June 9th, 2021

 I went to the library and made copies of the paperwork for the upcoming ROAD RALLY/SCAVENGER HUNT.  Then I delivered them to both Betty and Elaine.  Betty offered to drive and she is really excited about it.  Elaine and I have some reservations about how difficult it might be. While at the library, I read the last couple days local newspaper and found that Pastor Wayne Dent (former pastor of my church) had written a letter to the editor regarding how he feels about the Gay Pride flag being flown at City Hall for the month of June.  Here it is:

Pastor Dent's letter to editor re: Gay Pride flag  June 4, 2021

The following letter contains what I basically shared at the June 2 Common Council meeting, during a recess, regarding the displaying of the Gay Pride flag at city hall for the month of June. Some other thoughts have also been added.

I would like to express my feelings and my concern to our Mayor and the city council regarding the decision to fly the Gay Pride flag for the month of June at city hall in recognition of LGBTQ month. 

First of all I would like to say that I firmly believe in the dignity of every single human being. To me every person matters: Red, brown, yellow, black or white, all are precious in His (God's) sight. I am also grateful for the freedoms that our nation enjoys and embraces. Freedoms that we have because many paid a great price, some their very lives. I therefore respect every human being and their right to choose how they live. And, because of my belief in God, I endeavor to love everyone and hate no one.

That being said, I want to share both my disappointment and my disagreement for the decision to fly the Gay Pride flag at city hall. To me our American flag is sufficient to recognize the unity and diversity of every citizen of our nation. Its very intent suggests that we are all equal and should all embrace unity. Yes we are a melting pot of millions of people with many ideologies, but we are "One Nation." I say that the U.S. flag should be the only flag displayed at city hall and at any of our government facilities, city, state and nationally. 

Another thing is the fact that the "rainbow flag" will be flying at our city hall for an entire month. Wow! We have a Mother's Day, a Father's Day, a Veterans Day, etc., and LGBTQ celebrates a whole month. Something's wrong with this picture. Why, I never even liked the fact that many Christian churches would have an entire Pastor's Appreciation Month. A day should be sufficient. If anybody deserves a month or longer recognition, to me, it would be Moms. I'm just thinking out loud on this. 

My next thought is, what about other flags? Back the Blue flag? Black Lives Matter flag? Irish flag? Polish flag? Flags representing other ethnicities? Muslim flag? Christian flag? My point is this: You cannot, or should not, recognize or favor one group of people over another. Let people have their parades, rallies and their peaceful protests. Let them display their flags and their signs on their personal property if they want to. They should be free to express themselves and believe as they wish. After all, this is America. 

I say take the Gay Pride flag down and let only the U.S. flag wave at our Municipal Building. To me, the red-white-and-blue says it all in regards to who we are and who we should be as a nation

REV. WAYNE M. DENT Lockport

I think this letter is excellent.  I read it to Betty over the phone, and I cut and pasted it and emailed it to Peggy.  

Elaine and I decided to pick up "dollar dinners" at the Presbyterian Church and meet up at Outwater Park for a picnic supper, since it has cooled down a bit and there is a slight breeze.  I asked Betty if she wanted to join us and she declined since she is somewhat nervous about bugs.

The dollar dinner provided at the church was a hot dog, baked beans and macaroni salad and chocolate chip cookies.  Elaine and I had a nice picnic at the park, and also went down to the overlook for a few minutes.  The park was VERY busy this evening, with a baseball game going on, etc.  

When I got home, I read another chapter in CITY OF LIGHT

and then looked for something to watch on the new TV.  I found the documentary DARWIN
Darwin is a very small town in Death Valley.  The documentary was very interesting.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DAY EIGHT of Alaskan Cruise: Thursday, September 18, 2025 Skagway

Image
 This was what I saw out the window when I got up. The RUBY PRINCESS had stopped and we were in Skagway!  We had breakfast at the Botticelli (I had a soft boiled egg, toast, oatmeal and a banana) and then we returned to our room to get ready for getting off the ship and going to Skagway.  We got tickets for Shuttle #10 and went down to wait to be called.  Things moved along fairly quickly. The shuttle boat was one of the lifeboats, it took us to the mainland.  This is a view of the RUBY PRINCESS from the port.   When we arrived we took a shuttle to the downtown area where we walked around a bit. The downtown area has a lot of interesting shops, etc. but we did not have time to go in many of them.  Here are a few pictures:    We found a geocaches in the library (hooray). And you can see it in this picture that I took.   We picked up a few free items from various jewelry stores.  There were a lot of jewelry stores, and we did ...
Read more

EAGLE WATCH at the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge and more: 2/1/2020

Image
Betty and I went to the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge for the EAGLE WATCH, which was part of the IO Palooza event today.  She picked me up and we drove to the Visitors Center on Casey Road.  There were several things going on in this building, and they were offering pieces of cake. The event was a celebration of the  20th year of Iroquois Observations.   We had cake, walked around a bit and went into the gift shop.  We got directions to the location of the Eagle Watch from a worker and then headed to the Cayuga Overlook. They had scopes set up for visitors to see the eagle and the nest.   I took this picture through the scope. We wanted to hike a bit so we got directions from the ranger how to get to a certain trail, but we could not find the road to it.   We headed to the Tonawanda Indian Reservation so we could have lunch at Jan's Sah-Da-Ko-Nee Restaurant.  We entered the reservation via Bloomingdale Road, the road the re...
Read more

Week of Sunday, August 10th through Saturday, August 16th, 2025 (Recipe for Crazy Crust Pie)

 SUNDAY:   I took my trash out early today and it was SO HOT, that I felt that my breath had been sucked out of me.  I messaged Jan about it, since her asthma really bothers her in hot weather and I knew that she might be better off staying home from church.  Church was very good, the Eastmans performed and spoke.  After church, Glenda, Andrea, Marlene and I went to THE OLIVE LEAF for lunch.  I had the turkey dinner, which was very good even though they did not serve my gravy on the side like I requested.  I brought a lot of turkey and also my whole gen salad home.  Andrea told us the story about how she and two of her kids along with other people in a church she attended in Ohio went down to New Orleans to help out after Hurricane Katrina.  When I got home, I watched part of the four part documentary about  it.  HURRICANE KATRINA:  Race Against Time.  Crazy Crust Pie 1 C. flour 1/4 C. sugar 1 tsp. baking powder 1/2 t...
Read more