Religious Beliefs

The Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State generated a public outcry for stronger laws against child abuse and neglect. Several bills have been introduced that purportedly provide a "complete overhaul" of Pennsylvania's child-protection laws. For example, Senate Bill 20 makes it clear that any adult who "causes serious bodily injury," either by "kicking, biting, stabbing, cutting, or throwing a child," or "forcefully shakes or slaps a child under one year of age," or "causes serious physical neglect," or "causes a child to be near a methamphetamine lab," or "operates a vehicle in which a child is a passenger while driving under the influence of alcohol," has committed child abuse.

I am continually appalled and dismayed at President Reagan's persistent use of his office as a means to change the very character of the United States and what it should and does represent to all who are citizens. The recent message he sent to the Southern Baptist Convention asking delegates to use their religious influence to bring back prayer in the public school and abolish abortion is just one more example of his effort to Christianize this country and make it intolerant of those who do not agree with his religious beliefs.

I don't often agree with Michael Smerconish. I agree with him that the intervention of politicians to enforce their religious beliefs in the Schiavo case is inappropriate and religiously bigoted. I am proud our court system has refused to intervene, and only wish that Smerconish had acknowledged that courts occasionally make decent decisions. I also wish he connected the dots between the conservative foundations, the Republican inquisition against those with religious differences, and the zealots who shoot doctors, and intimidate clinic patients.

WHY IS IT that people don't eat meat during Lent? Is this such a sacrifice? Jesus gave up his life and died on a cross, yet people who follow a religious tradition feel they are being challenged by not eating roast beef? But they can eat fish, which I consider a treat! What makes not eating red meat but eating a lobster a sacrifice? A real sacrifice would be to show some true faith by dedicating your religious beliefs not only on the holidays, but throughout the entire year.

RE BRYAN M. Kilpatrick's response to Michael Ginsberg's March 12 letter on the Bible and homosexuality: It's my take that Ginsberg's use of the Old Testament examples were to refute another earlier letter-writer's comments. Therefore, Mr. Kilpatrick needs to take the earlier writers comments into account before criticizing Ginsberg's. As for the comment about people using the Bible to fit their own agenda: I agree. But it goes both ways. So-called devout Christians use the Bible's words to judge and persecute others.

The effort of James J. Kilpatrick to equate secular humanism (Op-ed Page, Feb. 16) with religion must be resisted. Secular humanism and religion represent totally different ways of thinking. They are not simply competing religious beliefs to be discussed on an equal footing. Religions contain several elements of thought absent from secular humanism: the belief that truth is obtained through faith, the use of ritual to channel experience and belief and, most important, a belief in supernatural entities: gods, devils, heavens, hells, life after death and resurrection.

There is something the militant anti-abortion activists don't seem to understand. What they are now doing to women seeking abortions - blocking entry to clinics and generally making themselves obnoxious - is a two-way street. If they succeed in infringing the rights of fellow Americans, they too have rights that can, and almost certainly will, be attacked in response. Freedom of religion depends entirely on maintaining a strict separation between abstract religious beliefs, which are a matter of faith, and the social and human needs of a pluralistic society.

A federal judge yesterday enjoined the School District of Philadelphia from enforcing an 1895 state law that prohibits teachers from wearing "any dress, mark, emblem or insignia" indicating that they are a member or adherent of a religious sect or denomination. U.S. District Judge James McGirr Kelly in effect overturned Section 11-1112 of the Pennsylvania school code, which the judge ruled "is contrary to and in conflict with" Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act permits a "reasonable accommodation" to a person's religious beliefs.

It is too easy to flail away at City Council President John Street for his intransigence in bottling up three pieces of legislation that would equalize benefits for city employees who are in same-sex couples. Especially because the bills are supported by a majority of Council members, the same men and women who elected him president. No flailing here and no demonizing of Mr. Street, which others have seen fit to do. Rather, it should be understood that the moral dilemma facing the Council head is real, a matter of strongly held religious beliefs that need to be respected.

William R. Palmer Jr., charged with bilking $1.4 million from mostly elderly and sick people in Philadelphia, Bucks County and New Jersey, pleaded not guilty at an arraignment yesterday in federal court in Philadelphia. Magistrate Judge Carol Sandra Moore Wells set bail at $50,000, which was promptly posted by a woman accompanying Palmer whom Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary E. Crawley identified as Palmer's fiancee, Gloria Field. Field filed with the Court Clerk's Office a copy of the deed to her house and land in Washington Crossing - the same address Palmer gave as his home - in the 1200 block of Taylorsville Road.

COUNCILMAN Jim Kenney wrote a letter to Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy demeaning and insulting his religious beliefs. I hope he also wrote the same letter to every Muslim business owner in the city who has the same religious opposition to gays as Cathy does. Better yet, stay out of people's religious beliefs. You said it yourself in your letter, "As an American you are legally entitled to your opinion. " I believe your opinion to be insensitive and intolerant of Cathy's religious beliefs.

NEW YORK - Roman Catholic dioceses, schools, and other groups sued the Obama administration Monday in eight states and the District of Columbia over a federal mandate that most employers provide workers free birth control as part of their health insurance. The federal lawsuits represent the largest push against the mandate since President Obama announced the policy in January. Among those suing are the Pennsylvania Dioceses of Pittsburgh and Erie, the University of Notre Dame, and the Catholic University of America.

By Scot Lehigh Although Rick Santorum says he's not running for pastor-in-chief, the Republican primary campaign has revealed a candidate too governed by faith to lead a diverse country. That's not because the former Pennsylvania senator is Catholic. Rather, it's because his ultraconservative religious beliefs so inform his life, his values, and his worldview that he would not be able to separate that perspective from public-policy questions, or to decide an issue on the facts rather than faith, even if he wanted to. Not that he does want to, of course.

A Muslim man who once was employed at the Whole Foods Callowhill store claims he was heckled by supervisors for praying in a storage area and fired from the supermarket for his religious beliefs. The allegations are especially troubling because Whole Foods had a Ramadan promotion featuring its halal foods this year, said Amara Chaudhry, Philadelphia civil-rights director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is representing the dismissed employee. "We believe that Whole Foods was discriminating against an employee on the basis of religion and it seems to contradict their prior efforts to court the Muslim community," Chaudhry said.

A former adjunct professor of religion at Chestnut Hill College who was dismissed from his post because he is gay announced this afternoon that a settlement has been reached between himself and the Catholic-based institution. Father James St. George, 45, said in a statement issued by his publicist that he had reached "an amicable resolution with Chestnut Hill College that will end this controversy. " The resolution reached over the weekend was "consistent with the religious beliefs of each party," the statement said.

Elizabeth Berry Woodrow and Douglas Scott McLaughlin were married last weekend at First Presbyterian Church in West Chester. William D. Hess II presided over a simple yet elegant service with a historic backdrop. The church design was the first commission of Thomas U. Walter, America's preeminent Greek Revival architect, who later would design the dome of the Capitol in Washington. A piper named Tom Jolly played "Highland Cathedral" as the bride, looking regal, entered the church. Her marriage was a particularly poignant moment for family and friends aware of her successful battle with leukemia several years ago. No wonder the father of the bride, Gordon R. Woodrow Jr., got choked up during his wedding toast as he explained that he and his wife, Betsy, had once wondered whether such a day would ever be possible.

When playwright Michael Whistler arrived for a session with Wyndmoor family therapist Abby Ruder earlier this year, it was hardly your typical hour - more like four. And Whistler didn't even have personal issues that needed a going-over. What he had was the script for Little Lamb, now in previews and opening Wednesday in its InterAct Theatre Company world premiere. It tackles, in a blend of issues of the sort that has become an InterAct hallmark, multiple themes: adoption, in this case gay adoption; building transracial families; and bigotry based on stereotypes in Latino, African American, gay, and religious communities.

PRESIDENT-elect Obama has said he intends to be president of all the people. I have a great deal of hope and trust that he is the honorable man I perceived him to be. I also realize that, at this time, no one could have been elected if they had taken a stand for gay marriage. But how can the first African-American president-elect not recognize that his position against gay marriage is segregation, pure and simple? Doesn't Brown vs. Board of Education inform him that separate is never equal?