YOUR VIEWS: ‘Difficult for those without any faith to comprehend’
As a Christian who understands and shares Kate Forbes’ position on gay marriage, abortion, no sex before marriage – and, may I add, on honesty and the duty to not tell lies but speak the truth – I can grasp how it is possible for her both to hold such Christian views and to respect, love and serve her neighbour whose life-style goes counter to Christian moral values.
I realise that this is hard for those without faith to comprehend but the way we seek to honour non-Christians, respect their position, and serve them as we may, is part of our Christian commitment.
We love and respect our neighbours even though we know that their conduct runs counter to biblical standards.
We seek to love all people – irrespective of their moral choices, with God’s love, since He himself, Jesus tells us, is ‘kind to the ungrateful and to the evil’.
And let me add that there are millions of Christians like us in the UK and countless millions throughout the world who share that classic, faithful, biblical position, and are unconvinced by the philosophy of liberal atheists who, having no transcendent authority for their values, are unable to establish any moral absolutes. Such relativism is the deep cause of the moral landslide that our society is suffering from more and more. Those who have been attacking a sincere godly young female Christian politician would do better to examine their own unkind attitudes, their aggressive spirit, and their personal lifestyle.
And might I also say, this moral landslide is in no way stemmed by those in the church who, instead of standing up for holiness in society, allow themselves to be ‘conformed to this world’, succumbing to the influence and pressures of what Jesus would call our ‘evil and adulterous generation’.
Righteousness still exalts a nation; sin is still a reproach for any people (Proverbs 14.34).
Clive Every-Clayton
King Street,
Kingussie.
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Whelan off mark with Hitler claim
It is always interesting to look at the name at the end of a letter or article in the Strathy. Be it Grant Frazer or Charlie Whelan, the name will invariably give a clue to the nature of the author’s comments.
In this week’s Strathy, however, it appears that Charlie has rather overstepped the mark with his comment that... “indeed we should not forget that in its infancy the SNP supported Hitler against the United Kingdom thinking that would advance the cause of Scottish Independence”.
Some nationalists apparently did, but MI5 at the time is reported to have concluded that “... while individual members are mischievous and potentially dangerous, the organisation itself, albeit full of sound and fury, is of little consequence”.
Not quite the same thing.
Also, in the interests of accuracy, I wonder whether at your readers would agree with your reference in the Strathy of 23rd February to the local landmark beside the A9 at Slochd as the ‘soldier’s head’.
Since I first arrived in the strath in 1968, I have only ever heard it called the ‘German’s head’.
Has the Strathy succumbed to Ronald Dahl style revisionism?
Keith Robertson
Kingussie.
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Good bus service in Cairngorms National Park well behind schedule
I read the other day about just how good the bus service was in Glenmore back in the 1980s and 1990s.
As well as running a great service up the hill from Aviemore, the Cairngorm Chairlift Company ran well appreciated services in the strath.
It might have been expected that by now public transport services would have improved particularly as we have become more aware of the climate emergency but that is patently not the case.
Surely in a national park with its special relationship to nature we should be doing all we can towards reducing car usage through public transport development.
Electric cars can cut our harmful emissions but their considerable carbon footprint shouldn’t be forgotten.
Car construction creates one of the biggest demands for steel and steel production is estimated to account for between seven and nine per cent of all global carbon emissions.
One reads of the development of electric bus fleets in Scotland’s central belt but our local services have just got worse.
It’s all very well having free buses for selected age groups but it’s not so great if there are no buses!
For rural services why not allow companies to charge a standard rate of say £1 for every 10 miles of travel. A modern electric bus service could transform Highland travel.
Surely it should not be too difficult to get such a system in place.
Dick Webster
Campbell Crescent,
Kingussie.
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Independence media coverage bias ‘stain on democracy’
In accepting there is now a 50/50 divide for independence, it is simply wrong that there is still an almost 100 per cent print and broadcast media bias against the growing wish of the Scottish people.
The media, in a democracy, should be broadly representative of the people it serves.
However in Scotland a constitutional change, backed by at least half the population, is ignored by Westminster and bombarded by anti-independence propaganda.
Why is this? It is simply because the British media is wholly controlled from London by a narrow elite ruling establishment.
In truth this unfair imbalance is a stain on democracy.
Grant Frazer
Newtonmore.
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Nuclear option would leave toxic legacy for generations to come
The letter from Clark Cross in last week’s Strathy needs some relevant qualification.
There are two good reasons why more gas-fired generators should not be built.
The first is the cost of gas, which is the main reason we all have sky-high electricity bills.
The second reason is climate change; globally gas is a major contributor. There are even more good reasons why more nuclear should not be built.
Firstly, the time to build one is a minimum of ten years (and that’s if the build goes smoothly).
Secondly, there is the cost of nuclear electricity. It currently vies with gas as the most expensive source of generation anywhere. Thirdly, we are leaving a dreadful toxic legacy to future generations.
High-level nuclear waste is radioactive for thousands of years.
Who’s going to pay for that when we’re all long gone?
What will our children and grand-children think of our selfish behaviour in leaving them with such a toxic legacy of lethal waste for generations to come?
We should be very grateful here that we live in a country so abundant in natural resources.
Why would we want to use other fuel sources with such down-sides?
Alan Anderson
Portlethen.
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Urgent review needed into salmon farming
We were alarmed to learn recently that 2022 saw the highest farmed fish mortality rates on record, with some 15m fish dying prematurely on farms across Scotland between January and November 2022.
This troubling number is double that of 2021 and treble that of 2020.
Farmed salmon across Scotland are suffering a number of challenges that appear to have prompted these stark mortality rates including lice infestations, disease outbreaks, predation, rising sea temperatures, rough treatments and algal blooms.
These problems appear to be worsened by two factors: climate change and crowding in pens.
Scotland is already feeling the effects of climate change. The impacts will also be felt especially strongly by farmed fish, who are exposed to the already violent waters and ever-rising sea temperatures.
We fear this latest data suggests the salmon farming industry is simply not adequately prepared to handle these changing conditions.
By confining salmon in tight or unnatural spaces, not only is the industry preventing these animals from carrying out their natural behaviours, it is also providing ample opportunity for disease transmission and lice breakouts to become ever more frequent, and for these territorial animals to develop aggressive tendencies toward one another.
Mortality rates will surely continue to creep up at pace if these corporations are permitted to carry out business as usual.
The sharp rise in on-farm mortalities has caused us to question the long-term sustainability of this industry.
Stocking densities on Scottish salmon farms do not appear to be acceptable in their current form, and we are not confident that this industry is equipped to combat the problems posed by climate change.
Research in these fields are limited and lacking, with most studies taking part in laboratories and not in sea cages.
We are urging for a moratorium on the expansion of the Scottish salmon farming industry until these issues are addressed.
The industry is growing rapidly, and so are these issues. Swift Government action must be taken to curb this problem.
Ariane Burgess MSP, Maggie Chapman MSP, Foysol Choudhury MSP, Monica Lennon MSP, Pauline McNeill MSP, Mark Ruskell MSP, Colin Smyth MSP & Mercedes Villalba MSP.
