From: tfcvp@aol.com (TFC VP)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Letter to Tampa Tribune
Date: 05 Apr 2000 15:36:22 GMT
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Message-ID: <20000405113622.05432.00000925@ng-fj1.aol.com>

ARTICLE RAISES QUESTIONS

Your article "Scientology perspective on tragedy rarely seen" (Nation/World,
April 2) causes me to pose three questions:

1. For the state attorney and Morton Plant Hospital: As an advocate for the
mentally ill, I have reviewed more than 4,000 Baker Act cases and have seen
that every person who was psychotic and disrobed in public was correctly "Baker
Acted." Shortly thereafter a petition for involuntary placement was filed to
assure that the person was stabilized before release. Never was a person
permitted to sign himself out of the hospital within minutes of admission. Who
failed to do their duty to protect Lisa McPherson and why?

2. For the Scientologists: It is my understanding that you accept that a
chemical imbalance causes diabetes and thus permit your members to take
insulin. Why would you deny the irrefutable PET scan evidence that a chemical
imbalance causes schizophrenia and thus deny your members the stabilization
that the new antipsychotics afford so many?

3. For state courts and the U.S. Supreme Court: In 1828 Noah Webster recorded
as part of the definition of "religion" a clause that was accepted and upheld
for more than 100 years: "The practice of moral duties without a belief in a
divine law giver and without reference to his will or commands is not
religion." Why would you have the audacity to change a long-held definition
made by those who established this country and made it great?

--Richard C. Durstein
Palm Harbor