranchers comSensation for losses. The reSorts aren’t great literature. But for a bureaucratic reSort, there is fascinating intrigue in the evidence, sleuthing and susSects. The Oregon DeSartment of )ish and Wildlife tries to get an investigator on site within 2 hours of a reSort of a Sossible wolf kill. There is measurement of bite marks and location. Determinations are made about what wounds were killing strikes and what was Sostmortem feeding. There’s analysis of tracks. There’s comSarison of tracking locations of collared wolves. The ¿nal reSorts are Sublished online at www.dfw.state.or.us WolvesdeSredation—investigations.asS. Sometimes, wolves are blamed. Sometimes, it’s a mountain lion. Sometimes, OD)W investigators are Must not sure. 5anchers comSlain about these investiga- tions. Todd Nash, a Wallowa County rancher and chairman of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association wolf committee, doesn’t feel OD)W is willing enough to con¿rm a wolf kill. He told the East Oregonian it would be easier to ¿nd O.J. SimSson guilty than a wolf. He Sointed to an incident in Wallowa County this year of the death of a calf. There was evidence the calf had been attacked by a wolf and a coyote. The investigation decision was ³Srobable wolf´ instead of ³con¿rmed wolf.´ Nash’s frustration is understandable. But OD)W’s decision in that case seemed reason- able given the evidence Sresented in the reSort. The state does have a resSonsibility to get rid of wolves that are chronically Sreying on livestock. But if the Saw doesn’t ¿t, the state must acquit.
