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Same-sex means second class
Today in the state of Illinois an incarcerated heterosexual serial killer is able to get more benefits for his or her spouse than a lawabiding homosexual citizen. Two complete strangers of the opposite sex can get married within a few seconds of knowing each other and have more rights than a same-sex couple who have loved each other for more than 60 years. If you are in a same-sex relationship, you are indeed a second-class citizen in Illinois.
The Illinois General Assembly will vote on the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act. The legislation would establish civil unions for gay couples — providing them the right to hospitalization visits, the right to make funeral arrangements for their partner, the right to their partner’s pension benefits, the right to domestic violence protections, tax relief for partners and a number of other rights that already exist for heterosexual married couples.
In our world, the word “stranger” calls forth fear. For two people to shift from strangers to friends, then to devoted lifetime companions, is practically a miracle and should be a cherished event.
Our culture must value the quality of a relationship, not its physicality.
Affection between two consenting adults is in no way inferior to the affection of anyone else. Love is love — it really is that simple.
Ryne Poelker Petersburg
Digital backslide
A friend who uses an indoor antenna bought a digital TV, and now only has four stations, two in analog, one of which is a Catholic religion station, and two in digital.
I fear this will happen to cable subscribers too after the loss of Channel 8 [see “Channel 8 goes blank for some WSEC viewers,” by Amanda Robert, IT, April 23]. I can see channels going digital one by one until there are no analog signals left. I was using an indoor antenna (before the digital switch). If I remember correctly, I had channels 12, 17, 19, 20, 28, 48 and 55. Now it seems that in the digital age, digital TV users have only two stations.
Welcome back to 1955 St. Louis! Steve McGrew Springfield
Sitting duck
With respect to Jim Hightower, his article [see “Look out for the blimp that doesn’t blink,” IT, April 23] falls way short of the absurdity of this “aircraft.” In 1960, the Soviet Union shot down an American U2 flying above 70,000 feet at over 400 miles per hour. A large blimp, stationary at a height of 12 miles (roughly 63,000 feet) would be a sitting duck for any sort of defen sive interception.
As a result, this thing could only be used domestically or over friendly nations — once permission was received from both the target nation and every other nation overflown by the blimp while moving into position.
Realistically, then, such a vehicle has only one possible use — domestic surveillance. Given the behavior of the recently ended Cheney/Bush regime, can we really trust potential users such as Homeland Security or the CIA with such a powerful tool for spying on our own people?
Charles Clark Tallula
Mighty Quinn
Regarding Rich Miller’s “Why nobody supports Quinn’s tax hike plan,” [IT, March 25] — when all the posturing is done we still need the extra revenue. Our last governor refused to raise taxes, and you see where that brought us. No, the Mighty Quinn is doing exactly what he has to. It sucks that he needs to be the bad guy here, but his opponents should offer alternatives or shut up, for real. I feel bad for the guy. He inherits a huge mess, has to come out of nowhere and fix it, and deal with the media circus that is Illinois.
Show me a constituency that doesn’t complain about tax hikes and I’ll show you a herd of sheep. The reaction is natural, although challenging.
Drew D. Duzinskas Springfield
