We welcome a new columnist this week, Kate Kastelein, who will contribute humorous “Dispatches From Damariscotta” once a month.
Kate has a great sense of humor and a deep love for this community. We hope you will enjoy her column as much as we intend to.
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We rarely comment on specific letters to the editor, but Albert Boynton’s letter (“Not a pay equality bill”) on this page has us unable to hold our tongue/pen/printing press.
We agree with Mr. Boynton’s initial premise, that the recent mailers from the Maine Women’s Lobby were misleading, at best.
But Mr. Boynton goes on to criticize single mothers raising their children in poverty.
Here’s our question: What about the “fathers?”
For every single mother living in poverty, excluding widows, there is an irresponsible “father” who is not doing his part to raise the child.
If these “fathers” were all responsible adults and actual fathers instead of reckless disseminators of genetic material, single mothers would be no more likely to live in poverty than any other sort of mother.
Moreover, some single mothers are single because they left abusive relationships, not because “liberal society” taught them to have unprotected sex and unplanned pregnancies.
We state this disagreement with great respect to Mr. Boynton, the patriarch of Whitefield. We always appreciate his contributions to our opinion page.
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We give thanks for our new columnist and for the lively and civil exchange of opinions we have on the opinion page each week. We believe we can still disagree with one another with respect and make a genuine effort to understand one another.
As we celebrate Thanksgiving this year, we will pause to give thanks for all we have. The very nature of the holiday – when people gorge themselves on delicious food and then laze around to preserve energy for a shopping spree the next day – demonstrates how much we do have.
Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at The Lincoln County News.
