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Here’s why I’m against raw milk

This is a rebuttal to the writer who supports Bill 325, making it legal to sell unpasteurized milk in Montana. He said, “There is no reasonable argument to keep the sale of raw milk illegal in Montana.”

Well I have an argument against his point of view!

Years ago when my children were small I was buying raw milk from a reputable dairy. It was regularly tested and licensed so I felt safe. Then my robust 3-year-old son got sick.

After six months of painful diagnosis and treatment, he survived. During that time we thought we would lose him. Every doctor that checked him asked: “Has he been drinking raw milk?”

The final test that determined the ailment was very painful, but it proved to be caused by the unpasteurized milk.

In my opinion feeding your children unpasteurized milk is a form of child endangerment.

A law forbidding it would save lives!

Listeria is a bacterium found in raw (unpasteurized) milk. According to information from the internet: The CDC estimates listeria puts 1,600 people in the hospital each year and 260 of them die. Recently six people were hospitalized and two died from eating cheese made from raw milk in New York. Be vigilant when buying milk and milk products. Make sure they are from pasteurized milk only. —Agnes Armstrong, Rollins

Worried about Gorsuch’s record

I’m deeply concerned about the future of the Supreme Court when it comes to discrimination against LGBTQ people. As I person of faith who works with lesbian, gay, bi, transgender and allied youth at my church, I see the personal impact when “religious freedom” is used to justify discrimination against people who are different. A month into Donald Trump’s presidency, the Supreme Court may be our last best hope for protecting the civil rights of those who are most vulnerable in society.

While Trump’s nominee, federal appeals Judge Neil Gorsuch, hasn’t ruled directly on LGBTQ rights, he has a disturbing record of using religious freedom to prevent access to birth control and believes that corporations are people. He’s advocated that companies like Hobby Lobby have the “right” to deny birth-control insurance coverage to female employees, citing the company’s religious freedom.

We can’t take for granted that same-sex marriage is now the law of the land. Confirming a biased Supreme Court justice could undermine those rights too. In a National Review op-ed, Gorsuch wrote that “American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide to the use of vouchers for private-school education.”

That doesn’t sound like an independent and fair-minded judge, but rather a conservative ideologue who will rubber stamp Trump’s agenda. I expect Sen. Steve Daines and Sen. Jon Tester to strongly oppose Judge Gorsuch’s confirmation. —Paige Rappleye, Kalispell

Winter provides timely rebuttal to global warming

Wow! Here in Bigfork on March 5, we woke up to another beautiful Winter Wonderland! Oh, the snow, the beautiful snow! Everything is so hushed, calm, peaceful and still, buried deeply under the heavy blankets of snow. It was still looking “a lot like Christmas” around here. This winter has been a skier’s paradise.

One thing, we have especially noticed on this long, cold winter, we have not heard one word of “global warming” being mentioned among our neighborhood and beyond. We are wondering if it could be what the “Word of God” said in Genesis 8:22: “While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.”

I believe this is the answer to the “global warming” debate. The “Word of our Lord” also said: “The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it, surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:7,8

Whatever the Lord said, it will be. He is his word. He is the creator of his universe. He knows!

We know his word is more relevant today than ever. He has the last and final word to every subject and debate there is. His word is: “The way, the truth, and the life, ‘No one comes to the Father except through me.’” John 14:6 (John 1:1, John 1:14).

In the meantime, go out and have fun this winter, with God’s richest blessings on you all. He is taking care of his globe. —Catherine Benson, Bigfork

How could U.S. vote for Trump?

Although 3 million more people voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump, the fact remains that approximately 62 million people voted for a person they would not put on a local school board or invite into their home. A man who has never held public office, never served in the military, and who would not provide his tax returns because he almost certainly pays no federal income tax. A man with a long history of exploiting and violating the rights of others. A man who took six companies into bankruptcy, and who set up a sham university for the sole purpose of scamming thousands of low-income people, to include veterans.

All of this meets the very definition of a sociopath. In this case, a pathological liar who is clearly mentally unwell. Witness Trump’s constant sophomoric tweets with no regard whatsoever for truth and his continual tirade against anyone who disagrees with him. Witness also his tirade against federal judges, most recently the 9th Circuit Court even before they could render a decision in the Muslim ban case, and his recent tirade against Nordstrom’s. Several of his flurry of executive orders are unconstitutional, and since he has not relinquished his ownership positions in his businesses, he is guilty of gross conflict-of-interest violations. Listening to Trump’s own words during the year-long campaign, the nature of the man should have been crystal clear to the American voters and to the entire world.

There is simply no precedent for this in U.S. history. Even the man historians universally regard as the worst president in U.S. history, James Buchanan, born in 1791, was a veteran, a five-time member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a former secretary of state, who could speak and conduct himself as an adult. So how could 62 million people vote for a man like Donald Trump? The answer is the fact that American voters rank among the most ignorant of any country in the industrialized world. Consequently, millions are easily swayed by fear-mongering, which is the Steve Bannon and Donald Trump stock in trade.

We now find ourselves in very dangerous and uncharted waters, with no precedent to guide us. Until the Republicans who put this man in office can no longer tolerate a mentally unwell person in the White House and take action, all we can do as individuals is to stand up and speak out against ignorance, fear-mongering and intimidation whenever and wherever we find it, regardless of the consequences. And we can immediately buy stock in Nordstrom’s and every other company that displays similar courage. —Jim Lockwood, Whitefish

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Mr. Lockwood’s letter is being re-run because of an editing error in the version that ran Sunday.)