Dear BTL,
The KKK did not get its start in Texas. It was first formed in Smyrna, Tennessee, which even today has some of the same values that existed in the 1870s. The KKK was formed after the Civil War determined that the traditional Family Values of that time would not allow Black people, who were regarded in that day as vermin/animals/subhumans, to have the same rights as whites and to that end supported various laws throughout the South similar to what we see the Family Values people doing today. Say what you will but the Family Values folks are an updated version of the KKK. What these people do not realize is that it is a human right to marry and love whom we wish and reproductive rights have nothing to do with it. There are many heterosexual couples who get marry and never have kids.
This country was formed under very liberal values of the day and I might even say radical ideas like Tom Paine's "Common Sense." It is un-American to be conservative – or at least in the sense that the American Family values people want to use the word, which is to restrict freedoms.
William Rowland
Greenville, SC
