Our upcoming election is shaping up as a state and national referendum on several important social and scientific issues. On each issue, the dividing lines are clear:

(1) Do you want Social Security and Medicare to be "eliminated as we now know them" and be replaced with an insurance voucher system, or do you want them guaranteed as they now exist, ensuring that the elderly have a safety net and that no one goes bankrupt due to illness? (2) Who owns a woman's body? Is it Congress who would pass legislation defining what women can and cannot do with their bodies, or do women own themselves? (3) Does job growth come from cutting taxes for the wealthy, or do jobs come from product demand created by a fairly paid middle class having money to spend? (4) Should energy independence be based on government subsidies for extracting more coal and oil, or should it occur by supporting all sources of energy production including wind and solar? (5) Is climate-change a hoax and are 98 percent of the world's scientists mistaken, or is global warming a fact, accelerated by man's burning fossil fuels? Are many countries of Europe, the Maldives, and many U.S. coastal cities, such as Boston, misguided in taking steps to mitigate the effects of rising seas?

These are a few of the prominent issues dividing our political parties. Choose wisely as your vote will affect you and your children's children.

Ronald Kleinknecht

Bellingham