Letters to the editor, March 18

We have two kids, one cis-het male and the other is our transgender daughter, both middle schoolers. We’ve spent the past year and a half joyfully celebrating our daughter’s successes. The affirmation she’s received at home, from our family, from the community. She’s thriving.

Then in January, our older child, our son attempted suicide. He’s better now, don’t worry about that, but he’s better because he has an amazing support system of friends and school staff who’ve made him feel loved and safe.

Both of our kids have become beacons for safety and vulnerability. And it’s all at risk. House Bills 42, 436, 672, and 1532 would amend child abuse statutes to label my wife and me as abusers. They could take our kids and our licenses. We’d lose everything if we stay. But if we move to protect our daughter, our son loses an entire network that keeps him alive and safe.

So now, we sit up at nights, whispering and arguing about what we’ll do if those bills pass. What kind of liberty or freedom is there in this state if we may have to choose between one kid or another? Or one career over another? Or our marriage in exchange for taking one kid to safety and leaving the other where he is already safe? Which choice would you make?

Mitch Tillison,

Little Elm

A simple solution for taxes

Texas has outgrown her tax structure and needs a few simple changes for simplification, eliminating increased homelessness, and unnecessary administration expense.

1. The assessed value of a home would be frozen at every recorded purchase price.

All other exemptions would remain such as homestead, agriculture, nonprofit, etc., along with the current voter cap on city taxes. This would be retroactive and eliminate the appraisal system that is based upon subjectivity, humans deciding upon who and who doesn’t pay a fair value, and appraisals generated on medians (coin-toss statistics) rather than mathematically accepted statistical standards.

2. The city and county tax for rental and commercial property would be based upon a percentage of income less expenses but not including depreciation.

3. Eliminate property tax abatements from all government sources, and eliminate taxpayer funding of lobbyists.

So simple, yet so far from us with an entropic form of government filled with self-interest groups.

John Thorngren,

Shady Shores

Exposing Christian hypocrisy

The nationwide accusations of drag queens grooming children has increased scrutiny — and thankfully, consequences — for those that actually do the grooming and molestation: mostly white cis-hetero men. More specifically, men in positions of authority, such as priests, ministers, police, teachers and the like. These accusations made in the name of Christian values are only hastening the well-deserved and long overdue demise of religion.

For it is in these pursuits that Christian hypocrisy is being exposed.

Take that plank out of your own eye, dear brother. And leave my LGBTQ peeps alone.

Gordon Jones,

Double Oak