The letters to the editor page in this week’s eye in response to last week’s editorial (which I wrote about here) are pretty good. My favourites:
Whatever possessed eye’s editorial board to vomit such venom against
the Catholic Church? (“This is not a democracy,” Editorial, Apr. 28.) Is it
now open season on Catholics, or is this the first in a series denigrating the
world’s major religions?
So eye
does not believe in transubstantiation and the assumption of Mary. So
what? What happened to good old-fashioned manners, whereby we respect
the religious beliefs of others rather than pour scorn on them?
You
then ridicule the Church’s position on human sexuality — in
particular, birth control and condoms. While not defending the Church
on this, I think eye is hardly the credible critic. What is eye’s
contribution to enlightened human sexuality? Take a voyeuristic peep at
your nine pages of so-called adult-only graphic and in-colour girlie
classified ads aiding and abetting prostitution and the degrading of
women as sex objects for sale.
Please spare us any more of your bad manners, chutzpah, irony and hypocrisy!
— G. Lee
In your editorial regarding Catholicism, you left out a fourth option: dissent, stay Catholic and fight for change.
— Christina M. Babcock
In
the end, I suspect — having been on the editorial board of a student
paper myself (and really, eye is a student paper writ large and backed
by Torstar) — that the eye editorial board will simply let out a
collective self-satisfied huff and go about their merry way, as will
some of those who write in either to support to decry their position.
Based on the comments to my entry on the matter, the intent of the editorial purported by this entry in the eye blog and my eternal
optimism, I hope that it at least got some people thinking about the
role religion plays in some people’s lives.
I’ll leave you with the words of the Dalai Lama from his April 25th, 2004 presentation (I attended, and my notes are here) at SkyDome — er, make that Rogers Centre — here in Accordion City. He talked about his take on the meaning of the word secular:
Not rejection of religion, but respect all religion and respect non-believer.
Peace out, y’all.
2 replies on “Follow-up on "A Poke at ‘eye’ With a Sharp Stick"”
We should indeed respect the religious beliefs of others. However, that consideration should not place religions and churches above criticism. Religions have a lot to answer for, and we must be free to criticize them as we would a corporation or a government.
My attitude to organized religion increasingly tends to resemble the policy of some Canadian cities toward smoking — it’s still legal, but keep it out of public places and don’t impose yours on anyone else.
By the way, do you suppose that the above poster is none other than Geddy Lee of Rush? Now that would be cool!
He’s a man who holds high places, so it’s only fitting that he be the one to start.