Gazette turns its back on religious freedom

Editor:

I write in regard to the Gazette editorial defending the Obama health-care policy. This policy now forces Catholic hospitals and schools to provide contraceptive and abortion benefits in employees' health insurance plans.

With this decree, thus ends the American tradition of respect for the spiritual conscience of citizens. Government edicts now replace individual decisions concerning the most personal moral aspects of our lives.

Religious freedom dies when the state usurps the moral code of your freely chosen faith. A person may choose to use contraception pills or have an abortion, but that person should not force fellow citizens to pay for it.

Catholics should not have their religious rights violated because they reach out to help sick people with nonprofit loving care. Soon every church will be controlled by government mandates.

Sadly, our Charleston Gazette abandons the free-press tradition of vigilantly guarding the constitutional right of religious freedom. The remaining rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights will not long endure. Rule of the state, for the state, by the state will quickly follow.

Father Patrick McDonough

St. Albans

Where can glass be recycled near Sutton?

Editor:

I would like to know where one can recycle glass jars. I used to take my plastics to Sutton, which is six miles from my home. Now they quit taking recyclables, so I will have to take things to Gassaway, which is about twice as far. No one close takes glass.

Bonnie M. Westfall

Sutton

Ringling Bros. Circus abuses elephants

Editor:

Ringling Bros. was fined $270,000 by the USDA on Nov. 23 for noncompliance with the Animal Welfare Act - the largest such fine ever!

Ringling's "training" tools are a terrifying combination of ropes, chains, bull hooks, electric shock prods, maternal deprivation and corporal punishment. Animals only "perform" because of punishment or threat of more punishment. They remember the pain inflicted upon them.

During "training," baby elephants are bound by ropes and wrestled by several adult men into confusing and physically difficult positions, they scream, cry and struggle as they are stretched out, slammed to the ground, gorged with bull hooks and shocked with electric prods.

Twenty-nine elephants have died at the hand of Ringling since 1992.

The average lifespan of an elephant in the wild is 70 years or more; in captivity, it's 17 to 20 years.

Ringling is raising endangered Asian elephants in socially deprived and cruel conditions that cause them to become dysfunctional, unhealthy, depressed and aggressive; this is contrary to everything known about elephant biology.

In the wild, elephants nurse their babies until 5 years of age, and the babies are raised in a nurturing environment where they are protected, comforted, taught to cope with life and reassured, but never punished. Daughters stay with their mothers for life and sons until 10 to 15 years of age.

Baby elephants are taken from their mothers at an early age by the circus trainers and forced to be tied down on concrete floors in a barn for up to 23 hours a day - to "break" them. Even dogs aren't allowed to be treated like this.

Elephants are famed for their intelligence, their memory, sensitivity and complex family structures, but at Ringling they are beaten, whipped and their spirits are broken.

Numerous lame elephants currently touring with Ringling are being forced to perform despite their painful ailments.

Many countries, localities and cities have banned animal acts. More information about cruelty to circus animals is available from PETA and PAWS (Performing Arts Welfare Society) websites.

Priscilla Pope

Charleston

Read the story, not just the headline

Editor:

Many people form opinions by reading only the headlines, which often are crafted to be sensational, not from details of the story where understanding can be found.

This type of "reading" lowers our collective intelligence. They remain uninformed about the story's true meaning. Then they vote.

Rodney Waugh

Cross Lanes