Author: Parker

Religion in the Pharmacy

Published: April 12, 2005

To the Editor:

“Moralists at the Pharmacy” (editorial, April 3) addressed “scattered reports” of pharmacists refusing to dispense certain medications that conflict with their personal moral or religious beliefs and women seeking to have these prescriptions filled. We believe that there is a solution that accommodates the needs of both parties.

Recently, we introduced the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which clarifies current law to say a person’s religious beliefs should be recognized and accommodated in the workplace as long as this does not adversely affect the employer’s business or customers.

The bill is supported by a diverse coalition of more than 45 religious and civil rights groups as well as a bipartisan group of senators and representatives.

If the bill becomes law, a pharmacist who does not wish to dispense certain medications would not have to do so long as another pharmacist is on duty and would dispense the medications.

The Workplace Religious Freedom Act provides a sensible solution to the potential conflict between an employee’s religious conviction and the needs of pharmacy customers. [WHAT FUNDALMENTALIST BULLSHIT IS THIS   What the fuck is next? What about Muslim wait-persons who wants to refuse to serve pork.]

(Senator) Rick Santorum

(Senator) John Kerry Washington, April 7, 2005

The writers are, respectively, Republican of Pennsylvania and Democrat of Massachusetts.

Uganda has performed well in bringing down the HIV prevalence to around 6%. In many parts of the country, it was at least three times as high during the early 1990s. [Prior to the Wingnuts getting into it’s panties]

The New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has strongly criticized the Ugandan government, accusing it of pushing the abstinence line while downplaying the safe sex message.

…

A “life-threatening” shift which HRW says is orchestrated and funded by the US.

It says the funding for abstinence is due to President George W Bush’s conservative Christian views, which are similar to those of Uganda’s first lady.

The US says it plans to spend more than $100m combating HIV/Aids in Uganda this year – of which more than $8m will be on the abstinence and faithfulness programme. Some of that money will be focused on the young.

Despite the funding for abstinence based programmes, the Ugandan government is keen to deny that there has been any shift of emphasis.

“I would like to assure the world that we have continued to maintain abstinence, being faithful and the use of condoms as the principal strategy in the fight against HIV/Aids,” says Uganda’s Minister for Health, Mike Mukula.

…

Until a few months ago, a free magazine promoting safe sex was distributed to secondary schools by a non-profit organisation.

But this recently became controversial and faith-based organisations were concerned the magazine was encouraging sex.

As a result, the magazine has been ditched, and that avenue for getting the safe sex message to the students has now gone.

But the majority of young Ugandans do not make it beyond primary school and in a country where most people live on less than $1 a day, the link between poverty and sex is strong.

Christian groups in Uganda and the US are behind the new emphasis Rogers Kasirye works in the slums of Kampala with street children and teenage prostitutes. Poverty has forced many of them into taking risks.

“It is an economic problem. Many of the young people we are working with are surviving on sex, and the only option or barrier they have is the condom.”

Whilst churches are pushing the abstinence message, not all religious leaders are happy with President Bush.

Reverend Gideon Byamugisha is HIV-positive and he hopes the US will carefully assess the way in which it influences policy in Uganda.

“We are still hopeful that America, being a strong and well-meaning country, will not go down in history as a country which exported ideas at the expense of people’s free will to choose.”

The former president noted that an earlier article over the weekend reported that Mr. Finkelstein had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts, then he alluded to the Republican Party’s use of the same-sex marriage issue to mobilize conservative voters.

…

“Either this guy believes his party is not serious and he’s totally Machiavellian,” Mr. Clinton said, or “he may be blinded by self-loathing.” Mr. Finkelstein, a reclusive former adviser to Gov. George E. Pataki, did not respond to a message left at his office seeking a comment on Mr. Clinton’s remarks.

Mr. Finkelstein, who helped engineer Mr. Pataki’s 1994 victory over Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, has not publicly commented on his plans to establish an anti-Clinton committee.

But the Republicans familiar with those plans say he is attempting to line up donors to help the committee, called Stop Her Now, reach its goal of raising as much as $10 million to finance an independent campaign against her. In that context, Mr. Clinton offered high praise for his wife’s record in office, describing her as a hard-working senator. “I don’t think he’ll stop her,” he said, referring to Mr. Finkelstein.

Arthur J. Finkelstein, a prominent Republican consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political campaigns to elect conservatives in the United States and Israel over the last 25 years, said Friday that he had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts.

Mr. Finkelstein, 59, who has made a practice of defeating Democrats by trying to demonize them as liberal, said in a brief interview that he had married his partner of 40 years to ensure that the couple had the same benefits available to married heterosexual couples.

“I believe that visitation rights, health care benefits and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available to partners,” he said.

In Israel, Mr. Finkelstein used similar attacks against the Labor Party as an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and as a consultant to the winning and losing campaigns of Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister.

“In recent years, Arthur hasn’t pretended to be a social conservative,” said one longtime conservative associate, who cited Mr. Finkelstein’s aversion to publicity in declining to be identified. “But this is the same man who was the architect of Jesse Helms’s political rise.“

“Given everything that’s gone on during (the) whole election process, including some of the reports we’re getting now, it would be very hard to say that these are free and fair,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

…

Zimbabwe’s ruling party won parliamentary elections Friday but a furious opposition accused President Robert Mugabe of rigging the vote to extend his 25-year grip on power.

Citing official information that as many as 10 percent of voters were turned away at the polls and anecdotal reports that many of these were in districts believed to lean toward the opposition, Boucher told reporters: “This is just another sign that this whole process has been seriously tainted.

“The election process all along has been tilted in favor of the government. And there are many aspects to this, whether it’s the muzzling of the press or the intimidation of voters or the restrictions on opposition candidates.” he added.

“The United States calls on the government of Zimbabwe to recognize the legitimacy of the opposition and abandon policies designed to repress, crush and otherwise stifle expressions of differences,” Rice said in her statement.

An independent monitoring group, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, said up to 25% of those who tried to vote had been turned away because their names did not appear on the electoral roll or they failed to present proper identification. State electoral officials said about 10% of voters had been turned away from polling stations. Turnout was about 42%, compared with 48% in the 2000 general election.