Don't lose sight of bigger issue

In your Oct. 14 front page article about Geneva consumer education teacher Dave Burk, who questioned public funding of a gay black man taking nude pictures of another gay black person in the name of art, gay student Jordan Hunter said Burk's opinions should not be aired in the classroom. I agree that a derogatory term he used for homosexuals is totally unacceptable, but the point he was trying to make seems very valid to me and I feel is acceptable in a public school. The response should be you have used a very poor example but I understand what you are saying. We always seem to get fixated on the little things and miss the big picture.

When politicians come back to the taxpayers every year and point out the obvious - that our governments are in terrible fiscal shape and they are in need of more tax money - we need to question how our money is being spent and hold them accountable for how they have set priorities. We are told that Illinois is having trouble paying bills and funding things such as teacher pensions. They are always in need of more money, and even with more money, essential services will probably have to be cut. They threaten to close public parks and reduce public transit, yet they have money to subsidize what many would consider pornography and not art. We need to question our incumbents if they are being good stewards of our money. And until questionable subsidies such as this and mismanaged groups such as ACORN are eliminated from budgets, I do not want to hear politicians crying for higher taxes. And I would hope that in the back of everyone's mind there is a question of why this arts group was funded.

Virginia Haase

Mount Prospect