CDA: The real world awaits

I moved away from Coeur d’Alene weeks ago and I’m not sure where I landed. There are black people everywhere. Mixed race families shining like the sun. Every conceivable type of race, ethnicity, feature, tattoo and piercing I can imagine. This America really does exist.

Not to be an alarmist, but the real reason I’m writing this letter is to spread the news that there are a lot of gay people out there. I know it may come as a shock to those bigoted, narrow-minded people who have written letters to the editor recently. I’m not sure this can be stamped out.

I thought I would never write another letter but it pains me greatly to have bigotry once again associated with a town I love. I cringe thinking about any outsider scrolling down the letters like I do. Does a place as nice as Coeur d’Alene need to continually fight a perception problem? Send the crazies to spend a day in Portland. They may realize they’re members of a pretty special congregation, a human one.

JIM SPURR

Cannon Beach, Ore.