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Tossing transgenders under the bus?

Editor, Index-Tribune:

 

The June 3 letter to the editor by Mary Morrongiello, "Out of control busy bodies," regarding whether or not the City Council should appoint an ad hoc committee to study the Staples issue, raised a number of questions and concerns from my perspective.

Morrongiello supports the Holder Ford location and proposal for this big-box store and has concerns about the process a community uses to decide what is appropriate and legal for its future. She appears to be an ultra-conservative, as evidenced by her attacks on liberals, non-Christians and transgenders. Furthermore, I hope that she merely engages in hyperbole when she attacks two of our duly-elected City Council members (Mayor Laurie Gallian and Steve Barbose), the ACLU and the Legal Aid Society, rather than engaging in some displaced, extreme hatred.

Morrongiello talks in religious terms about community organizations, groups she doesn't like and sounds rather absolutist as she defends the rights of businesses to strike a unilateral deal. For example, she goes on about what God would do or think while she throws transgender people under the "bus" she talks of. Hardly a reasonable "philosophy" it seems to me.

But, back to the local issue of Staples. I don't think it is fair to label the attempt to find community solutions to serious issues, as Ms. Morrongiello does, when she uses expressions like "kowtowing lib bullies," a "private posse," "pathetic little busybodies" and a "private lynch mob." This demeans her argument.

I don't believe that councilmembers Gallian and Barbose are being "disingenuous" when they call for an ad hoc committee to help us arrive at an acceptable consensus. They deserve our Sonoma-wide support.

Bob Mosher

Sonoma