Dear Editor,
While Councilman Roland Velasco supports the bill to deny housing to sex offenders, and Councilman Charles Morales commends him, I hope both of these men, especially Morales recognize that they are advocating legal discrimination, something that Mr. Morales should abhor, based on his heritage.
When a convicted felon serves his time, his debt to society has been paid. By supporting this measure Councilman Velasco will revisit upon Gilroy a plague of hatred, and the legal right to discriminate against people who have indeed paid their debt to society. For him to say that forcing people to move by discriminating against them is not a bad thing, is deplorable, and reminiscent of McCarthyism, where people were branded an outcast based on actions.
Will our esteemed Councilman Velasco next campaign for a firing squad at the city limits? Kill them if they try to find a place of shelter from the elements. Convicted felons, and convicted sex offenders are still protected by the Constitution of the United States, Councilman, the same Constitution that laid out a framework under which you serve the people of Gilroy, Mr. Velasco. I must interject here on the serving the people issue: I was appalled that you had to excuse yourself so many times from issues over a month old during the July 18 Council meeting. I was the bald man in the blue shirt. I was further amazed when you looked at Mayor Al Pinhiero with contempt when he did not realize that you were, as you said it, “OK to vote on May’s issues, but not June’s.” Had you lost your reading spectacles in order to read last month’s issues, sir? It certainly appeared that you had dropped the ball.
Councilman Morales said it was important to protect others in the community. The Constitution protects ALL American citizens equally, sir.
If Gilroy foolishly and irresponsibly continues to support this bill, where will the legalized discrimination end? Will it end at the Catholic families, the Protestants, the whites, blacks, Mexicans? Will it not be applied to Poles, but applied against Japanese?
We as a society cannot let the politically correct, want to fix everything crowd to chip away at our constitutionally guaranteed rights. If they make a chink in the protection, it wall be a hole next week, and a chasm by Christmas.
How would Councilmen Velasco and Morales like it if they were barred from a restaurant because of their last names, or the different color of their skin? If they continue to target sex offenders in this manner, they must remain entirely mute when a KKK group opens a meeting next to their home(s), or at their children’s school. Discrimination works both ways, it cannot be only selective.
The price for utopia is far too great for a society to presume to afford. The price of discrimination is one measured in people and lives, a currency that no group of men, especially councilmen in Gilroy, have any right to even offer to spend.
Ben Anderson, Gilroy
