Defending Judge Hayes
Although I do not subscribe to the Journal, someone showed me the column about Judge Roland Hayes written by Scott Sexton (“Judge’s courtroom is filled with one-liners,” Oct. 18). He lambasted Judge Hayes for making inappropriate one-liners in court. I think Sexton's column was shallow.
For example, Sexton criticized Judge Hayes for asking a Muslim man what was on his head. Then, Judge Hayes found the man guilty of vagrancy (sleeping in public) and waived the $180 court costs. This showed compassion for a man down on his luck with no prejudice as to his religion.
Why didn't Sexton focus on the substance of the matter and give us some good news?
I chose Judge Hayes to swear me in and administer my oath when I was sworn in as district court judge in 1996. This was a purposeful decision on my part because I admire Judge Hayes' independence from influence. He does not bend to public opinion or to the district attorney's agenda or the public defender's agenda. When Judge Hayes renders judgment, he calls like he sees it. He lets the chips fall where they may.
If Sexton had looked at the body and substance of his work and not simply one-liners, he would have found a good judge and a kind man.
LAURIE HUTCHINS
FORSYTH DISTRICT COURT JUDGE
Winston-Salem
Not a fence-rider
The writer of the letter “Fence-riders” (Nov. 3) states that “homosexuality is not a civil-rights issue.” If he really believes this, then I have to ask why so many people insist on making it a civil-rights issue by denying a segment of our population rights that most of us take for granted?
I am not a “fence-rider” on this issue; I stand on the side of the fence that supports the same civil rights for everyone.
PAUL D. WHITSON
Advance
Personal conscience
I hate to see this issue raised again, since it’s going to create a lot of anger and cause a lot of hurt feelings. But the veteran, Steven Hewett, is right to pursue his lawsuit (“Afghanistan war vet sues King over Christian flag,” Nov. 3). I might mention, also, that he’s very brave, considering where he lives and the persecution he will doubtless face there.
There’s a difference between individuals practicing their own religion freely and the state — or in this case, the city — showing preference for a religion. The state should not be in the religion business at all. Religion is a matter of personal conscience, and when the state gets involved like this, it just divides people who would otherwise get along fine.
No matter how many fallen troops are Christian, there are many who are not, yet they still fought for their country. Placing them under a Christian flag after they’ve served their country is a dishonor to them. And none of the Christians who will object to this lawsuit (I’m sure they’re organizing now) would consider themselves to be honored by being placed under the flag of another religion.
I don’t care if every single Founding Father was a fundamentalist Christian and intended America to be a Christian homeland — it’s wrong to impose a religious standard on people who do not share that standard.
RON F. SLATER
Winston-Salem
The flag fight
Here we go again. We have a single individual making demands on a large group of citizens because something offends him (“Afghanistan war vet sues King over Christian flag,” Nov. 3). I say quit whining and get over it. The Bible says if you see something that offends you, pluck your eye out.
Barring that drastic measure, why doesn’t the city of King sell the memorial and the land in question to the American Legion? It then becomes private property and Steven Hewitt no longer has a claim against the government trampling on his right. The American Legion will have its First Amendment rights protected and everyone can go about their business.
From the dawn of intelligent humans, a grave has been marked in some way to depict holy ground. The cross is just that. Those who are offended can make sure to have no holy markers on their graves and be buried in unmarked graves.
The First Amendment goes both ways — or does Hewitt think that it only applies to him? As far as separation of church and state, I personally don’t see how you can separate them. If you have members of government who practice a religion, how do you separate them? Are they supposed to give up what they believe in? Do we really want a bunch of atheists running our government? That is almost as ridiculous as this lawsuit.
I suggest Hewett find better ways of spending his time. Or just pluck his eye out.
NANCY NAGY
Winston-Salem
Just in case anyone thinks that election day end political insanity, this word from Bama:
ReplyDeleteAccording to Republican Alabama state Senator, Shadrack McGill (we assume that he has brothers named Meshach and Abednego) , the bible states that raising teachers salaries will only lead to unqualified teachers.
We couldn’t recall anything like that in the bible, but hey, people are writing their own bibles these days, so who knows.
Teacher’s pay is mentioned several times in the Bible. In First Timothy it even says that teachers should be both respected and well paid.
Apparently, there is no biblical warning about raising the salaries of legislators, because in 2007 Shadrack voted himself and other legislators a 67 percent pay increase , raising annual salaries for the part-time legislators from $30,710 to $49,500.
LTE #1 - I've tried to ignore this, but if Judge Hutchins is going to weigh in, I must too.
ReplyDeleteAs I have stated many times, Scott Sexton is something of a jackass who was hired to write jackass stuff, so he's only doing his job.
As to Judge Hayes, he is one of the best we have ever had. Let's hope that all of the letters saying so have had an affect.
Sexton's a redneck rabble-rouser who thinks he's Upton Sinclair or something. Granted, when Judge Hayes is presiding, it's showtime...but he's a really good guy.
DeleteJudge Hayes has a horrid reputation. You make my job of demonstrating how utterly stupid you are easy Rush.
Deleteaffect? Come on spelling bee boy.
DeleteGood afternoon folks! Retreads of previously addressed issues today, I see
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: Another defense of the Honorable Judge Hayes from another person who is eminently qualified to judge (pun intended). Perhaps Mr. Sexton should sit with an attorney during one of Judge Hayes's sessions and let the attorney fill Mr. Sexton in on why Judge Hayes is being so effective.
LTE 2: "...why so many people insist on making it a civil-rights issue by denying a segment of our population rights that most of us take for granted?" A darn good question that I would like to see answered myself. The elections did show a beacon of light. Gay marriage proposals were passed and a lesbian was elected to the US Senate. The younger generation is showing a willingness to view gay people as just people who happen to be gay, so the barriers are slowly coming down. There are no "except for homosexuals" clauses in the US Constitution.
LTE 3,4: Interesting contrast that to me exemplifies the difference between one who understands nuance and one who does not. "There’s a difference between individuals practicing their own religion freely and the state...showing preference for a religion." vs. "As far as separation of church and state, I personally don’t see how you can separate them.". This is what is so frustrating to us who do understand nuance. How do you get someone to see the subtle differences particularly when that person lives in a binary world of good/evil, Democrat/Republican, "liberal"/"conservative". I will grant that Ms. Nagy makes a very good point that the city of King should sell the land and memorial to a private group that can do whatever it wants with the memorial. Barring that, Ms. Nagy should read Mr. Slater's excellent response and learn the difference between private expressions of religious faith (protected) and public / govt (prohibited unless non-sectarian).
There is also no right to 'marriage' in the Constitution either.
DeleteThat's why I think gay unions should be civil unions with all of legal rights of legitimate marriages afforded. That way they can't gripe about it.
Thought this was interesing:
ReplyDeleteRove's bad night
Apparently, Rove still can't admit defeat...with a few million reasons not to
Rove's last statement is absolutely correct:
Delete"This thing," Rove said, "was won."
Team Obama just kicked the GOPs butt by focusing early on Romney's weakest points and staying focused and then bringing home the bacon on election day by winning all but one of the toss-up states.
Of course, the GOPs will be playing the blame game for months to come...Romney was a bad candidate (true), Ryan was a bad choice for VP (true), Romney failed to thoroughly distance himself from fools like Aiken and Mourdock (true - he should have called them both and told them to step down, right now), the gazillions of dollars were misspent (true), Hurricane Sandy (what a joke), the stars were misaligned, etc. They'll probably even end up blaming poor old Billy Graham.
But Rove finally got it right. Obama won the election.
From twitter:
DeleteIn the old days of Vegas, I wonder what 2 casino bosses would have done to a contractor they paid a huge fee to who totally failed?
What if he had totally failed and also strung them along by lying to them? Cement overcoat?
DeleteRove won't get the cement, but his career is over. He continued to suck money from those deep pockets to the bitter end by showing them cooked polls, contrived from cherry picked polling numbers (one of Buckboy's favorite methods)...some of their polls showed Romney with as many as 335 electoral votes...laughable.
Just because people are rich does not mean that they are smart. If the big contributors had had enough sense to look at the real world, they would not have wasted so much of their money.
Forget Nate Silver, who has now transformed forever the way political campaigns will be covered. All they had to do was look at the old tried and true Real Clear Politics, or other, serious and non-partisan poll averagers.
RCPs first electoral map back in January had Obama with a significant lead. Between then and now, Romney never led once. There was never a "Romney momentum" moment.
RCP's final total for Obama was 303, leaving out Florida, which is now irrelevant. The first time that Obama achieved that number in the RCP averages was in May. Anyone who was paying attention knew all along what was going to happen.
I blame the foolish contributors as much as I do Rove for getting scammed by a master scammer.
JournalNow is deserted. Even Caniac said he's leaving because he's letting his subscription lapse. (Just clean out your cookies every so often, dude.)
ReplyDeleteI must say, the right-wing nutters have let me down. I -- and many other people -- endured all manner of abuse after 2010, but I still showed up. What do they have to be afraid of? I thought they were "THE MAJORITY", not pinko scum like me!
As I've said, some folks can dish it out, but they can't take it. It's the mark of a bully.
I can take it. Bring it on big boy.
DeleteArthur, the people you are talking about are all TT Party True Believers. One of the characteristics of TBs in any area is a lack of maturity (see post directly above)...no serious adult could ever become a TB in anything.
DeleteThe TBs are convinced that they lost because Romney, not one of their own, was the candidate. Imagine the massacre if Ricky Perry or Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin had been the candidate, but TBs actually think that any of those would have won.
Read this and have a laugh:
Tea Party Vows to Hijack GOP in Time for Next Election
Conservative leaders lashed out at Romney for failing to secure the presidency and vowed to wage a war to put the Tea Party in charge of GOP
By Rachel Hirshfeld Arutz Sheva Israel News
First Publish: 11/8/2012, 2:55 PM
Conservative leaders on Wednesday lashed out at Mitt Romney for failing to secure the presidency, calling him a “weak moderate” and vowing to wage a war to put the Tea Party in charge of the Republican Party by the time it nominates its next presidential candidate.
“The battle to take over the Republican Party begins today and the failed Republican leadership should resign,” said Richard Viguerie, a top activist and chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, adding that the GOP must “never again” nominate a “big government established conservative for president.”
“Conservatives and Tea Partiers are just sick and tired of Republican leaders compromising on the state and national level with Democrats that grow the size of government,” Viguerie said. “We are going to hold their feet to the fire.”
“Tea Partiers will take over the Republican party in the next four years,” Viguerie vowed.
Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots, one of the most prominent organizations within the fiscally conservative tea party movement, described Romney as a “weak, moderate candidate hand-picked by the country club elite Republican establishment,” who failed to make the kind of strong case for conservatism that would have won the election.
“This is not the death of the Tea Party,” asserted Martin.
"For those of us who believe that America, as founded, is the greatest country in the history of the world – a 'Shining city upon a hill' – we wanted someone who would fight for us," Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin wrote in an e-mail, quoting 40th president and conservative hero Ronald Reagan. "We wanted a fighter like Ronald Reagan who boldly championed America's founding principles... What we got was a weak moderate candidate, hand-picked by the Beltway elites and country-club establishment."
Romney made concerted efforts during the campaign to reach out to the far-right Tea Party, most noticeably in choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate. His efforts, however, proved to fall short of securing the presidency and satisfying members of the extreme right.
The Tea Party Patriots said it had to work harder going forward to stop the "mushy-middle" members of the GOP from "getting rolled" by the left.
The group also told followers that they were "not going away," despite losses Tuesday night by tea party congressmen Allen West in Florida and Joe Walsh in Illinois, as well as a near-loss by Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota, according to U.S. News and World Report.
Martin said the group would now turn its attention back to Congress, where it has been more successful in pushing its message of fiscal conservatism, where it would battle over the budget, the debt and against Obamacare.