Kudos to Freewalt family for sharing crucial story on mental health care
The Tuesday Dispatch included the article “Governor’s plan provides mental health help for kids” on moves being made toward ensuring mental health care for all young people in need.
This is an important issue. What really impressed me about this article is the courageous contribution by Jerry Freewalt and his family in sharing their personal experience in this realm. The idea of a family, already facing heartbreaking difficulties, having to consider relinquishing their child in order to qualify for needed care, is appalling.
Mental health is an issue that touches all of us at varying levels. My teenage daughter and I were fortunate to be able to acquire the help we needed during disruption in our family caused by divorce, only because of our need was relatively short-term and covered by our insurance. I didn’t realize what we might have faced had we need more care.
By bringing what often times is treated as a taboo subject out into the open and sharing their experience, the Freewalt family brought information to us all and comfort to families in knowing they are not alone during a very difficult time.
Camille Humphrey, Groveport
Columnist off-base; study shows conservative churches are growing
While I had intended to write a response to columnist Leonard Pitts’ recent opinion, “Small wonder the church is shrinking,” I thought I would wait to see if someone else might counter his explanation for the shrinking number of Americans who claim a formal relationship with organized religion. Wednesday’s letter to the editor in which the writer commends Pitts has prompted me to write as well.
As Pitts correctly cites, according to Gallup “(f)or the first time since Gallup began tracking religious membership back in 1937, (church membership) has dropped below half.” This is especially significant in light of the report’s finding that, “depending on how you word the question, as many as 87% of us still profess belief in God.”
However, reality does not support Pitts’ explanation that the cause for the decline is because church members have been “driven away” as a byproduct of the “so-called religious right” and its adoption of Jesus of Nazareth as a “mascot of Republican conservatism.” Contrary to what Pitts would have us conclude, studies show that it is precisely the liberal, mainline churches that are in decline while conservative churches are growing.
For example, in a five-year study “Theology Matters,” published in the “Review of Religious Research,” the authors were surprised to discover that the most conservative Protestant churches are growing while the most liberal are experiencing the most rapid decline. Wrote one of the researchers, “Our research suggests that churches don’t have to abandon or water down their core beliefs to remain ‘relevant’ or attract people to their services. On the contrary, churches that stick to quite conservative beliefs … are actually more likely to grow.”
The researchers noted that although their study focused on Protestant churches, their findings could be beneficial for other churches as well. Additional studies could be referenced that indicate growing churches, both nationally and internationally, have been almost exclusively conservative in doctrine and belief.
Yes. Formal church membership is in overall decline in North America. I would, however, submit that Pitts’ explanation misses the mark.
William Hartfelder, Westerville
Why exclude trial judges from noting political party affiliation?
In March, my Ohio Supreme Court colleague, Justice Pat Dewine, wrote a column for the Cincinnati Enquirer expressing his view that a recently introduced bill that would add political party affiliation to the names of judicial candidates running for the Supreme Court and the courts of appeals “makes sense” to him.
He goes on to say that the “more information voters have, the better our elections” and that “we are far better served by trusting voters with the information and allowing them to make their decisions.”
So maybe Dewine can explain how it “makes sense” to add political party affiliation only to certain judicial races and not to all of them. Is it his belief and that of the bill’s sponsors that the electorate does not want, or need, the same information when voting for trial court judges? That seems a bit strange. After all, it is trial court judges at the county and municipal court levels who have day-to-day interactions with the public.
The overwhelming majority of citizens never — repeat, never — stand before justices of the Supreme Court or a panel of judges on the district courts of appeals. But trial court judges routinely interact with the public. Is there some secret dossier that says voters really don’t want to know the political party of all judicial candidates on the ballot?
There are seven justices on the Ohio Supreme Court, with two or three seats on the ballot every other year in even numbered years. There are 69 court of appeals judges throughout the state, with roughly a third to a fourth of the seats likewise on the ballot every other year in even numbered years.
There are hundreds of trial court judges in Ohio’s 88 counties. They are the most voluminous group of judges and a fraction of them are on the ballot every year. Those judges are on the front line and handle everything from traffic cases and small claims matters, to cases dealing with domestic violence, child support and visitation, wills and trust, guardianships, termination of parental rights, personal injury cases and felony crimes such as murder, robbery and rape.
No one thinks it “makes sense” that any voter who might want to know the political party of a judicial candidate would want to know that information for the overwhelming majority of our judiciary?
The only group of judges that citizens are ever likely to come in contact with, if at all?
Makes no sense to me whatsoever. Justice Melody Stewart, Ohio Supreme Court