To the Editor:

These North Carolina editorial minds declared, &8220;Craig, Vitter, Foley and Privette are four examples of the worst kinds of hypocrite.&8221;

Interesting to see these opinion thinkers making judgements on those &8220;outside&8221; of their city limits.

What does this W-S editorial staff publicly express about their own Susan M. Ivey the CEO of RJ Reynolds Tobacco being a board member of the W-S YWCA and the new chairwoman of the United Way?

Both of these nonprofit organizations are about promoting and improving people’s health?

Has the news that tobacco is predicted to slowly slay 1 billion this century gotten to W-S a &8220;death trade&8221; community? Ironically, this W-S newspaper does not accept “Letters to the Editor” outside of their neighborhood.

I was fatherless by Big and Brutal Tobacco at age 11, and left without any medical or dental insurance.

Mike Sawyer

Executive Director

I Will Never Use Tobacco, Inc.

Birmingham

Keep church, state separate

To the Editor:

Certain elements of the Christian Religion have unilaterally decided life begins at conception; therefore, abortion being illegal. These few people are the precise reason The U.S. Constitution established there be separation of church and state. Abortion should definitely not be used as a method of birth control but, by the same rationale, neither should it become unilaterally dictatorial and oppressive. If life begins at conception why not make the assertion life exists before conception?

Maintain separation of church and state as Constitutionally ordained by our forefathers but also, as ordained, do not take God out of government. The church shall not make state law nor the state church law. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s.

An example of unjust non-separation of church and state is the recent misfortune of Abdul Rahman Rahman, 41, who faces death because he converted from Islam to Christianity and refuses to convert back to Islam.

During his trial in Kabul, Rahman confessed that he converted from Islam to Christianity 16 years ago while working as a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

The prosecutor, Abdul Wasi, said he offered to drop the charges if Mr. Rahman converted back to Islam, but Rahman refused.

James L. Nix

Hartselle