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