Dear Editor: Just a few comments on recent criticisms of Donald Trump.
Hatred/fear? Just a subjective opinion. Racism/xenophobia? Because the president- elect wants to seal our borders and enforce existing immigration laws, some people call him a racist and anti-Muslim. Really? The McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act (1952) empowers the president to suspend admission or impose restrictions on any group deemed to be detrimental to the interest of the United States.
President Jimmy Carter utilized the Act during the Iran hostage crisis but I don’t recall anyone accusing the liberal Mr. Carter of racism or xenophobia.
Misogyny? According to the progressive left, it seems anybody to the right of Bernie Sanders simply hates women. So much for the name calling.
Oh, regarding Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani and their “base tactics,” maybe their critics should also include Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, both Catholics, who had no problem supporting Hillary’s late-term abortion position.
Things don’t always go our way in this life. You win some, you lose some. I guess some people never learned to be gracious losers.
JOE LEAHY
Breezy Point
Dear Editor: In response to Gabriella Rahoy (Dec. 3), let me say that I agree that there were things that Mr. Trump said that were indefensible.
However, the people of the United States, for whatever reason, were given two choices, Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump. Perhaps, there were people who judged words versus actions. Trump said demeaning things about women, Mr. Clinton did demeaning things to women and Mrs. Clinton led the charge to defame and demean her husband’s accusers.
I also agree with her view of the death penalty. I know I would not want to sit and judge on whether someone should live or die. But that is why I am also pro life. Aborted babies did nothing to merit a death penalty except being inconvenient.
JOSEPH ARENA
Maspeth
Dear Editor: While describing her forgiving nature, letter writer Gabriella Rahoy (Dec. 3) is patronizing toward women who are less prone than she to CNN’s political narrative of what women should be thinking according to their elitist anti-Christian obsessions.
As infantile as Donald Trump’s past remarks towards particular women are, they are relatively small compared to Hillary Clinton enabling her husband and demonizing his victims. As a political champion of abortion, Clinton is an architect of the greatest sin against women and children in human history. Any Catholic should be troubled that she received a single Catholic vote.
In accepting another source of anti-Catholic bigotry, Amnesty International, Rahoy cites the myth that there is racism in capital punishment while treating abortion, the greatest genocide in history, exceeding more killing than all other killing combined, as a matter so secondary.
Abortion is an intrinsic moral evil, but capital punishment is not, and creating a false moral equivalency between them is wrong.
No one active in pro-life work accuses aborted women of a sin. Any Catholic not swayed by the media to be dismissive of the kind and decent practices of those fighting abortion would know this.
BEATRICE RICCIARDI
Rockaway Beach