Partisan approach
Last week’s editorial, “Faith and Compromise,” was quite troubling.
First, it is quite remarkable that you criticize Catholic leaders for being unreasonable when they have, at a minimum, a reasonable position, if not a strong constitutional case. Do you think it in our community’s interest to criticize Catholic leaders on an issue so important to them that they intend to fight this all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds? And if the Supreme Court decides in their favor, would you still maintain they were unreasonable? And how would you react if Catholic leaders agreed to a given compromise but rabbis did not, and then read in Catholic newspapers that rabbis were behaving unreasonably when those rabbis were acting out of deep religious conviction?
Second, the policy of the Jewish News is to be nonpartisan. By siding with the Obama administration on this issue and against the Catholic leadership, you have undermined the stated policy of the Jewish News and made our community paper into an organ of partisan politics.
Third, in accord with your partisan approach, you fail to mention that the Obama “compromise” had as one of its components private insurance companies providing certain services for free. Do you really believe that private companies provide things “for free?”
Fourth, your analogy is faulty. The “compromise” the rabbis worked out was not a “compromise.” They got what they wanted. They in no way “enable” a practice which they are in disagreement with. Not so the Catholic leaders. The “compromise” offered to them still had them act as enablers of a practice they disagreed with. So this is apples and oranges.
Martin Gross
Livingston
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