Editor’s note: This letter is in response to the letter, “Elfers’ views don’t reflecrt Enumclaw,” published Feb. 4.

Mr. Arnold believes there are more conservatives than liberals in Enumclaw, and he is most likely right. Since he believes that to be true, he feels that the Courier-Herald should quit featuring Rich Elfers’ column in the paper.

This is what I have witnessed all of my life regarding conservative “values”: Conservatives think homosexuality is wrong so they would ban it; they think there is no such thing as gender identity issues so that issue should just go away; they think abortion is wrong so it should be banned also — if you’re noticing a trend here, you’re right.

If conservatives don’t approve of something, they want to outlaw it, ban it, kill it or get rid of it in some way. Liberals, on the other hand, believe conservatives should be allowed their opinions, even though they may strongly disagree with them. They don’t believe that family, marriage and community are necessarily “conservative” values. They don’t “promote homosexuality”, they allow homosexuals to live their lives. They don’t “promote open marriage”, they simply think that your marriage is, “none of their business.” They don’t “promote abortion on demand”, they believe that a woman should have the right to make decisions about her own body and her own life.

Conservatives seem to want to control a lot of things about our private lives, all the while saying that big government is bad and should stay out of our lives. They don’t want government to tell them how to run their businesses, they just want to control everything about our private lives that they find offensive.

Liberals want our government to control the overreach of businesses and use the powers of government to help all of our citizens, not just the very rich and the very white. Liberals subscribe to the part of the preamble to the Constitution that states, “promote the general welfare.” When our government does that, we are all better off, liberals and conservatives alike.

Larry Benson

Enumclaw