Out in the Mountains VOICES FROM THE MOUNTAINS: Some of us are Republicans Karen Ann Kerin MONTPELIER -- To the Editor: Sir, you do my community and yours a great disservice with your posturing in politics. Many of us in the transgender community as well as in your community and the general population are not Democrats. A great many of us are REPUBLICANS, the party of Lincoln, the party that has most consistently advanced human rights. If you would have bothered to watch the Lincoln—Douglas debates re-enacted on C—SPAN, you would have known that Lincoln was opposed to the spread of slavery, while Douglas, a discredited Verrnonter who emigrated to Illinois, was a pro-slavery advocate. Lincoln correctly pointed out that there was no dispositive grant in the U.S. Constitution authorizing slavery. Democrats like Douglas perpetuated that heinous and unconstitutional practice. You might note in those debates that Douglas was addressed as judge by Lincoln. That reason, of course, was that Douglas was a member of that judiciaryhf the times which clung to the very pseudo-Christian dogma against which you rail. If you will check your history, you will discover that the most telling advances in legal and legislative progress for minorities have been REPUBLICAN accomplishments. Please do not deceive yourself about affirmative action legislation. It flat out doesn’t work. It serves only effete elite. A good example is ENDA. I testified at the hearings in August, but only in writing because of the prejudicial actions of Senator (Edward) Kennedy's lackey in charge of the hearing, Mr. Iskowitz. ENDA was an ill conceived and star—crossed double cross, authored by Professor Chai Feldblum of Georgetown University School of Law. She admitted at the Lavender Law Conference to having specifically excluded the transgendered community because of her perverse political calculus taught at the knee of Tim McFeeley of the Human Rights Campaign Fund and Ralph Neas, the quisling coordinator for ENDA. We proposed to Senator (James) Jeffords that the term “sexual orientation” be replaced with “sexual or gender orientation”. He agreed and there is a good chance that amendment will be incorporated into future versions of ENDA. That change of terminology extends protection to not only my community, but to all men and women as well. It shatters the glass ceiling for women, because promotion and job security would then be safe from the perfectly normal expression of gender orientation. Still, ENDA is not the preferred way to go. There has been a long string of affirmative action that would not be needed if the Constitution were adhered to. A single law restating in explicit terms that no citizen should suffer discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations or health care would deprive the courts of the traditional use of the rebuttable presumption that has circumvented the Constitution almost from its inception. As for your (editorial) in the January issue, please be advised that I wear a great deal of black to mourn the lack of good sense that seems to prevail in these mountains of my birth. Newt Gingrich is a refreshing change because he is dedicated to dismantling the evil socialist structure that has been built up in the nation since the days of the psychopathic Roosevelt administration that led us into world war and fifty years of cold war and nuclear confrontation afterward. Socialism and the practices of big government don’t work. Seventy years of the greatest experiment in the former Soviet Union have left those people embroiled in civil wars, ethnic strife and poverty that will require generations to overcome. Get a life Fred! Docktor, governor, failed bureaucrat for life H Frank Loesser (Guys and Dolls) I won" a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for the score of this wonderfully funny indictment of "Corporate America." Presented as part of .39 7' {- §’t