Sunday November 20, 2022; 8:15 AM EST
- The other day, at the County Health Department's monthly Board of Health meeting, the first citizen to take advantage of the public comment time near the end of the meeting was an area spiritual leader, Rabbi Michael Friedland. He and I spoke briefly before and after the meeting--our kids went to school together and two of them were on the Mock Trial team that won the state title. Parents travelled with the team to the state and national competition, so we spent some time together several years ago. It was good to run into him at this public meeting.#
- When he spoke, as I recall it to summarize here, he introduced himself and his constituency and he thanked the Board for the informative meeting. He spoke of planning to attend more regularly in the future, and he mentioned his hopes that all the officials and all of us would keep in mind going forward that not all the faith traditions have the same view of abortion. He hoped that we would all keep this in mind when policies were discussed about women's health care and freedom of religion. That's my memory of his comments, roughly.#
- As it happened, it was my turn to speak next, going down the sign-up sheet. I began by seconding two of his points--gratitude for the informative meeting and the service of the Department of Health, for one, and then his reminder about religious freedom in light of the abortion issue and women's health care. We were probably all feeling this part pretty keenly as the Indiana GOP have gerrymandered many elected offices pretty thoroughly by now, and that's not a path to respecting diversity of culture, religious faith, or personal conscience.#
- My main point was to urge the Board Members, even the conservative ones, to protect the staff from political pressures so they could carry out their work in light of good medical, environmental, and epidemiological science. Terms are ending soon and new officers will be appointed by newly gerrymandered Country elected officials. It will probably become more problematic, so it's good to be attending and speaking up.#