While couching his platitudes about reproductive responsibility in an encomium to Mark Steyn, Hayes Gahagan may have lulled readers into thinking he was being a reasonable political moderate. However, buried in his OpEd piece, “Reproduction and responsibility vital to U.S.” (BDN, Sept. 11), is his major point: We need to breed more white Americans to make sure America does not become like Europe where Arab, Muslim, African, and Asian people are threatening the white gene pool.

Steyn’s book, “America Alone,” is on the best-seller list because some think his political incorrectness is funny. He is not a “culturist,” as he claims. He is a racist. He refers to members of the human race as “Japs, Gooks, Wogs, Prophet-monkeys, and Chinks.” Apparently, he and Gahagan are both ignorant of the fact that Arabs invented basic arithmetic, algebra and trigonometry and that Egyptians invented writing long before our European ancestors did.

If Gahagan’s views speak for all Maine Republicans, then we are all the poorer. In Gahagan’s view, a “nanny government” must be one that practices tolerance of people as individuals, supports religious freedom, and prosecutes hate crimes. It sounds like the Bill of Rights to me.

Pro-life in my book is pro-everyone: women, children, and all human beings. “Pro-lifers” cannot be just pro-baby; they must oppose the death penalty, all war, oppression, and intolerance and injustice here and around the world.

Mac Herrling

Orland