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Today's Letters: Homeless need our help

Shelter for homeless is the right thing to do guest column by Richard T. Shireman, Oct. 31

I would like to thank you for printing the guest column. And I would especially like to thank Mr. Shireman for calling attention to the moral aspect of how we deal with the homeless in our community, especially what that says about us.

Morality is defined by Webster as a set of ideas of right and wrong used to evaluate human conduct. Mr. Shireman suggests that the right thing to do is to find it "intolerable that people are living in our midst without adequate shelter."

Where does such a view of right and wrong come from? For those who believe in God and practice a religion, it comes from conscience. And it doesn't matter which religion: As early as 1830, observers of our new republic noticed that Americans seemed to believe that their various religious denominations shared a common morality. "All differ in the worship one must render to the Creator, but all agree on the duties of man toward one another," said Alexis de Tocqueville.

This is due in no small part to the conviction of those early Americans that the public school system had as its main purpose to teach young people how to be good citizens. The Northwest Ordinance of 1789, for example, proclaimed that with "religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

As our nation grew, this font of common morality to judge what is right and wrong was sometimes said to be the Bible, other times recognized as a Judeo-Christian heritage, or more recently found in a set of "values" nurtured by faith-based organizations.

The common denominator in all this is that to be good citizens, to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror, to ensure the survival of the free society we inherited from our founders, we need to pull together to rid our communities of the scourge of homelessness.

Art Deegan,Clearwater

Store easy to navigate

My wife and I recently visited the Largo Wal-Mart, which was undergoing a reorganization. Everywhere we turned, people were complaining that they couldn't find anything.

While there, we also saw a smiling young lady get off the bus, walk through the parking lot, find her merchandise with help and head to the checkout area, still with that smiling face. We know that young lady. What's so special about her? She goes to our church in Clearwater, where she sings enthusiastically in the choir.

Oh, I forgot to tell you. She's blind.

Henry Fischer, St. Petersburg

[Last modified November 10, 2007, 20:51:14]