Letters to the Editor
firefly82
Published Letters: 288 Editor's Choice: 30
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Real progress
[Read the article: Afghanistan's next top model]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Parson Jim writes, "I would think Ms. Clark-Flory would side with the muslim clerics who disapprove."
But can't we disapprove in a way that doesn't side with the clerics? Isn't there room for enlightenment that sides with neither "Women's bodies are shameful, it's wicked and violence-provoking for men to see them, and these girls ought to be punished," OR "Woo-hoo! Superficial and implausible standards of beauty for women everywhere!"
This is a step somewhere for Afghan women, but I don't think it's forward, necessarily.
1. It's trading one manifestation of objectification and denial of women's whole selves for another.
2. It sides with the clerics. It says that modeling, exposing one's body for approval and profit, is what "progress" is about. That the opposite of forcibly keeping women covered and controlled really is the worst of what heathen America has to offer by way of gender roles and women's place in the working world.
I'll never deny anyone's right to use her talent as she sees fit, but I'm afraid for everyone involved, and I seriously wonder that they couldn't come up with something more constructive and enlightening for everyone.
(And I'm not and will never say that modelling is inherently bad bad bad--obviously we need people to show us how clothes look on real bodies--only that the way it's been turned into a competitive sport in superficiality in the first world is disgusting.)
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because no Catholic women use birth control ... right?
[Read the article: Catholic Charities' birth control battle]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's a highly doubtful proposition.
Even if--IF--no Catholic women were using contraceptives for the purpose of contraception...we all know by now that all kinds of women get prescribed "birth control" for all kinds of things, like acne, PMS symptoms, and regularity problems. I wonder if it was argued in any aspect of the case whether the employer buying the health plan has any right to dictate that a drug may be used by an employee for one purpose but not another.
And what about other drugs that may cause birth defects and therefore require a patient to use birth control? To be consistent, wouldn't CC have to argue that it would be in violation of its philosophy to cover those drugs, too?
I'd hate to see an employer health plan simply not cover prescription drugs to get out of covering birth control, but I think the state made the right decision that if one covers drugs, one has to do so even-handedly and can't then cherrypick which treatments are morally acceptable or not.
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Religious rights of people vs. organizations
[Read the article: Catholic Charities' birth control battle]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Julianus writes "Under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, the government should not have the right to force people of any persuasion to violate their religious or other moral beliefs."
And I agree with him wholeheartedly (except for when those religious beliefs cause violence or harm to come to others). But that's not what NY state is doing. It's saying that an organization, no matter its genesis, that employs Catholics and non-Catholics alike and provides secular social services--under contract to the government no less--to Catholics and non-Catholics alike, can't offer a religiously restrictive prescription drug plan.
No one has taken away CC's right to do that, or compelled it to pay for birth control, or forced any given Catholic to violate his or her own moral beliefs. As already explained by other posters, there are ways that CC could not pay for birth control, like self-insuring or not contracting services to the government.
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I'm sure the beetles are very sorry for having offended Brightstar
[Read the article: Roundup: Ladies, meet the Shenis]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In my college marine biology class, they showed us a video one day of the creature with, proportionally to its body length, the biggest penis of the animal kingdom. It was a little bivalved shellfish, maybe an inch long. It unrolled its penis from inside its little shell, and it just kept going and going and going...and going...evidently it unrolls its penis to search out females. It was something like 20 times the length of the rest of the thing's body.
Was showing us this video a ploy to brainwash young, attractive women into thinking they deserve a man with a 120-foot long penis? Or to make human men feel inferior or sorry for themselves for not having one?
How about living your life in such a way that you can't be emotionally threatened by an insect or what anybody says about it?
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@ jlw509
[Read the article: Catholic Charities' birth control battle]
[Read more letters about this article: Here](1) No. And this is not an issue of accepted medical practice.
It's rare that I'd admit liking for the insurance industry for anything...but I think the chances of an insurer paying for early sex detection/abortion for any reason other than avoiding the birth of a child with a life-threatening sex-linked disorder to be pretty slim-to-nonexistent.
Anyone out there in the insurance industry with insight into this?
(2) No.
But thankfully we live in a country where mutilating a child is simply called child abuse. And where hospitals have ethics boards.
And anyway, this example is not one of accepted medical practice, either.
(3) No. See #1.
Birth control, on the other hand, IS an accepted treatment for medical conditions other than preventing pregnancy. And is often required just to get medically necessary treatment for other conditions. And doesn't, by design, cause harm or violence to come to anyone else, born or unborn.
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Benefits
[Read the article: My Christian daughter says I'm going to hell]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The benefit that she'll receive from you going to church with her is not a decrease in her fear, but knowledge of what it means to have mutual respect and openness to each other's beliefs. Demonstrate that you can give that to her, and expect it back from her.
And I like the thought of taking her to a different faith's service every week. Fear is not a stable basis of faith, and to truly stop being afraid, she needs to see that there are wonderful possibilities other than fear on which to build a strong and nurturing belief system.