To the editor:

I am saddened to see that the rhetoric of the pro-tobacco folks in this community has reached a new level of heinousness. David Claassen-Wilson’s letter (“Jim Crow returns?”, June 20) does, however, illustrate one valuable point: With a large enough vocabulary and a healthy dose of self-righteous bluster, even the most untenable of hypotheses can be presented in a manner that almost seems believable.

The fundamental flaw in his presentation is that Jim Crow laws separated individuals by the color of their skin or their ethnic heritage, and not by a learned behavior that is the choice of the person exercising it. The new smoking ordinance does not aspire “to prevent consenting adults from voluntarily associating together,” as is claimed by Claassen-Wilson. I have dined with smokers who have chosen not to smoke during dinner on many occasions and hope to do so again in the future.

However, the “logic” Claassen-Wilson applies in his treatise appears to illustrate an idea which is infinitely more chilling than anything described in his letter. To equate a person’s behavior and addictions with fundamental aspects of their being such as skin color or ethnicity is a stretch I would hope that few of us would be willing to make. If we are no longer people of choice, but merely smokers and nonsmokers, users and nonusers, etc., then civilization, as we know, it has declined further than any of us would care to admit.

Darrell Lea,

Lawrence