Dear editor:

We have received two postcards now from an organization, called Wyoming Rising, claiming that two Park County representatives, Rep. Rachel Rodriguez Williams (R-Cody) and Sen. Tim French (R-Powell), don’t believe in freedom and need a lesson in what freedom means. The charges against these legislators are as follows:

1. Undermine our public schools; subsidies for private and religious schools        

2. Government overreach into private health care decisions; obstruct our medical choices

3. Restricting your voice in our democracy; diminish our votes

4. Turning their backs on volunteer emergency responders

We are not given any bill numbers that would support the claims, in case we wanted to see for ourselves what this organization is talking about. I guess we are supposed to take Wyoming Rising’s word for it. The charges are pretty serious, so it would be nice to have their accusations explained.

First of all, we do not live in a democracy. We hear it all the time — this one or that one is destroying our democracy. Well, friends, we were given a republic, not a democracy, when the framers wrote the Constitution of the United States. We have a voice by electing men and women who will follow and uphold the Constitution. If they do not, we should vote them out.  Meanwhile, we should hold them accountable for their votes in the Legislature. How, I wonder, are the aforementioned representatives restricting our voice or diminishing our votes according to Wyoming Rising?

Then there’s the charge of “obstructing” our private health care decisions and medical choices. The only thing that I can think of that this could be talking about is the freedom to end the life of another tiny human being. Otherwise, we are able to make our own health care choices. But killing a baby is not health care. We do not have the freedom to kill another person, not even one of our born children, or to take a club and smack someone along the side the head. There are laws against that, both civil and moral. Why then, is it a desirable thing for a woman to have someone kill her unborn baby? It is not her body that is being cut to pieces or burned to death.  The body belongs to another person that feels pain but cannot escape from his slayer. No, killing that baby is not health care.

Another charge is that of “undermining our public school.” On the first postcard, it was worded as “subsidies for private and religious schools.” How, I wonder, does this affect our freedom? Not all children are educated in public schools and yet everyone has to pay taxes for public schools. Shouldn’t parents have the freedom to choose the type of education they want for their children?  Shouldn’t they be able to get back some of the money that they pay in taxes  in order to pay for their educational choice? That seems like freedom to me.  

As for the charge of turning their backs on volunteer emergency responders, I have no idea what that is about. And since there is no reference given, we can only guess. I do know, however, that both of the representatives in question have stood up for what is morally right and for our freedoms. It is a shame that this organization is trying to blacken these representatives’ names and turn voters against them. That is why we all should check out for ourselves the voting records of all the members of the Wyoming Legislature and not believe everything that is written by partisan groups. 

Susan Hoffert

Clark