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Policeman’s family
grateful for the support
On behalf of the entire Liczbinski family, we would like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to all of our extended family, friends, neighbors, and most especially, the Philadelphia Police Department and the Philadelphia community as a whole. The love and support you have shown us during this most difficult time in our lives will never be forgotten. We are truly grateful to each of you.
With that in mind, there are no words to express to all of you how much your generosity and kind words as well as all of the cards and flowers have meant to our family.
Although we’ve always felt the love and knew of Steve’s generosity and commitment to not only our family but to the city of Philadelphia and especially the Philadelphia Police Department, we had no idea how many lives he had actually touched until after his death. This gives us great comfort.
Although we would love to thank each and every one of you personally, we are finding it merely impossible to do so. Therefore, we wanted to write this letter of appreciation in the hopes that it will reach each and every one of you.
We want each of you to know that we are so appreciative of everything that everyone has done to help us get through this most difficult time.
You have touched our hearts and helped us in more ways than you will ever know. For that, we will be forever grateful. Thank you and God bless.
Michelle Liczbinski and the Liczbinski family
Give us the tools
to protect ourselves
Too often we observe news stories that deteriorate our faith in our young ones. But I have to say that I was delighted by a number of the opinions that were published in the June 5 edition of the Northeast Times from the students at Our Lady of Ransom. In particular, I would like to call attention to one young man who seems wise beyond his years. Phil Jamora said that airline pilots should be able to carry firearms.
Too many of us are blind to the fact that it was the ineptitude of the federal government that largely contributed to 9/11. But sadly, in a time of crisis, we went ahead and we deferred more powers and responsibilities to our federal government. In turn, more bloated bureaucracies were created, such as the Department of Homeland Security. Soon after, we were subjected to new impositions on our comings and goings and more searches and seizures. Legislation is currently in the works that will require us to all carry a national identification card.
In all, these new contrivances are costing us millions of dollars and make us no safer than we were before. There were sufficient laws, procedures, and resources for eavesdropping and gathering intelligence prior to 9/11 to prevent monstrosities like 9/11 from happening. The sad truth is that too many people missed too many cues and failed to communicate and take action. In turn, corrective action needed to be taken. But no new laws, bureaucracies or restrictions on carrying nail trimmers or hair care products were necessary.
We should not bestow the duty of protecting airline passengers solely to federal agents, who we know cannot be everywhere all the time, and who we have witnessed “dropping the ball” already. It should be the right and perhaps the obligation of privately owned companies to assume the bulk of the responsibility for the people who patronize their businesses. (Example: airlines, pilots and passengers.)
The careful and proper use of firearms in the pursuit of safety should not be a right or a task exclusively reserved for agents of our federal government.
Matthew McGrath
Brookhaven
Warm thanks for
covering Ian’s benefit
I want to thank the Northeast Times and writer Tom Waring for covering the “Ice Cream for Ian” benefit, which was held at St. Martha School on May 29 and 30.
The ice cream benefit was a huge success and raised almost $6,000 for the Roonan family.
I would like to personally thank all those who made very generous donations to this great event, including Mr. Paul Breen and Edy’s Ice Cream (250&1/2 gallons total), Perkins Restaurant, and Chalfont and Picariello playgrounds, who donated ice cream and toppings, too.
The ice cream was served in Phillies helmets donated by Aramark Corp.
I would also like to sincerely thank all of the St. Martha kindergarten parents, teachers and aides who helped me to organize and run this successful event for our classmate and friend, Ian Roonan.
Pennsylvania House Speaker Dennis O’Brien was also a major contributor to this benefit as well as offering continued support to the Roonan family.
Please continue to keep Ian and his family in your prayers as they persevere in his courageous battle with his “bump” in his head.
Mrs. Kim Volz
St. Martha Kindergarten teacher
Baldi’s proud
of its students
Recently, the CCA Baldi Middle School Student Council, under the leadership of teachers Jennifer Ryan and Donna Matthews, held a walk-a-thon entitled “Stop the Violence.”
Through their efforts, they raised $1,760.80. These monies will be distributed evenly amongst the families of three recently slain Philadelphia police officers.
The students’ efforts are to be applauded and emulated by other youngsters in our community. We are all very proud of them.
Baldi Middle School staff
Hold new
primary elections
The Democratic National Committee voted to only allow Florida and Michigan Democratic delegates a half-vote in lieu of a full vote.
This stunt is totally illegal. The U.S. Supreme Court should rule the half-vote down and compel the two states to hold new primary elections.
John M. Horner
Oxford Circle
Boy Scouts policy
remains on readers’ minds
In response to Raymond Dougherty’s letter to the editor about the Boy Scouts being bigots (Keep my tax dollars away from the bigoted Boy Scouts, June 5 edition), tell me, Mr. Dougherty, do you have children, and if so, are they boys who would be in the Boy Scouts?
I do have children and my son is indeed in the Boy Scouts. My daughters are in Girl Scouts and I have to say that I do not want a gay man leading my son’s troop, nor would I want a gay woman leading my daughter’s troop. I am not being prejudiced, just cautious. I happen to know and have a good relationship with gay people.
Oh, and excuse me, the parents do pay for their children to be in Scouts. They pay a registration fee, they pay dues and have tons of fund-raisers to pay for different trips as well as donating to different organizations. So it isn’t just YOUR tax dollars, Mr. Dougherty, that pay for Scouts.
I would rather have my children involved in Scouts, learning how to be respectful, than hanging around the streets. Sorry if homosexuality isn’t a part of the Scouts’ plan.
I don’t care about other people’s sexual preferences, but please keep it out of my face and my family’s face. I am not teaching my children to be bigots and I am not saying it is OK to dislike anyone for the way they live their lives.
Would it be OK for a man to be the leader in a Girl Scout troop? If so, why aren’t there any men Girl Scout leaders (think about it) or would it be OK for a boy to join Girl Scouts or vice versa. I think not.
So with that said, Mr. Dougherty, if you want to keep your tax dollars, do so. Oh, by the way, who is being the bigot now?
Patty Duffy
Bustleton
• • •
Mr. Dougherty complains that his tax dollars are being used to support a “bigoted” Boy Scouts. I would like to suggest that he is showing bigotry against traditional Biblical morality that has withstood the test of time for 3,000 years.
He and his “brethren” want to place their own moral relativism above that of traditional Christianity and the Boy Scouts, who believe in a “God who created us.” We strongly object to having our tax money being used to indoctrinate our children in public school to renounce Biblical morality, on which this country was founded, and replace it with moral relativism. There are countless stories of former homosexuals who have, through the power of Jesus Christ, become “straight.”
We recognize that people’s lifestyle choices can change through a loving relationship with Christ, and that is why we won’t embrace deviate lifestyles and call them “normal.”
John Bartlett
Somerton
• • •
Raymond Dougherty states that “homosexuals are less often child molesters than those in the general population such as teachers, coaches, priests and others who work around children.”
As a Catholic deeply disturbed by the scandals that have plagued the Catholic Church, I have noted that the overwhelming number of molestations have been man-on-boy. Because I have not seen statistics on other scandals involving the “general population,” I am not able to comment on “teachers, coaches . . . and others.” I suspect that there is some same-sex attraction involved, also.
I hope that Mr. Dougherty would not care to see the Boy Scouts open themselves up to the litigations that have caused the Catholic Church such distress as a result of the homosexual behavior of a few of their priests.
Mr. Dougherty’s other observation concerning bigotry seems to be ill-conceived and not analogous.
I support the Boy Scouts’ efforts to carefully screen those who supervise our future regardless of the cost. I pray the Girl Scouts do the same.
Albert Hebding
Pennypack
• • •
You are picking on innocent children who look to adults to set the rules and protect them until they can make decisions on their own. Children have enough to deal with in their everyday life and don’t need to think about this issue.
Being gay is a lifestyle of choice and the choice of parents/adults choosing not to subject children to this lifestyle. Gay people are good people who live by rules, and organizations have set rules, as does our government.
I say to each is their own, but when it comes to children, leave it to parents/adults in authority to make the rules for age-appropriate decisions when it comes to a lifestyle.
In this country, we still have rules and laws to guide our young ones who are not old enough to find their way…don’t we? Or did that change, too?
I’m old enough and open to gay issues, but enough already. We are talking about children who do good deeds and being guided to be good citizens.
Don’t be a right fighter and punish the children to get your point across by having the Scouts vacate their headquarters.
Please give them the time so they can make their own decisions on this issue when they are old enough. They just want to be good kids.
Take the high road on this one.
Susan Williamson
Oviedo Fla., former Bridesburg resident
• • •
In your May 29 editorial, Let’s hear it for the Boys, you stated that Mayor Nutter was wrong in denying the Boy Scouts free use of a city-owned building. I strongly disagree.
While everyone can agree that the Boy Scouts are a great organization and they are perfectly within their rights as a private organization to restrict homosexuals from enjoying the benefits of membership, there is a law in the United States that says you cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and Mayor Nutter was upholding the law.
He said that the city of Philadelphia cannot allow any organization that discriminates to enjoy free use of public property. The Boy Scouts can rent the property at the fair market rate. To paraphrase your last sentence in the original editorial: Northeast Times, shame on you.
Susan Boyle
Mayfair
Mr. Dougherty responds
to last week’s letters
As a former Boy Scout, I know the Boy Scouts abandoned the lessons they taught me when they chose ignorance, fear and bigotry. Evident was the typical hysteria and ignorance of fact as exhibited by Mr. Bill Kitsch of Fox Chase who stated in last week’s letters to the editor that the “vast, vast majority of child molestations are man or male-on-boy, and those molesters are homosexual.”
Not only is he totally lacking in the basic understanding of civics and federalist principles (that means federal law vs. state and local law, Mr. Kitsch and Mr. Bielicki) and lacking in understanding the difference between homosexuality, pedophilia and sexual assault, but I would remind Mr. Kitsch that he is also lacking in facts.
A 2000 Department of Health and Human Services report released statistics on sexual assaults of children, and the facts are that 1.7 female children per 1,000 were victimized as compared to 0.4 male children per 1,000, female children assaults outnumbering males more than four times as much. And the body of peer-reviewed studies conducted on the topic throughout the decades show clearly that homosexuals are no more likely to commit an act of pedophilia than a heterosexual.
Most child sexual offenders assault both boys and girls and are neither heterosexual or homosexual, as they are incapable of normal adult sexual relationships. In one study of more than 700 sexual inmates in Massachusetts, not one was identified as being homosexual in their adult relationships — not one. The fact is there is not one peer reviewed scientific study that shows otherwise — not one conducted within generally accepted scientific principles.
The problem resides not in homosexuals, but in small-minded, ignorant, hysterics like the leaders of the Boy Scouts who decided to make sexual orientation part of the Boy Scout program by teaching youth members, Scout leaders and everyone else that homosexuality is wrong by publicly declaring such, and further, in deciding to make a federal case out of their discriminatory agenda, contradicting what Dr. Halloran may think.
Perhaps the good doctor would do better to stop listening to the Scouts and read the dictionary, because if he did, he would see to discriminate is “to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit.”
Quite simply, that is the issue. It is not my agenda, as Kitsch suggests, rather it is the issue of the hysterical agenda of the Boy Scouts, based not in facts or reality, but unrealistic fear; not in acceptance and tolerance, but hate and discrimination; not in community and good deeds, but in isolation and exclusion.
Quite simply, according to the definition of discrimination and our local laws that Kitsch, Halloran, Tomezsko, Webb and Bielicki seem to want to throw out of the mix, the Boy Scouts are legally, morally and ethically, a discriminatory organization.
Despite what the writers suggest or think, a simple review of civics and government (that we all learn in grade school and which does not require a law degree to understand) would make evident that our local law does not conflict in any way, shape or form with the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Boy Scouts have an absolute right to discriminate in its membership.
That does not mean that our local government needs to support their private rights with public funds. The Boy Scouts are not being punished, rather they are no longer being rewarded for their discrimination. As for any improvements they made, Kitsch needs to understand the law — a tenant does not get reimbursed for improvements they make and no “junk-law” or belief in superior understanding of law will change that.
As is so typical of most bigoted, ignorant, hate mongers, the four writers previously mentioned felt it necessary to resort to personal attacks, discriminatory attacks on attorneys, and make lots of assumptions.
Facts: I have never represented a sex victim; I was a Boy Scout; I do not have any followers, or ilk, or “fellow progressives” (that I know of); I would never believe in Utopia (I’m a lawyer, for crying out loud); and I did not disparage the rights of the Boy Scouts, rather suggested that if that is what they wanted to do, “By all means do so.”
I do not force my will on everyone or tell them how to live their lives (you got me confused with the judge). I am not interested in being a Scout leader with the Boy Scouts or anyone, starting a Scout organization or supporting any scouting organization. I also am not a liberal, or a good liberal, or a 60s style liberal, or a “progressive,” but rather simply, a proud Republican who greatly admires the roots of my party.
Horace Greeley coined the term Republican to define that person who would most be against slavery. If Horace Greeley were alive today, I would like to think he would say the term Republican best describes that person who is most against discrimination of anyone of any group.
I am a Republican because Republicans traditionally have been the party of inclusion and to defend the Constitution and equal rights, and were in fact responsible for the evolution of our governing documents with the enactments of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments.
As a proud Republican and in the spirit of Horace Greeley, I believe our Constitution commands equal rights so that “we can all pursue our happiness and liberty, with common sense and attendant responsibility toward the rights, and boundaries of those rights, of all Americans” including those who happen to be homosexual, bisexual or transgender.
Raymond J. Dougherty Jr., Esq.
Pine Valley
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