Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!yale!bunker!wtm
From: moth@dartmouth.edu (Tom Leathrum)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Church Flames
Message-ID: <9515@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jan 90 02:08:22 GMT
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Reply-To: moth@dartmouth.edu (Tom Leathrum)
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Index Number: 6183

era@era.scd.ucar.edu (Ed Arnold) writes:

 EA> Let me emphasize that I was NOT flaming Bill McGarry. [...]  My 
 EA> flamings were an expression of my own frustration with the posturings
 EA> of certain "religious" people about the causes of disability ... and the
 EA> fact that my temper has been rather short of late.

I understood that, and I'm sorry if my comments were so easy to
misinterpret.  Bill has to "put up with" the flames in the sense of
reading/gating/etc.  I just think you jumped on Bill for doing his
job, which doesn't seem fair.

 EA> Tom, please exercise
 EA> your comic ability to dispatch "JK" and his brethren in the way they
ought
 EA> to be dispatched.  (Unfortunately, I don't have that ability.)

Again, I'm afraid you may have missed my point -- "JK" and ilk
should not be "dispatched" at all, they should be informed, and
this *is* an appropriate forum for just such a discussion.  These
things take time, though -- the time between when my family moved
to South Carolina and were told that Roger couldn't enroll in the
normal Sunday school class, and the time he actually enrolled in it
was about six years.  I empathize with your short temper -- I gave
up on organized religion long ago, for a variety of reasons, among
them experiences such as this one with Roger after we moved.  In
the mean time, I have learned a valuable lesson from the patience
my parents showed in the face of blind ignorance.

I would like to hear from "JK" again to see if this discussion has had any
effect.

Regards,
Tom Leathrum
moth@dartmouth.edu