Readers Write (Feb. 11): Cartoon, Steve Sviggum, GLBT issues, GOP caucuses, sex offenders, Mitt Romney

I was deeply offended by L.K. Hanson's cartoon depicting a woman with a clown's nose wearing a Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) button ("You don't say," Feb. 6). I've belonged to DAR for many years and object to the button on the character shown. I'm not a clown. I'm a well-educated and highly intelligent woman who has worked for three corporations. By the way, I'm also a prochoice Democrat. Hanson owes the DAR an apology.

CHARLOTTE OLSEN, FRIDLEY

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What has happened to the controversy about Steve Sviggum and his appointment to a Republican Party position while he serves on the University of Minnesota's Board of Regents ("Regents will draw lines for debate over Sviggum's dual roles," Feb. 10)? Why doesn't he just resign as a regent, admit that he needs a paying job and that holding the two positions at the same time is a conflict of interest? We shouldn't let this issue die.

CHARLES OLSON, RICHFIELD

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Our state's largest school district has received negative national press in Rolling Stone magazine for its handling of anti-gay bullying. Whether or not the writer's characterization of the Anoka-Hennepin school district's policies was balanced or fair, this story is making national headlines.

Along with this, let's hope that no national publication decides to elaborate on our state's climate toward gays by explaining that our Republican-dominated Legislature isn't content that gay marriage isn't legally recognized in Minnesota, so they're forcing this measure onto our November ballot as a constitutional amendment. Given that we would like to attract businesses to Minnesota and not scare them away, is this really the time to push forward with an anti-gay-marriage amendment? Legislators, think again, and vote the marriage amendment off the November ballot.

LISA WERSAL, VADNAIS HEIGHTS

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So, did the Republicans require a photo ID with a current address to participate in their caucuses on Tuesday?

JOHN ROLL, CRYSTAL

A comment I heard at my caucus: If we extend the definition of marriage, then the same rights will eventually be granted to plural, familial and even bestial marriages. This argument is false. In fact, the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated the right to bear arms, in fact, has limitations which are not explicitly stated in the Constitution. That same legal interpretation rests in redefining marriage and would certainly carry the day in the courtroom.

MCLean Donnelly, St. Paul

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As a left-leaning independent, I would never in a million years cast a vote for Rick Santorum, but his sweeping victory in our state makes me proud to be a Minnesotan. While top-runners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich engage in polemics of the gutter, stopping only to test their fingers in the wind, Santorum doggedly pursues his candidacy on genuine principle. Not my principles, but nevertheless authentic.

I don't know where the Republicans of yore have gone, but today's representatives of the GOP are hate-filled ideologues whose only tie is their loathing for President Obama, and whose only plan is to oust him. Today's GOP is doing more to compromise our country's security than any political policy itself. The world now looks at us as a people divided, perhaps compromised fatally by our infighting.

SHAWN GILBERT, BLOOMINGTON

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The decision by a three-judge panel to release sex offender Clarence Opheim is absolutely critical to the continuing legal status of the entire sex offender containment program ("Keep politics out of sex offender release," Feb. 8).

This program was designed by me as one of the original authors of both the Sexually Dangerous Persons Act and Community Notification Act. Although originally opposed by the DFL Senate in 1993, both acts received broad bipartisan support in 1994 after the Supreme Court ordered the release of sex offenders Dennis Linehan and Peter Rickmyer.

The long-term commitment of dangerous (Level 3) sex offenders is based on a state-administered treatment program and testing to give the offenders the opportunity to prove they are no longer a danger to society if released.

Minnesota's statutes have been copied in part and have been supported by the U.S. Supreme Court. The hospitalization is expensive, but so is the huge cost to victims and the state from offenders repeating if they are released because our system gets overruled as a legal sham.

DAVE BISHOP; FORMER STATE REPRESENTATIVE, R-Rochester

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Mitt Romney said he doesn't worry about the poor because they have a safety net. He also said he worries about the middle class.

He once said, oddly enough, that he regards himself as middle-class. It seems then that all of the middle-class people who have lost jobs and homes and become poor are no worry for Romney. How sad.