Readers write for Sunday, March 6

Paul McEnroe's Feb. 20 story asserts that the state fails to properly track mentally ill and dangerous patients who violate their discharge conditions ("Dangerous, on the run, pursued by no one").

It's imperative for those who hold this belief to think critically about the proposed budget cuts to health and human services. If the general public is concerned about keeping dangerous people in institutions, it should not allow legislators to reduce this funding.

JESSICA WESTBY, SAUK RAPIDS

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I'm not sure the United States should regularly be in the business of telling other nations' leaders when they need to go. Nevertheless, in the case of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, shouldn't his time to go have been in 1988 after he ordered innocent people shot out of an airplane over Lockerbie, Scotland?

JENNIFER KUNZE, MINNEAPOLIS

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I was a family counselor and supervisor for Hennepin County Family Court for 21 years. I listened to violent men at great length and without judgment, because I wanted to understand why they beat their wives.

Men, as well as women, need counseling and compassion. They would benefit from a "pause house" where they could go when they know they are on the verge of another violent outburst.

CLARA GRACE JAMES, ST. LOUIS PARK

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The letter writer commenting on Lori Sturdevant's Feb. 20 column ("Gosh, you'd think the pay equity issue was solved") said men deserved to be paid more than women. He just doesn't get it.

All they're asking is to receive equal pay for equal work.

The fact that men pay more than women in alimony and child support is possibly true. Could it be that many of them walk out on the responsibility of caring for their families of their own choosing?

There are plenty of women, as single moms, who are raising their children without either alimony or child support. Some also work themselves into an early grave for their children.

I suggest replacing the caption "quit griping, women" with "quit whining, men."

LILLIAN IVERSON, BROOKLYN PARK

I'm a Minnesota teacher. After five years of jumping from job to job because of layoffs and budget cuts, I'm now facing a possible career change. I'm not a bad teacher.

However, because of how the union works, I don't get a say in whether I get to keep my job. I pay nearly a grand each year for what they call union protection.

In my opinion, the new laws being proposed for unions are not a bad idea. The union does nothing for me except take my money. I have no say whether I want its so-called protection or not.

Why can't teachers be paid similarly to the private sector? Why can't our salaries be based on performance?

Unions are protecting too many teachers who don't do their jobs. Why should I have to pay to protect those teachers when they're the reason I keep losing my job?

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Isn't it interesting that Katherine Kersten quoted Franklin Roosevelt to bolster her position against the formation of public-employee unions ("The good life (for unions especially)," Feb. 27)?

Roosevelt made his statement a couple of decades before such unions were allowed to bargain.

DANIEL R. KRUEGER, MINNEAPOLIS

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Another week's headlines herald a priest's scandalous sexual relationship with a women seeking counsel and the priest's subsequent transfer to another parish ("Priest argues sex with woman was consensual," Feb. 19).

The response to both circumstances speaks volumes about the effects of silencing and excluding women from Catholic leadership and full participation in ministry.

What would happen if, instead, women were encouraged to preach and the errant preacher was silenced and excluded from ministry?

CECILIA MICHEL, MINNEAPOLIS

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