Dear Governor Schwarzenegger –
Samantha Smith was a ten-year-old girl in 1982 when she wrote to Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov about the growing arms race between the countries.
Dear Mr. Andropov,
Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. …I would like to know why you want to conquer the world or at least our country. God made the world for us to live together in peace and not to fight.
Sincerely,
Samantha Smith
Mr. Andropov wrote back to say
We want nothing of the kind. No one in our country—neither workers, peasants, writers nor doctors, neither grown-ups nor children, nor members of the government—want either a big or “little” war.
and went on to invite Samantha and her family to come and visit, noting as anybody who has visited Moscow any other time, that “summer is best.”
As a gay dad, I feel like the Opponents of Equality have declared war on me and my family through a petition initiative to take away my legal and social status with a Constitutional amendment. It doesn’t help that the Republican Party Platform calls for my extermination too, saying that “We oppose same-sex partner benefits, child custody, and adoption.”
Mr. Schwarzenegger, I would like to know why you and your administration want to destroy same-sex couples, or at least my family. God made the world for us to live together in peace and not to fight.
Yours,