Vigilance Against the Right-Wing Agenda

The Jan. 28 editorial, “Birth Control Too?” raises one of many red flags in the attempts of the religious right to impose its rigid, moralistic and intolerant views on us and the rest of the world.

As the editorial explains, the Bush administration and religious organizations peddle their birth control and AIDS information nonsense and outright lies to us.

Even more despicably, they deny funds and access to birth control and AIDS information in many areas of the world where it’s desperately needed.

The fierce attacks of hate from the administration and many religious leaders against the homosexual and lesbian citizens of this country only grows louder.

Many school boards across the country are besieged by medieval religious zealots demanding that science textbooks replace evolution with “creationism.”

Stem cell research, one of the more promising fronts in the fight to find a cure for some of the devastating diseases, was effectively neutralized by the Bush administration.

These red flags point only to the most obvious battlegrounds of the religious right. People who espouse religious intolerance and hate are free to do so by the Constitution; however, the rest of us need to be extra vigilant to ensure that our government, education and public life and our sense of fairness and moderation are not overtaken by the zealotry of the religious right.

Cathy Dowling

Spring Valley