In response to the Republican plan for 2025: there’s no reason to suppose a government espousing a Nationalist Christianity established by straight white men would be any kinder to the rest of us than Sharia law. Let’s remember: England’s Elizabeth I may have been the most effective queen in history, able to launch (literally) a new empire, largely because she adhered to religious tolerance. Her politics were secular and combined with respect for the various creeds, but not, as I recall, for excesses done in their names. That last might explain why so many English subjects who swarmed across the Atlantic to the New World were either religious fascists (think Salem, Mass.) or people who saw non-whites as less than human.

Those seventeenth century forbears of ours left us a dark history we really don’t want to repeat. Life on Earth is dicey enough in these days of climate chaos, and we haven’t time to rerun old mistakes.

Enough said, perhaps?

Brooke Pacy

Waldoboro