Mailbag: Criticism of Scott Peotter, church ignores Constitutional rights

Criticism ignores the Constitution

It is about time that the Daily Pilot and columnist Barbara Venezia finally published a direct attack on churches and individuals that support traditional marriage (“Councilman reiterates opposition to gay unions,” Feb. 25). Newport Beach City Councilman Scott Peotter, a highly respected and successful local leader, deserves every word of Venezia’s screed, as does St. James Anglican Church. After all, they don’t think there is a right to be found in the Constitution that no one else until 2003 dreamed was there.

They even have the temerity to believe along with the late Justice Antonin Scalia who, in his Obergefell dissenting opinion had Venezia in mind when he wrote: “[they] know that limiting marriage to one man and one woman is contrary to reason; they know that an institution as old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until 15 years ago, cannot possibly be supported by anything other than ignorance or bigotry. And they are willing to say that any citizen who does not agree with that, who adheres to what was, until 15 years ago, the unanimous judgment of all generations and all societies, stands against the Constitution.”

Venezia’s victims believe that both the Bible and the Constitution shouldn’t be rewritten by slaves of fashion. Someone may want to point out to the factually challenged Venezia that St. James Anglican was never part of St. James the Great, which was only formed after St. James Anglican vacated their property. All funds donated to build the St. James property on Via Lido now shuttered by the bishop came, not from the small body of followers of Rev. Vorhees at the newly christened St. James the Great, but by folks like Frank and Allan Trane at St. James Anglican.

Paul Rolf Jensen

Costa Mesa

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Don’t let Newport become West L.A.

I received an Orange County Museum of Art’s members-only invitation to hear plans of Related California’s Museum House, a 26-story tower building proposed to replace our present OCMA site near Fashion Island. OCMA would be moving to the area near South Coast Plaza, if the proposal is approved.

Evidently the new director of OCMA, who only just moved to N.B. last August, feels it would fit in well within our city. The OCMA trustees agree. Seems they will realize the monetary gains from the sale to Related will benefit the OCMA South Coast new museum plan.

Thirty years ago, living in West Los Angeles, I fought a high-rise, the Kirkabee Building, at Wilshire and Westwood boulevards. That was 30 years ago that brought us to our beautiful Newport Beach, and now look at West L.A. Do we want another West L.A. or another New York City?

Lyn Belasco

Newport Beach

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Reader enjoys quippy headlines

Congrats to the Daily Pilot staff for following the hallowed journalistic tradition of using double entendres in the headlines for some stories. Two recent ones made me grin: “Nazi Comment Causes Furor,” and, “This Feathered Passenger Ran ‘A-Fowl’ of the Guidelines,” which commented on a story of a turkey being given a seat on an airplane as an emotional support animal.

Steven Hendlin

Newport Beach