Letters to the Editor in "The Times"

Ok, time for some Carrabelle news here. Last week I noticed the following 2 letters sent to the Editor of "The Times" and it seems that no one submitted a rebuttal to this so I decided to :) :

1) There Ought To Be A Law

• "To the Editor: Hi, I’m not one to write letters and have them placed in the newspaper for everyone to read, but this time I can’t keep quiet. At last night’s Lanark Village Water and Sewer meeting, a member of the audience said that his son has been buying pornographic movies from a store in Carrabelle owned by water board commissioner Sharon Thoman. He was upset by this and asked why this was being done in the city limits of Carrabelle. Commissioner Thomas said that she had recently stopped doing that and had taken all of the pornographic material out of her store. The gentleman who brought this up then asked if he could bring all of the materials that his son had bought and rented from her and get the money back. She agreed. My god, what’s going on! Is this the kind of activities that our elected officials should be engaging in? Isn’t this against the law? Doesn’t this break some kind of ordinance in the city of Carrabelle? I have not heard of any arrests being made and Commissioner Thomas readily admitted that she had been selling pornographic movies. If it is not against the law, it should be. We should all call our local law enforcers and lawmakers and ask them to keep this kind of immoral filth out of our county. After all, it might be your child that gets corrupted.
  Sincerely,
  Bonnie Arnold
  Lanark Village"

2) Pornography Bad Influence on Our Children

• "To the Editor Hi, I’m writing today to talk about an ugly situation. I was at a water and sewer meeting in Lanark Monday the 22nd of January. At this meeting a man asked everyone in the crowd if they had children. Most raised their hands. This man then made the statement that his son had been buying filthy movies from a store in Carrabelle owned by the Chairman of the Lanark Water District Sharon Thoman. Chairman Thoman told this man that she had stopped selling pornography recently and had taken it off of her shelves. I guess it is not against the law or she would not have admitted it. To my way of thinking it may not be illegal but it certainly is immoral. Maybe our local pastors and church leaders could step up and ask that this not continue to happen in our community. Our children have enough trouble growing up without this kind of immoral influence. Who knows what this does to the minds of the young and vulnerable. Thanks for listening.
  Peggy Kight
  Lanark Village"

Let me start by saying in response to Letter #1 from Bonnie, There is a law against allowing minors to purchase pornographic material and since these young men were simply exercising their rights as young adults, what is the problem here? If I read the reports correctly these men were 18, hence the reason no Laws were broken. The Business that Sharon Toman is involved in really has nothing to do with her being an elected official, So what she owns a movie business and she is now forced to limit that business because you thought she sold porn to children???? As for corrupting our children; again since these gentlemen were of age according Law, it can't quite be considered corrupting our children now can it? All we can do is raise them to the best of our ability and hope they make correct choices later in life.

To Peggy in Letter #2, My issue with your statement has to do with the fact you bring up the issue of morality. You state that our local clergy men should get involved to set laws. I simply can not agree with you here. You've heard of the Separation of Church and State right? Hey, lets not stop with porn, lets get our clergy men to outlaw drinking too! Next, I suppose we could create a law to force people to attend church as well? That should do wonders to help our community as well as take some more of our Freedom away! I do agree with you about our children having enough problems growing up, but given this situation it pales into the comparison with the other issues like racism, free thinking, and rigorous tradition that they will have to also overcome on their way.

Just to make myself clear here, I do not support pornography. However, I do support our laws. And the law states that pornography can be purchased/rented by adults. It's also stated that a rental business can sell/rent porn to those of age. I'm sure these concerned citizens might have thought these "children" were actually children and probably reacted in writing their letters to the editor before getting the full story.

I'm done ranting for now ;)