I am writing in response to Laura Rayburn’s “Keep morality from law” article published in the last issue of The Reflector.
While I agree our rights must be protected, we must realize that rights are a determination of what we, as a society, have deemed as our “moral responsibilities” to one another. “Morals” in our present day are far too often used interchangeably with “religious ideologies.” Morals are, and indeed should be, a guiding factor in our laws.
I believe Rayburn could have more accurately argued that we cannot legislate on religious grounds. The First Amendment expressly states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Whether anyone wants to acknowledge it or not, the debate of alcohol sales on Sunday is a religious debate, and one that will not easily be settled in our predominantly Christian community.
Secondly, can we please start arguing on the grounds of the potential gain our local economy can garner if this proposal passes? It takes elementary economics to realize that consumers [college students] who want goods [alcohol] will travel to the nearest available place [West Point] to get those goods. For years Starkville has been shipping out revenue that is rightfully ours to nearby towns.
Many popular restaurants, Buffalo Wild Wings for example, could bring in new jobs, additional revenue and visitors to our town, but they don’t build here because of no alcohol sales on Sunday. We are hindering the development of our town by barring the profits equated with Sunday alcohol sales.
And finally, it has become obvious that members of the opinion section of our esteemed newspaper use their articles to talk about issues not germane to the original subject. The debate about alcohol sales is a valiant one. However, I still haven’t figured out how it can possibly relate to someone’s personal views on the death penalty and gay marriage, which by themselves would be noteworthy topics for an editorial. Please stick with your topic, continue with the praiseworthy style of writing that has been shown so far in The Reflector and let us form our opinions.