The Readers' Forum: Thursday letters

Reigning member

Those who want to know one thing wrong with Congress should consider Rep. Howard Coble, a reigning member of the "Occupy Congress Movement." Coble is going for his 15th term in Congress at age 80 ("Coble will seek re-election to U.S. House," Jan. 28). I venture to say he is not for term or age limits. Those are for the other 99 percent of us.

AL BAKER

Pfafftown

Conservative conclusion

On Jan. 18, the Journal published the news that the U.S. Supreme Court would not hear the appeal filed by the Forsyth County commissioners on the decision of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that banned sectarian prayers ("Court action backs prayer ban"). This decision concludes almost five years of legal entanglements.

The reactions to the Supreme Court's decision have been mixed, with some people expressing dismay and others expressing relief. Personally, I am pleased and satisfied with the decision, but there is also some surprise. Over these five years there has been little mention of the actual content of the written opinions of the three courts that heard and acted on the case.

This latest decision of the Supreme Court is the logical conclusion to their decisions. All three decisions were written with great care and were remarkably consistent in their interpretation of the First Amendment as it related to government-sponsored prayer.

Those who disagree with the decisions of the three lower courts, and now the Supreme Court, should be able to find some comfort in the fact that the legal conclusions were not the reckless rulings of activist judges. Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, writer of the majority opinion for the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is a President Reagan appointee, and the current Supreme Court is the most conservative it has been in decades. We can be pleased that the deliberations and rulings over the last five years have added significantly to our historical interpretation of the First Amendment.

STEVE WESTON

PROGRAM CHAIR, WINSTON-SALEM CHAPTER

AMERICANS UNITED FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

Winston-Salem

Finish the Thought

Last Saturday we asked readers to complete the sentence, "Gov. Bev Perdue decided not to seek re-election because ..."

"… she could not stand the heat so she got out of the kitchen (so to speak)."

ILA HESTER

"…she knew she had no chance of being re-elected."

RICHARD CARTER

"… she has faced high unemployment, weak approval numbers, a long list of political defeats, the indictment of two close aides, plus a campaign-finance scandal that is continuing to unfold. So Gov. Perdue's decision not to run for re-election was the right decision on her part. Now she can go back to New Bern and bake muffins for her grandkids. Surely she is a better grandmother than she has been governor."

REID JOYCE

"… her early campaign fundraising indicated insufficient support. For almost 4 years, Bev Perdue has stood up for North Carolinians in a very extreme political climate. When other officials saw an issue as too politically disadvantageous to get involved with, she stood alone. It's just sad that the North Carolinians she worked so hard to protect won't stand up for her."

DOROTHY MATHEWS

"... she wants to relieves herself from the charge of playing politics so she can deal squarely with the quarrelsome, sneaky, "cut, cut" GOP lawmakers and to deny her gubernatorial opponent the gleeful moment of celebration over her defeat. A very smart move."

BOON T. LEE

"Why would anyone want to be governor of a state whose conservatives' only objective is to vote down everything she tries to do? This is true of city, state and national politics, now that conservatives have gained a little power."

NAOMI J. DAVIS

"… 'something bugged her.' "

DONALD E. WALLACE

"… I think she was asked to step aside by the Obama administration to increase President Obama's chances to win North Carolina's delegates in 2012, in return for promise of a 'czarina's' position in his administration if he's re-elected."

BRUCE GUSTAFSON

Editor's note

The co-author of the Jan. 28 guest column "Fearing Muslim-Americans" is not the Rev. Joe Myers of Kerwin Baptist Church.