Sex not left to preferences
The recent directive sent out from the Obama administration to public schools regarding transgender students has ignited a firestorm across conservative camps. As a Christian, I am torn between loving others without judgment versus accepting a lifestyle clearly in opposition to God's word. As a University Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Paul McHugh states through years of experience that "transgendering is a psychological rather than a biological matter." He concluded that "what is needed now is public clamor for coherent science - biological and therapeutic science - examining the real effects of these efforts to support transgendering." Noted Christian minister and author John Piper wrote that God "is the one who connects biological nature and sexual identity." He emphasizes that who we are sexually "is not left to our preferences. Both are dictated by God's revelation in nature." While clearly recognizing we are all "disordered in some measure in different ways," Piper highlights that God "promises to help us with our disordered loves so that we can enjoy measures of contentment in the midst of our necessary self-denial." Identifying a lifestyle as wrong, but loving still.
Ed Lowe
Harrison
Hutcheson series enlightening, fair
Thank you so much for the series on Hutcheson Medical Center. I served as a pastor in Rossville for a time and became familiar with Hutcheson and its importance in the community. Your writer, Tyler Jett, produced a well-researched and well-written series on this hospital.
Mr. Jett's series not only read well, it was also written with a neutrality that allowed the dynamics of the story and those involved to come through. Hutcheson's demise seems to have been a very human story, with, among other things, miscommunication, egos and a lack of cooperation and shared vision by all parties involved, especially toward the end. Hopefully, Cornerstone will become an excellent resource that can serve this area not in competition but in collaboration with the other excellent medical resources we already have.
Thank you again for this excellent and informative series. I hope to see Mr. Jett's byline often.
Laura E. Trent
Jackson not born in Tennessee
In a recent article about Andrew Jackson, the writer, Michael Collins, quotes Sen. Lamar Alexander as saying Jackson was a Tennessean. Sir, Andrew Jackson was not born in Tennessee. He did live in Tennessee as many people have lived in dozens of states during their lifetime. Also, Andrew Jackson, according to this article, was a "hero of the battle of New Orleans." Jackson and his troops did whip the British, but the war of 1812 was already over with.
Historians are not sure which state Jackson was born in. It was either North or South Carolina. Don't take my word for this. Check it out. No person born in Tennessee has ever been the president of the United States. Too many people, educated and otherwise, are changing history.
William Ray Turner
Tracy City, Tenn.