Fireworks on the 4th

Re “1776 to 2008,” editorial, July 4

You state, as if it were gospel: “If we are to harmonize our historic embrace of liberty with our respect for order, what must guide us, then, is an appreciation for institutions and a regard for progress, particularly as it opens those institutions to those who have been excluded.”

You then demand that we embrace immigrants, illegal or legal, and that those who come illegally, but peacefully, “deserve the right to stay.” Excuse me, but what right does anyone have to stay in any country when their very first act of entering is itself illegal? Where is their “respect for order”?

You go on to claim that those who do not agree with homosexual marriages blaspheme our history of freedom. How dare you! There are many hundreds of millions who believe, without malice, that the act, the behavior, the situation itself blasphemes another set of laws that, in their view, transcends the laws of men. To them, this is not “a regard for progress” but, rather, a descent into chaos.

Your sanctimony is stunning.

Thomas Michael

Kelley

Newbury Park

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I want to commend you for this thoughtful and appropriate editorial for Independence Day.

Justice John Marshall Harlan’s idea of “ordered liberty,” of balancing the impulses of liberty and order, is what is needed today. I’ve always been leery of the extreme conservatives’ idea of “strict constructivism” in selecting justices for Supreme Court positions.

Interpretation must consider the changing conditions of our rapidly evolving society.

Dorothy S. Hull

Santa Monica