Letters to the Editor
Mishima666
Published Letters: 128 Editor's Choice: 29
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Poisoning the well
[Read the article: Huckabee, Romney, Jesus and the devil]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]More and more, this pandering to the religious right only serves to poison the public political discourse, turning what should be serious discussions into weird excursions into religious fantasy.
So these Republican candidates feel compelled to talk about their relationships with "the Lord Jesus Christ," who is the "Son of God," and whether they are "right with the Lord," and whether some art display is offensive to worshipers of the virgin Mary.
Not to be outdone, the Democrats have to state that they also are "persons of faith," whatever that means. (Apparently the content of faith doesn't matter, just as long as you have "faith." No matter how goofy your beliefs, the important thing is faith, and regardless how rational your beliefs, not having faith would be a terrible thing, although no one ever explains why that is.)
Having thus split the country into those who have faith and those who don't, the candidates then claim that they want to "unite, not divide."
Meanwhile, those of us who don't wake up at night fretting over whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only or from the Father and the Son marvel at this display of public religious masturbation. And this, in a country with a Constitution that prohibits religious tests for public office.
Religious tests, having been rebuffed at the front door, now are welcomed in through the back door, and the public political discourse begins to resemble discussions at the council of Nicea more than what we would expect would accompany the election of a president.
What must the rest of the world think of us?
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Time for professional counseling
[Read the article: After my husband died of cancer I found he'd been cheating]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The death of a spouse is itself a trauma. The adultery of a spouse is a trauma. The death of an adulterous spouse engaged in a formerly secret affair is even greater than the sum of the two traumas because the widow cannot confront the dead spouse. And even worse than that, the widow should be able to feel the pure emotions of love and grief at the loss of the loved one, but she is denied even that. Her natural emotions of love and grief are now polluted by equally natural feelings of anger and betrayal.
Love and grief are not negative emotions, but positive, the way that in the natural order of things we work through the loss of a loved one. In a very real sense the deceased husband is not just an adulterer, but also a thief, having stolen from his wife the comfort of experiencing his death as something that is an unfortunate part of the natural order of life.
Death is a natural part of life. Adultery isn't. Cary's advice that the husband "wasn't perfect" is beside the point. Everyone is not perfect; not everyone stabs his spouse in the back.
This is one of those situations in which "words fail me." The only words that I can offer is that this will take a long time to work through, and the wife will need professional help navigating through that. A professional counselor will be of invaluable help.
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The Quiet Earth
[Read the article: "I Am Legend"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was surprised to see no mention of the 1985 New Zealand movie The Quiet Earth, about a scientist who gets out of bed one morning to discover that he's apparently the only person on earth. Very different movie, but an obvious comparison, yes?
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Not feminism but equality
[Read the article: Feminist hypocrisy on the hijab?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]At the end of the day you want to have a country where most of the people accept the same basic anthropology, in particular equality of the sexes, and equality of the races, even as they might differ on other issues. This is because those two principles are important elements that hold things together. And they are principles that we have achieved only through great suffering over several centuries and that have to be continually fought for even today.
I have no idea what personal reasons a woman might have for wearing a hijab or burka, and there are probably all sorts of reasons. Here in the U.S., whatever the reason, to many Americans such garments represent a fundamental inequality of the sexes. (For example, Muslims do not teach that the man should cover his head for the sake of modesty, or so that he can be judged by his intelligence and not by his looks.)
Certainly not everyone in the U.S. accepts the principles of equality of the sexes and races. But when people don't, should we simply give them a "pass" merely in virtue of the fact that those beliefs originate in some religious dogma? Would we give a "pass" to someone overtly racist merely because the racism followed from some sincere religious belief?
Equality of the sexes and of the races have to be of primary importance, and in that regard "diversity" and religious toleration are of secondary importance, and you don't sacrifice the primary for the sake of the secondary.