Featured Letter: Preserve our (flawed) history

To the editor:

Hooray for Leslie Weisman, chair of the Southold Town Board of Zoning, for attempting to protect our historic churches. I never drive by the Methodist church in Cutchogue without reflecting on its exquisite proportions. I feel equally passionate over the town’s other houses of worship, especially the Presbyterian churches in Southold and Mattituck; big, bold Ostrabrama; Our Lady of Good Counsel, which looks more like an Anglican church in the Cotswolds than anything Roman Catholic. And what about poor dilapidated Sacred Heart in Cutchogue? Can we please save that gem of a wood pile, too, which I affectionately refer to as Our Lady of Carmel (California)?

As for getting to know Jack McGreevy better — great, but he’s still an ideologue who uses religion to justify his bigotry. Let’s be honest, the early churches of Southold were once filled with intolerant and self-righteous Puritans, while those sympathetic to slavery also prayed together some 200 years later. The architectural glory of our churches is a legacy of a spiritual quest that transcends small-minded thinking. On the other hand, people like Mr. McGreevy are the reason I stopped attending church 50 years ago. I feel like I’ve known him all my life.

William Sertl, Cutchogue