To the editor:

I would like to answer the questions raised by David Omar’s Aug. 30 Public Forum comments on “Discrimination:” “Why is it that our nature compels us to condemn that which we don’t understand or don’t want to embrace? Have we lost that ability to accept or did we ever have it?”

If we look at the evolutionary tree from which we descend, we see our ancestors flourished in a hostile environment by following their survival instincts and the ancient admonition: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Those that did not heed are history.

The admonition made perfect sense 400 years ago. The Jamestown settlement had a population of about 1,000 Christian souls and a westward population estimated at about one million in what would become the United States. Today, the United States has a population of about 300 million with some of our once-fertile Plains worn out or washed away. Our survival instincts and our “American dreams” are in need of a healthy transfusion of common sense based on the reality of our present condition.