These Values Will Create a Merciless World

In reading “Flying Right” (Oct. 1), I was again struck with the cruel contrast between the goals of the religious right and the real needs of our society. In the article, self-proclaimed “California Girl” Andrea Sheldon (her sheltered, privileged life is experienced by at most about 20% of the California population) gloated about her “values,” in the name of which she works tirelessly to deny education, labor and health programs, to restrict funds for nonprofit organizations and to deny women freedom over their own bodies.

In an uncanny juxtaposition to this hateful rhetoric, a Los Angeles Times Magazine article focused on the hundreds of thousands of unwanted children in this country who desperately need education and health programs, who receive their only help from government and nonprofit organizations.

And where is the concern for them? In a mean-spirited rush to judgment on their parents, these helpless victims have been lost. Inevitably, if society shows them no mercy as children, they will show society none when they reach adulthood. How could they. They will know nothing of mercy. Sheldon and her ilk will have seen to that.

DEBRA KING

Long Beach

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It is astonishing that, of all the noteworthy men and women who have made enormous contributions to human beings, The Times would choose to profile a young Nazi like Andrea Sheldon who arrogantly claims that “this is the beginning of the revolution.”

If being religious and straight means making statements that are unverifiable (“[Homosexuals] can turn away from it, I have personal friends who have come out of the lifestyle”). . . . If being religious and straight means passing off one’s subjective beliefs as truth (“This is a lifestyle that is destructive and dangerous.”--Oh really, Andrea? I have yet to hear of any gangs of gay men who beat up lone, defenseless straight men with baseball bats and tire chains),. . . . If being religious and straight means making “insights” that reflect a talk-show shallowness (“I don’t think God created me to be an introvert”), then I thank God for making me gay and able to think for myself.

ROBERT KENT

West Hollywood

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In the “Flying Right” subheadline, the term traditional values is used. Why is the term used without quotes? What do those two words mean? Whose traditional values does the subheadline refer to? In what period of time were these values prevalent--today, 10 years ago, 30 years ago, 100 years ago?

The article implies by its title, that prayer in the schools and an anti-abortion / anti-homosexual outlook are “traditional values.” They are not and never have been part of my family’s traditional values.

It seems that this term now has a pejorative meaning--because if one doesn’t ascribe to “traditional values” (whatever that means), one is at the very least a liberal and possibly un-American. The “value” in values has been diminished to a sound bite.

SARAN KIRSCHBAUM

Los Angeles

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It is a shame people do not read the Bible more often, even as a work of literature, for then they would recognize the pious bleatings of a non-Christian when they heard one. Take, for instance, the case of Miss Andrea Sheldon, and her father, the Rev. Lou Sheldon, whose lives you saw fit to showcase.

Rev. Sheldon believes in something he calls “cities of refuge” for AIDS-afflicted persons. I won’t pretend to know what he means by that, but it doesn’t sound like Camp Snoopy to me.

I notice your writer did not ask Miss Sheldon if she believed AIDS patients should be shipped off to cities of refuge. Oh, my gosh, no . That might destroy the image of the nice lady from Orange County--”God’s [all but bankrupt] country.”

EDWARD E. SIMONS

San Bernardino