Readers comment on the school district's backpack policy, anti-LGBTQ discrimination, more
Theatrical gesture
Earlier this week, Alachua County Public Schools banned bags made of cloth. Their response to gun violence was to limit students to flimsy bags made of clear plastic. I was apparently not the only one who thought this measure was ineffective and impractical. The Change.org petition to overturn it had almost 2,000 signatures in six hours. The district reversed the decision within a day.
I have sympathy for the school system. Over 1,800 children die from guns in the U.S. a year. Mass shootings are regular news. A local school system is held responsible for keeping kids safe while powerless to address gun policy.
My response was due to my reliance on sturdy backpacks from middle school through medical school. On any given day in high school, my backpack had 40 pounds of textbooks, notes and study guides. My books would have destroyed a plastic bag in less than a minute.
Don’t burden our children with theatrical gestures and false reassurances. Assume they will grow up to be responsible citizens instead of treating them as potential criminals. Give them the dignity of having the basic tools to go to school or an ounce of privacy. The solution to gun violence will not be fixed with a backpack ban.
Kathleen McNamara, Hampton
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Extreme discrimination
As June ends, LGBTQI+ Pride month winds down, leaving members of that community under relentless attack from extreme discrimination and cruel, persistent efforts to undermine their human rights.
Every year we witness the systematic murder of dozens of transgendered women (usually of color), 57 in 2021 alone. Now, the environment is getting much more hostile for LGBTQI+ people to live and thrive thanks to Republican-led state legislatures that push laws that target not only the rights of LGBTQI adults, but now also their children and children in general.
Laws now target transgender children and their parents, limiting access to health care. Laws target educational institutions, what they can teach and to whom. Laws target what kinds of recreational reading programs children can be taken to, and what books may be acceptable. In Florida, six bills are in or have been in consideration affecting some aspect of child-rearing pertaining to LGBT issues under the misleading label of "parental rights" and two curtailing equal rights for LGBT persons.
Florida is home to 53 recognized "hate” groups, about 20 of whom target the LGBTQI+ community. In Gainesville, the Southern Poverty Law Center lists the American College of Pediatricians as an anti-LGBTQ hate group whose central theme is of anti-LGBTQ organizing and the opposition to LGBTQ rights.
Matthew Woodruff, Gainesville
We believe ...
As citizens concerned with community engagement and health equity, we want everyone to know that we will work even harder to support our community to keep you healthy. We, like others in our respective fields, condemn the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
We believe that: abortion is health care; that abortion is health equity; that abortion is an economic issue; that no persons with a uterus should have to discontinue their use of a “period tracker app” for privacy concerns; that providers be allowed to offer help on how to refer people to all services and that all persons should be able to have honest dialogue with their health care provider without fear of being labeled a criminal.
More services should be provided as avenues of action such as easy access to physical and mental health care, affordable housing and nutritional programs, all of which are imperative to help support parents and their children to live healthy and long lives. Restrictions on abortions impinge on religious freedom guaranteed by our constitution. If this is allowed to stand, then we believe the IRS definition of a dependent will need to be addressed.
Linda Cottler, Catherine Striley, Michael Gutter, Shirley Bloodworth, Michelle Cardel Lisa Chacko, Zoe Martusewicz, Tiffany Pineda, Stacey Ellison, Jill Sonke and Kathryn Stofer, Gainesville; Kathryn Baughman, Tallahassee; Irvin “PeDro” Cohen, Mobeen Rathore and Fern Webb, Jacksonville
Invasion of privacy
The recent Supreme Court decision on abortion is clearly bad for our country. This ruling invades the privacy of the individual. Our individual privacy, maybe more than anything else, has been revered in America.
We make laws to regulate us as a society, but (supposedly) never to regulate our private lives. What we do in our private surroundings is no business of the government.
The Roe reversal denies this norm. I would claim it even denies our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Mary Ruth, Gainesville
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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Letter on the district backpack policy, anti-LGBTQ discrimination, more
