IN YOUR editorial (The Daily Advertiser, March 23, 2015) you roundly condemned anyone not sharing your support for “gay marriage”. You imply such people are not “decent-thinking” and ridicule them for believing that marriage is between a man and a woman.
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Those of that belief include people of diverse political, religious, and ethnic backgrounds, those of no religion, and homosexuals too.
There are the two icons of the fashion world - Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana - who declared their opposition to same-sex marriage. They had lived in a gay relationship for decades before separating in 2005. They now defend traditional marriage as well as opposing IVF and surrogacy. In 2006, Gabbana told The Daily Mail: “I am opposed to the idea of a child growing up with two gay parents.”
Darcy Maybon
Turvey Park
A price we need to pay
THE opinion piece by Fred Goldsworthy (“Legalise, educate key to drug war” - The Daily Advertiser, March 25, 2015) demonstrates a concerning detachment from reality on the part of the writer and invites more questions than answers. It’s an illogical flight of fancy to advance the proposition that our society will somehow be better off if we legalise drugs that devastate individuals, families and communities.
Does Mr Goldsworthy seriously believe that fewer people will use drugs such as ice if they are made legal? Does he honestly believe that the financial market system is the answer to the drug epidemic in our society? Does he really consider that the outstanding efforts of our police force and drug squads to conduct raids and seize illicit drugs does not ultimately make our community safer and reduce the drug damage bill?
Mr Goldsworthy states that “Law and order always goes well with a fearful public.” Does he not realise that law and order are essential features of any civil society?
What is his alternative? Anarchy and disorder? Does he think this would be an improvement and make the public less fearful?
Contrary to Mr Goldsworthy's defeatist view, the campaign against illicit drugs is necessary and yields positive results, in spite of the enormous challenges.
In fact, the cost that taxpayers currently incur for our law enforcement agencies to seize and destroy illicit drugs and prosecute traffickers is far less than the increased price that taxpayers would have to pay for police investigations into drug-related crime and expanded health care provision (including mental health care services) for drug users and victims of drug-related violence if such drugs were legalised and made openly available for widespread consumption.
Mr Goldsworthy suggests we should be intolerant of the behaviour not the use of drugs. However, the reason we need to be intolerant of the drugs is because the use of these drugs causes the dangerous and criminal behaviour.
Perhaps he should have viewed ABC’s 7:30 recently and watched the report of a lady in Melbourne whose husband, along with two other innocent pedestrians, was killed while they were walking across a road after a driver who was high on drugs sped through a red light almost 20 seconds after it had turned red.
The report cited research that 30 per cent of fatal road accidents are caused by drivers using illicit substances such as methamphetamine, cannabis and ecstasy.
There will always be the libertarians and Greens who argue for softer policies on drugs but the zero tolerance approach towards the substances is the only truly educated and sensible way to confront this difficult problem.