I am writing in response to John Robinson, as reported in The Herald (“Civil rights, uncivil talk in Mill Creek,” May 20). Mr. Robinson, a retired nuclear physicist, would like Mill Creek to be Buffalo, N.Y., circa the 1930s omplete with a Legion of Decency led by the Catholic Church. Citing a T-shirt as evidence of our need for laws to control decency, Mr. Robinson has lobbied the mayor, city council and police chief to achieve this end. Apparently the Catholic Church did not leap at the opportunity to establish a Legion of Decency in Mill Creek in support of Mr. Robinson. The church probably has more important areas of concern.
Use of the F-word is definitely crude and rude. It doesn’t reflect well on the young man who displayed it on his T-shirt in public. Mill Creek Police Chief, Bob Crannell, said it best: “Thirty years ago someone wouldn’t have worn that shirt.” Also, as Chief Crannell said, you could ask seven people what is offensive and get seven different answers.
There are millions who feel that nuclear weapons, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Hanford, all products of nuclear physics, are mankind’s greatest obscenities. Others believe disease, starvation and wars are obscene. Our system protects their right to express their views in public.
Mr. Robinson’s campaign is for censorship. What is his next target? Our public library? My greatest fear about our society isn’t crude, rude teen-agers and the F word. My greater concern is with thought police, who would destroy our Constitution while hiding behind a facade of religious elitism.
Mill Creek
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
