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We welcome letters. Please include your full name,
address, and telephone number. We edit all letters. Send them to Letters,
Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958;
e-mail editor@illinoistimes.com.
WRONGABOUTTHELAW ANDTHEACLU Robert Huck’s recent letter lambastes the
American Civil Liberties Union for laws that he asserts give children an
absolute right to control all aspects of their mental health treatment [May
24]. Mr. Huck is wrong — about the work of the ACLU and the law in
this area. The ACLU has a long history of working to improve the
services provided to children with psychiatric disabilities by federal,
state, and local governments. The ACLU of Illinois, for example, challenged
understaffing and substandard conditions at state mental-health facilities
serving children, forced the state to rewrite unfair and arbitrary rules in
a program that funds residential placements for mentally ill children, and
negotiated substantial improvements in mental-health programs for foster
children. We believe these improvements are good for the children under
state care, and help society by getting treatment to individuals in need of
care. Contrary to Mr. Huck’s assertion, teenagers in
Illinois do not have an absolute right to refuse treatment for psychiatric
disabilities. Indeed, Illinois law strikes a reasonable balance between the
need for parents to participate in decision-making concerning their
children’s mental-health treatment and the desire to protect the
rights of teenagers. Current law, for example, grants parents the ability
to inspect a teenager’s mental health record if the teenager is
informed and does not object; even if the teenager objects, parents may
still review the record if the patient’s therapist concludes that
there are no compelling reasons to deny access. There are some reasons that
denying access might be appropriate — if the parent’s review
would, for example, reveal information about issues such as incest or
physical abuse that endanger the youngster’s safety. Even in the rare
circumstance where access to the some information in the youth’s
record is denied, a parent has the right to know the youth’s
diagnosis, treatment needs, services provided, medication, and other key
information. The real problem with Illinois’ approach to
psychiatric disabilities is not the law but the underfunding and
mismanagement of essential programs. Our state lags far behind much of the
rest of the country in its failure to create and maintain decent community
mental-health programs for our most vulnerable citizens. The ACLU of
Illinois stands ready to join with parents and mental health professionals
in an effort to reform this broken mental-health system. Benjamin S. Wolf Associate Legal Director ACLU of Illinois
TIMEISNOWFOREDUCATIONFUNDING The Illinois General Assembly is still in session,
and that is good news for public education and especially for students in
every part of our state, whether they live in rural, suburban, or urban
communities. Generations of children living in areas of the state
lacking property wealth have been cheated out of their basic right to
attend a great public school. The time is now to end this devastating
discrimination. This must be the year we stop applying annual
Band-Aids to education funding and address the long-term needs of public
education. This General Assembly must seize this opportunity to pass
legislation that ensures that from now on every Illinois school district
has the resources needed to provide a high-quality education to every
student. We urge the members of this General Assembly to
summon the courage to vote to help students, to boost local communities
that have suffered under the current funding system and to strengthen the
Illinois economy. We urge them to invest in excellence by passing
legislation that makes Illinois the land of opportunity for every student
everywhere in the state. It’s the best investment opportunity in
town.
Ken Swanson, President
Illinois
Education Association
PET OWNERS THANK DICK DURBIN
The Humane Society of the United States would like to thank and
congratulate U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin for passing legislation in the U.S.
Senate to protect the food supply for people and their pets. After the massive pet-food recall, Durbin introduced
the Human and Pet Food Safety Act (S. 1274), which would require the Food
and Drug Administration to set processing and ingredient standards for pet
food, strengthen labeling requirements, establish an early-warning system
and mandatory recall authority for contaminated human- and pet-food
products, improve oversight of foreign foods, and take other steps to help
prevent needless deaths and illnesses. The Senate swiftly approved, by a
vote of 94-0, similar legislation that Durbin offered as an amendment to a
broad bill regarding the Food and Drug Administration. Two-thirds of American households have pets, and
these members of our families deserve safe and unadulterated food, as do
people. We are grateful to Durbin for working to ensure food safety for
all, and we urge the full Congress to quickly pass this legislation.
Michael Markarian
Executive vice president
Humane
Society of the United States
Washington, D.C.
QUITRAISINGOURTAXES Someone please explain to me why I should continue to
pay my taxes? While the taxpayers are going broke with high
electric rates, $3 gas, and soaring food prices, our elected state
officials do nothing. Well, not quite nothing. They did find time for $400 doorknobs, $900 urinals,
and $2,000 personal desks. Talk about a waste of my taxes! Let us not
forget about Emil Jones’ wife and son getting jobs with the state.
Isn’t that supposed to be against the law? It is most certainly
unethical. And to add insult to injury, they give themselves a
massive raise. For what? Just what have they done to deserve a raise? It’s time for our legislators to quit wasting
our tax dollars and get down to taking care of the people of this state. We
have homeless, unemployed, working-poor families, disabled, and uninsured.
Where is their representation? Talk about taxation without representation!
Our illustrious legislators should be ashamed of
themselves. I just don’t see how they can sleep at night. If I had a
CPA who wasted my money like our state officials have, I would fire them on
the spot. Legislators, go home! Spend my tax dollars by moving
the homeless into the Capitol and the Executive Mansion. At least that will
help the needy. And I’ll get representation for my taxation. Don Miller Jacksonville
SUPPORTS MATTHEW SHEPARD ACT I am writing to let you know of my support for the
Matthew Shepard Act. This law is not special treatment. It would make sure
Americans across the spectrum — black or white, Christian or Muslim,
gay or straight, male or female — are protected. It comes down to
ensuring that no American
may be targeted for violence because of who they are. Not only would it include sexual minorities, but would
also include the disabled.
By not passing this law, we are excluding members of
our society from the everyday protections all citizens deserve. Jessica Neighbors Springfield
IBOUGHTGREENEGGS Congratulations, Springfield. The people are
supporting the farmers’ market in a big way. I attended Saturday and
some vendors were selling out of vegetables. With all the health stuff in the news lately and
buying stuff grown nearby being stressed so much, this is good news. As
always, every week they have more and more. This is good news. People of
Springfield must be eating healthier as well as supporting local producers.
I got a dozen eggs with greenish shells. That is
right: green eggs. Apparently, some chickens lay them that way. They just
don’t get to market as much. Wow. I remain your imaginary friend. Patrick Johnopolos Springfield
MUSTHAVEBEENAMOCKINGBIRD I was catching up on back issues of Illinois Times after being out of town
for a couple of weeks. I’ve also been catching up on e-mails. The
letter in the May 17 issue on the analogy between bird feeding and illegal
aliens from a Decatur reader caught my eye — it looked familiar. Now
I know why: there are striking similarities, some word for word, with an
e-mail sent to me on May 9.
Dick McLane Springfield
Editor’s note: After we received Mr.
McLane’s letter, we verified that the letter we published was similar
to anti-immigration messages published elsewhere, including by various Web
logs, and circulated widely on the Internet. While we welcome letters from
our readers, the content should be original.
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2007.
