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Category: Readers' Opinions

■ 28 December 2011 | 5:00 AM

Misplaced outrage

Re: 'Celebration of sin,' letters, Dec. 24: I read my wife the last angry line penned by Pastor Cary Paulk of Bayview Baptist Church: 'May God have mercy on our nation and not treat us as our sins deserve.'

She assumed that the minister was referring to death tolls from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, not a photograph of two fully clad people, long separated by military service, kissing.

So I ask, why is whom we might love more detestable, more an outrage, than whom we kill?

Sidney Wenger

Virginia Beach

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Good letter

Submitted by Al Markowitz, Norfolk, VA on Wed, 12/28/2011 at 8:15 am.

Unfortunately, as our nation has devolved into a warrior culture over the last decade, killing has become something to celebrate. This warrior mentality comes with a "John Wayne" hyper-machismo that sees femininity, much less gayness as weakness to be vilified. Fortunately, everyone doesn't buy into the warrior mentality and many of us reject it outright.

I am thankful for warriors

Submitted by William Tabor, Chesapeake, VA on Wed, 12/28/2011 at 10:44 am.

"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." – Winston Churchill?

The best warrior is the one so fearsome that he is never provoked to action.

It is not our warriors who get us into unnecessary wars, it is politicians who wish to appear as warriors who are the problem.

My outrage is most directed at those, such as the Westboro Baptist Church, and a number of pacifist organizations, who will use the occasion of the death of one of our warriors as an opportunity to push their agendas, without respect for the family of the fallen warrior.

But keep in mind that hose two women in the picture also stand ready in the night to guard our peace and thus deserve our respect.