I would like to thank you for providing such a great forum for community dialogue.
If I may draw your attention to the following letter published in the Guelph Mercury on Saturday.
I do recall a time in Canada when there was great resistance to the establishment of the Polish and Italian communities in Guelph.
Fascinating insight into a neighbourhood of hippocracy and intolerance. JJ
We have the right to dislike anyone we want
December 19, 2009
Re:How dare our government — municipal, provincial or federal —tell us how we are to feel about other people?
As a thinking adult, I choose to be discriminate in the people I associate with. They can take my money in obscene taxes, tell me where or not I can smoke, force me to wear a seatbelt in my car, and tell me what kind of dog I can own, but they cannot control my brain.
If the people in a given community choose not to have a Sikh temple or a mosque in their town, that is the end of the question. Nobody tells them they have no right, and are sinful for making such decisions on their own. No one on this planet has that authority over anybody else. If the majority said no to a Sikh temple, the question is settled, they are not racists (who decides that?) or small minded, or rude and insufferable. It means they do not want a Sikh temple in their locale. They have to have the right to make that decision, without getting smashed in the face for it.
When the government asks them to make their views on the subject known, and that is what they do, how can government suggest after that, we won’t accept your views, we were only joking, we really want you to accept our views, you moronic racists. Shame on you.
Frank Toplitsky, Guelph