Now is a new beginning in the social and political life in America. We have a new president with new views about to bring change and a Supreme Court that will decide issues that will determine how we Americans then shall live.

On Jan. 21, the day after Barack Obama's inauguration, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a decade old anti-pornography law that shielded children from sexually explicit material on the Web. Bush administration attorneys had appealed to the Supreme Court and lost.

This was the only political institution left where Americans could turn. The judges who so ruled said, "Parents can protect their children on their own by installing software filters ..." But administration attorneys argued less than half the parents do it. Patrick Trueman, the Justice Department's head anti-pornography attorney said, "I don't think Congress will try again to protect children from pornography".

This sad and deplorable indictment against America may surely bring regretful consequences of great proportions. Trueman also stated, "At least two generations of children getting hardcore pornography on the Internet, and the Supreme Court looks the other way." There are laws prohibiting adults from buying it, but no prohibition of a child being given it by an adult.

What has pornography been doing to our nation's youth? Study after study has confirmed that countless rapes, other sexual crimes, countless addictions and untold twisted minds are caused by pornography. One has to ask, "What kind of parent will a person who is addicted to hardcore pornography, make?" What woman wants to marry a man addicted to pornography? A woman should not be denied the dignity due her by being treated in the manner women are portrayed in hardcore porn. Huge numbers of children addicted to pornography are already entering adulthood. What are we doing to ourselves by allowing this?

Our new president, Barack Obama, is being showered with adulation, praise and admiration. He is an excellent communicator, good looking and is a man with whom one would enjoy conversation. In spite of Obama's communication skills, it appears that he also is not concerned about moral issues that profoundly affect a nation.

A voted-for-Bush man stated that he was looking forward to the inauguration, adding that "I like what I see - so far."

It appears that "so far" has come to an end, because in the same week Obama took office, he reinstated international abortion-funding. Bush had banned international abortion-funding to groups performing abortions or those who provide abortion information. Beyond that there is an avalanche of measures about to cascade upon social life in the United States, ready for Obama's signature. Whoever believes lawmakers have no duty to make moral laws is deceived.

How we Americans then shall live is not only determined by what we do personally, but also by the laws and executive orders our leaders make. How can we say, "God Bless America" on the one hand and with the other, make provision for things that are so offensive to Him?

Jim Langdon, Gilroy

Taking away mental health funds a very harmful idea

Dear Editor,

In 2004, Californians voted to reverse decades of severe underfunding of the state's public mental health system when they overwhelmingly supported Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act.

Under this landmark initiative, California has been successful in reaching thousands more people in need here in Santa Clara County and expanding community care that helps keep people out of more costly hospitals, homeless shelters and criminal justice institutions.

By diverting MHSA funds, Gov. Schwarzenegger's recent budget proposal risks turning people in need away from community services and put them back in costly institutions or out on the streets. His misguided plan to eliminate critical provisions of Prop. 63 could permanently lock California into the sorely inadequate mental health financing system that existed before the MHSA was enacted.

In Santa Clara County, the governor's proposal would mean mental health services for children and adults would go by the wayside, costly emergency hospital stays would seriously increase and our jails, also exorbitant costs, would fill up with people who need help not incarceration. The legislature must immediately reject these harmful proposals.

Mary Kaye Gerski, executive director, Rebekah Children's Services, Gilroy

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