Opinions: Letters to the editor

 published on Thursday, March 27, 2008

Fighting the Foundation

(In response to Wednesday's article by Daniel Newhauser titled "Group clashes with ASU Foundation about spending, hiring of Crow's wife")

As a student at ASU, I've been involved in the challenge over the past two and a half years to get ASU — and now the ASU Foundation — to require contractors and subcontractors to adhere to basic principles of workplace justice. Employee rights, safety and welfare aren't just a "political agenda," they are a hallmark of a progressive nation.

Believing in the universality of human rights, and appalled at the conditions in domestic and overseas sweatshops, student groups have successfully lobbied institutions — including ASU — to implement purchasing policies that require suppliers to assure a basic standard of workplace justice. Why should Great Western Erectors — or any other subcontractor — be expected to meet a lesser standard?

I can't seem to control the cost of my tuition, but I can speak out about how it's used. Perhaps if enough people do so, the major institutions among us will do more to prevent exploitation of those laboring to our benefit. As Martin Luther King Jr. argued 40 years ago, indifference to injustice is complicity.

Margaret J. Plews
Undergraduate

Sacred slip-up

(In response to Wednesday's column by Garrett Cleverly titled "Church should not be an annoying obligation")

I want to dissect the flaws within Cleverly's type of thinking. First, you explain the two most important days for going to church, and then you say, "I hate going."
Wouldn't those be the days people would want to go? And instead of accepting the people who come to the church on those days, you fight them like dogs.

Proof? Later in the article you have contradicting ideas in the same paragraph: "Not saying that everyone need to go to church," and then, "if more people would actually attend church [the world would be a better place]."

Proof? Earlier you said that when people did go to church, you didn't like them to be there. You're starting to smell like a hypocrite.

Also, your grouping of people called "Christers" is an issue. Next time you decide to label people like that, you should look at yourself and see where you stand. Maybe you're the one giving the church a bad name. Obviously you don't understand God's true love, otherwise you never would have written this article.

Scott Easterday
Undergraduate


I was happy to see Cleverly express his passion for his faith in his column, and I hope that his consistent church attendance brings joy and meaning to his life. However, I wonder if he isn't missing an important point: Whenever and however we attend church, we are blessed by the presence of one another. We are each other's brothers and sisters, and we are to celebrate, not judge one another, regardless of whether we come every week or even just twice a year. Don't we want to rejoice on holidays when we find someone else has come to share the seat we usually occupy?
Whether those who attend church regularly are more moral or better members of civil society is certainly debatable. I can name dozens of people on campus who are not regular churchgoers, yet who inspire me by their goodness and kindness. Catholics like Garrett and I who worship together every week should do so because we value the communal challenge to grow in God's love and the communal support when we choose to live in God's love despite other choices we might make. If we ever leave church feeling superior, then perhaps it would have been better to spend that hour elsewhere.

Father Fred Lucci
Director, Newman Center