Dear Editor,

How refreshing to read Michael Alvear’s article about Mary Cheney’s invisibility in the face of her father’s political party and its unrepentant anti-gay and -lesbian agenda [Gay and Lesbian Times issue #803, 5/15/03].

Silence does indeed = death. Gay or lesbian Uncle Toms (or Auntie Toms) taking scraps from the Republican table in the Log Cabin White House are not with us. Are they against us?

Bravo Mr. Alvear.

Jon Weatherman

Hillcrest

Dear Editor,

I just got through reading your editorial about the fingerprinting and background studies at The Center for board members [Gay and Lesbian Times issue #804, 5/22/03]. I agree with you 100 percent. I used to be a very active volunteer there and all the sudden they came out with a memo saying that all the volunteers had to be fingerprinted. I argued with that. It’s one thing if you have volunteers that are working at the Youth Center, but I see no reason why volunteers that are going to be working the front desk or doing bingo or stuffing envelopes have to be fingerprinted. I think it’s an invasion of privacy and I don’t think it’s right. I’ve worked for other nonprofits in this town and, as you pointed out in the editorial, no other nonprofit agency is requiring this. The Boy Scouts doesn’t even require it. Why is The Center again putting our community on the line? Why do we have to be different again? Isn’t it bad enough we get all these attacks from the outside? We can’t get this protection from our own Center?

Roger Negro

San Diego

Dear Editor,

California’s legislature is opening up yet another ill-advised can of worms.

Assemblypeople Christine Kehoe, Juan Vargas and most other Democrats were wrong to vote to send Assemblyman Nunez’s bill to the state Senate to establish the legitimacy in California of foreign government identifications not printed in English. State agencies like the Highway Patrol or Department of Health Services should not be required to accept documents from countries that do not employ adequate safeguards against corruption, especially in their identification procedures. English is the official language of California, by the vote of the people, assuring that California should not have to share Quebec’s language problems. No California state employee should be forced to accept documentation in a foreign language, much less written in alphabets like Arabic, that he or she is unable to read. The state should not pre-empt Congress’ proper federal role in this question, even though an expedient solution will make life more comfortable for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens really not entitled to such benefits.

Should Nunez’s poorly written bill become law the false identification industry that prospers in his city of Los Angeles will criminally explode. Watch the creative invent nice little documents with photographs and fingerprints from such Spanish-language countries as Paraguay, duly incorporating the required holograms that few in Paraguay have ever seen. Consider America’s allies!

How will YOU tell a genuine document in Arabic from America’s allies in Qatar? Can YOU read identification in the Cyrillic alphabet from Bulgaria, a nation soon likely to join the USA in NATO? Nunez tried to design a shortsighted benefit specifically for Mexican illegal aliens with no right to be in the United States. Instead, knowingly or not, Assemblyman Nunez is leading California into an unnecessary multi-lingual nightmare of false ID for any criminal looking for easier angles to be illegal in the Golden State. Select criminals will prosper from Nunez’ misguided measure.

Jay Murley