Letters
Heaven defines love
Editor:
Sherry Hartel’s column on the importance of spirituality in
relationships ("Marriage: match made in heaven?," Feb. 23) touches
upon many vital points, but neglects others.
I think Hartel hits the mark when she says that religious values
are an important consideration in choosing with whom to have a
committed relationship.
However, Hartel ends the column in a confusing way. She claims
that her relationship with her atheist boyfriend is "heavenly;" yet
she says that it is not "ideal" since they do not connect on a
spiritual level. Hartel also mentions that it was after a
frustrating two-hour phone call that she resolved her conflict. It
rather sounds like she swept the problems under the carpet when she
explains that "it is not up to me to question."
I agree with Hartel’s belief that religion is about "love, peace
and happiness on earth," but it is also about love, peace and
happiness in the afterlife. Religion, moreover, is also about
justice and truth, qualities which Hartel seems willing to
compromise in order to maintain her "heavenly" relationship.
As a fellow Christian, I would remind Hartel that God is not
only love (1 John 4:8), but also truth (John 14:6). To separate the
divine attributes is to see God as a collection of qualities,
rather than as a person.
Lastly, I agree with Hartel’s final comment that to "put an
otherwise heavenly relationship in jeopardy would be the biggest
mistake of (her) life." I just differ with her on which is the
truly "heavenly" relationship.
Anthony Garcias
Fourth-year
Latin and philosophy
Abortion insert slanted
Editor:
My first response was to merely shake my head in disgust. Then I
opened it, and I shuddered. And now having read it, I’m writing a
response to the propaganda that the Daily Bruin published in a
blatant act of prostitution.
In fact, I have more respect for women and men that sell
themselves for money than for a publication that should assume some
kind of responsibility for the integrity of the news that it
produces, and instead chooses to cater to a select few in favor of
the money that it is fed.
The pro-life magazine that was inserted so strategically inside
the fold does not keep the responsibility away from the newspaper.
The decision to include this pro-life stance in The Bruin was made,
and having been made, should have been included within the paper.
The not-so-subtle disclaimer which only appeared outside the main
body of The Bruin is as cowardly as the appearance of the
anti-abortion insert itself.
This advertisement insert was invasive and untrue. The
information that it contains is slanted in favor of the author’s
and editor’s beliefs. The information that it withholds piles the
claim of irresponsible journalism on the shoulders of The Bruin.
Why are all of the women pictured in favor of adoption white? Could
it possibly be because the beds of orphanages and state agencies
are overrun with minority babies who cannot be adopted by the white
families that so "need" a child?
Women of color have a great number of abortions, and yet they
are the ones that these same people point to as straining our
economy with a great number of babies. How can they have it both
ways? Should only socially acceptable minorities be allowed to keep
their babies and give them up for adoption because theirs are the
only babies that will be adopted?
What of the fact that every mention of a child within the
pamphlet was of a female child? Don’t boys get aborted? Do the
producers of that insert think that it’s acceptable to abort male
babies but not female babies? Or is this just another strategy of
yellow journalism that slants itself in an attempt to manipulate
readers?
The Bruin must be the voice of the students; if it can’t be that
it should cease to exist.
The ground cover that this pamphlet became as it was thrown from
The Bruin and littered across nearly every open space on campus
shows the sentiment of students. We don’t want to be submitted to
this close-minded dribble. If someone wants to show an argument for
both sides and tell me why adoption and birth is definitively
better than abortion, then I will be proud to listen.
There was absolutely no mention of why abortion was legalized to
begin with. Many women laying in pools of their own blood with
rusty hangers springing from their birth canals is what I think of
when I think of "pro-life."
When our society has become ideal and no stigma is placed on
young girls that carry their babies to full term; when drug addicts
stop having drug babies that will always carry the sins of their
parents; when rape has stopped, then we can make abortion illegal
again, but by then, we won’t have to.
T. Nicole Caldwell
Fourth-year
English
Misconceiving Zionism
Editor:
Thanks to the Daily Bruin for the first article in a series on
modern Israel. I would, however, like to set the record straight on
a few issues ("The unity of the old and the new," Jan. 26).
First, many Zionists were (and are) secular. Indeed, Theodore
Herzl, the founder of modern, political Zionism, had little
religious training; his secular upbringing was a major obstacle to
earning the support of the messianic religious masses.
Similarly, many of the strongest voices in the early Zionist
movement were motivated by secular thinking, specifically, Western
notions of the nation-state. Most of their funding came from
assimilated, capitalist Jews and socialist intellectuals. The
religious masses of the East were far too poverty-stricken, and far
too concerned with day-to-day survival, to be of much immediate use
to the Zionist cause.
Indeed, if any religious body is ultimately responsible for the
Zionist movement, it is Christianity, for it was (and is) in the
name of Christianity that so many atrocities have been committed
against the Jews. This persecution, of course, culminated in the
German genocidal war against the Jews some half-century ago.
Zionism also says little about who has the ultimate right to the
disputed land. To his great detriment, Herzl all but ignored the
native Arab population of Palestine. Ahad Ha’am, however, the
father of so-called "spiritual Zionism," strongly cautioned against
disrupting the lives of the native population.
While running the risk of being misinterpreted as a defender of
Israel’s racial policies, I note that most governments practice a
racism far more severe than Israel’s. For example: Japan, China,
Iraq, Mexico and Russia. The United Nations has never considered
(let alone passed) declarations of the form "Japanism, Sinism,
Iraqism … is racism."
The fact that the United Nations has since rescinded its
"Zionism is racism" resolution, then, is as meaningless as the
resolution itself.
Daniel Silverman
Department of surgery
Loving one’s fetus
Editor:
The universal law is to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. But
America is suffering for its failures to heed this law.
Legal abortion has ruptured the ties that bind us, delivering
the message that human lives have value only when wanted by those
more powerful. This has deepened the alienation, anger, rebellion
and hopelessness that feed crime and other social ills.
"Every child a wanted child" has made every child a conditional
child to immature parents, contributing greatly to postnatal child
abuse (contrary to popular myth, abused children were wanted – for
the wrong reasons – more often than those not abused).
Abortion’s easy availability has exposed women and young girls
to increased sexual exploitation and subsequent coercion to use
this deadly cover-up. It has been disastrous to the physical,
emotional and spiritual health of women. A more powerful vehicle
for the abuse, subjugation and suffering of women could hardly be
imagined.
Human history is littered with failed attempts to mistreat
others without consequences. How much must it cost us before we
concede that the universal law is as real and immutable as the laws
of physics?
Alfred Lemmo
Dearborn, Mich.
The Middle East
Comments to [email protected]