MAILBAG - April 19, 2007

Bible class violated church-and-state

I would like to thank the Huntington Beach Union High School board for proceeding with caution on the Bible as Literature issue (“Bible class in limbo,” April 12). This is a very complicated and emotionally loaded matter that is better left alone. This proposal is obviously a thinly veiled attempt by the faith-based people to get their foot in the door in violation of the separation-of-church-and state principle, despite the proponents’ claims to the contrary. When the hypothesis of creationism did not fly in terms of being a “scientific” concept, they turned to “intelligent design,” which worked no better. The courts dismissed intelligent design as a subject for scientific inquiry; it is a religious construct, through and through!

It is interesting to note that the 2,000 signatures were primarily obtained by the Presbyterian Church of Westminster. The quotes in your article go beyond the obvious. Comments like, “We’re ordinary parents endeavoring to add something we consider very, very important to the curriculum,” are, to my mind, disingenuous. Even the education professor’s quote is less than convincing. “When I see students not familiar with the Bible, it’s difficult for them to understand Western literature and American history.” At the risk of using “anecdotal evidence,” I never had any Bible education and I received a Phi Beta Kappa key at UCLA. I think high school students of Huntington Beach would be better served by getting a solid education in the usual disciplines, and I would encourage them to study the Bible in Sunday School or other religious-oriented venues.

Once again, let’s not allow Huntington Beach to be identified with the Flat Launders of Kansas, Pennsylvania, and parts east.

We are a little more modern and sophisticated than that!

Javier Regalado, Huntington Beach

Recommendations for senior center

Things that the environmental review of the senior center should investigate:

1. The land is zoned as open space and a building is not open space. It is already a park.

2. Liquefaction is a serious problem for this property. The paths of the Shipley Center, which is adjacent to this site, were obliterated by water in 2005. The water table is extremely high.

3. A traffic study should be mandatory due to the danger for seniors and public transportation coming from Goldenwest Street, which is the only entrance to the center.

4. The land is used as training grounds for the local high schools and surrounding communities for their cross country practice fields and track meets, including schools from as far away as Los Angeles, Long Beach, Westminster, Santa Ana, Garden Grove etc. I witnessed the track meet in 2006 and talked to the coaches who were discouraged to think it would be lost as open space with this senior center.

5. The property is an inconvenient isolated place for a senior center. The present senior center is more than adequate to rebuild an enlarged center on and it is already established as a senior center.

Eileen Murphy, Huntington Beach