LETTERS: Prostitution hurts society as a whole

SHARE LETTERS: Prostitution hurts society as a whole
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An anti-prostitution rally in Chicago in 2014. | Sun-Times file photo

If S.E. Cupp is a “conservative Republican woman,” her piece on legalizing prostitution must surely be satire. How else can you explain arguing to legalize a form of degradation, dehumanization and slavery?

Prostitution involves the commodification of human beings, their bodies sold as objects to be owned or used as the persons with the money and power choose. It can never be justified and should never be legalized.

SEND LETTERS TO: letters@suntimes.com. Please include your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number for verification purposes.

Yes, the pimps, johns, and traffickers should be focused on. They should be arrested, publicly embarrassed, and given just punishment. That certainly is enforcing existing laws. But women who sell their bodies should also be held accountable, and given support, addictions treatment, job training, and opportunities to help them live up to their potential as human beings, not objects. Perhaps the criminal justice system can be structured to give them a new start. Leaving them on the streets hurts not only them, but society as a whole.

Sylvia Keppel, Batavia

Muslims revere the Virgin Mary

I am writing in response to President Donald Trump’s tweeting a picture of a Muslim desecrating a statue of the Virgin Mary. Muslims revere the Virgin Mary. There is an entire chapter in the Quran with her name. Several years ago, when someone desecrated a marble statue of the Virgin Mary in our garden, breaking it in two, the local Muslims at Morton Grove’s Muslim Education Center took up a collection and helped pay part of the high price of repairing it.

Fr. Dennis O’Neill, pastor, St. Martha of Bethany Church/Shrine of All Saints, Morton Grove

Responsible company

Our members represent local businesses and communities across the state of Illinois. In that vein, we wanted to share our perspective on the recent media coverage about Exelon Generation’s nuclear energy plants in the state.

In the communities that are home to Exelon’s plants, residents and businesses overwhelmingly support the company. In fact, they were some of the biggest cheerleaders over the past few years urging the legislature to keep the Clinton and Quad Cities plants open. Municipalities in and around those communities benefit from lower property taxes, good-paying jobs and well-funded schools and police departments. In addition, businesses not only benefit from affordable and reliable electricity but in some cases local suppliers do as well.

But none of those economic factors would have mattered if neighbors didn’t believe Exelon’s nuclear plants are safe, environmentally friendly and well-run, which the company has demonstrated for decades. The company regularly invites the community to come into the plants for events and tours. Plus, Exelon’s plants also receive careful oversight from the Illinois EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Exelon is a responsible company with a long track record of safe and environmentally responsible operations in Illinois. When there were challenges many years ago, Exelon moved aggressively to protect the communities they serve. The response was well documented and verified by independent regulators. In fact, the company’s transparency is industry leading, and they have a commitment to maintain this for their communities and their customers.

We believe in partnerships that make Illinois a better place to live, work and raise a family and this is one of them.

Rob Karr, President/CEO, Illinois Retail Merchants Association,

Brad Cole, Executive Director, Illinois Municipal League,

Michael Reever, Acting president/CEO, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce,

Subversion of Constitution

The Democratic candidate for president has won the popular vote in six of the last seven elections, including in 2016 by over 3,000,000 votes. Every two years in recent history, more people voted for Democrats for Congress than did for Republicans. Yet we are on our third term of a Republican president since 2000 and have a large majority of Republicans in Congress. We are a minority government that is becoming a tyranny as the entire election system is getting eroded by those in power and by the conservative federal bench that has resulted.

While the Citizens United Supreme Court decision allowed the wealthy and corporations to provide unlimited funds to campaigns, the same court stripped away voting protections for minorities by gutting a large part of Voting Rights Act after it was renewed in Congress in 2006 by over 90 percent of senators and representatives. The court has allowed union members to withhold their dues if the union uses them to support candidates with which the member disagrees even though those members benefit directly from union activities. At the same time, Congress is poised to include in the bogus tax “reform” bill a provision that will allow churches to keep their tax exempt status even if the church supports particular political candidates — forcing all taxpayers who disagree with those candidates to indirectly fund their campaigns. That is a provision longed for by the largely conservative evangelicals and their lobbyists. Every recent statute and Supreme Court decision enhances Republican candidates or disadvantages Democrats.

On top of these atrocities to the democratic process, we have Trump’s ludicrous “voter fraud” commission, which everyone knows was solely created to find ways to purge perfectly qualified minorities and college students from rolls of voters. This follows another conservative Supreme Court decision allowing onerous state voter ID requirements to stand though they are clearly intended to repress more liberal portions of the electorate — minorities and the poor.

Make no mistake — this is all a well designed takeover of the electoral process and a subversion of the Constitution. Candidate Trump in 2016 was fond of repeating his race-baiting dog whistle of “This is our last chance, people — a clear reference to preserving the prerogatives of white, male supremacy. Sadly, enough people bought that in enough states to leave us with a president who has no values. He is man who thinks the only principle is loyalty to him when, in fact, loyalty to an individual is an excuse to have no principles.

Well, now it truly is the last chance of Americans who want a fair and decent country and who actually do love the Constitution. The 2018 election is less than a year away. Register now or we will never stop this madness.

Joel Ostrow, Deerfield,

Cruel legal fate

Bonnie Liltz cared for her handicapped daughter for many years, a daughter who needed diapering and feeding and really, total care. When the mother became ill there was no government help for her so she committed a mercy killing, sending her daughter to a better place.

To sentence Bonnie Liltz to prison for her action showed total disregard for her years of arduous effort and of course, her own cancerous illness. Now she is with her daughter and has escaped a very cruel legal fate.

Mona Stern, Gary, Indiana


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