Monday, June 2, 2008

Autism and Religion

There is one of those annoying sstories this morning featured on AOL.  It is annoying on many levels.  It is a story about a woman who is "fighting" to have her "autistic" 13 year old son attend public mass in a Chatolic Church, even though he disrupts services to the point the church regards him as DANGEROUS. 

It is annoying that his story is considered national "news" at all.  It is annoying that the story is about whether the child is "dangerous", with the assumption being that everyone else should have to uput up with having their worship disrupted.  Firnally, it is somewhat annoying that the story quotes no one criticizing the mother for insisting on ruining other people's religious experience because of what she WANTS (when,, I assume, private sesssions with a priest would be available).

WHY does there have to be actual danger for this child to be an unreasonable disruption to be inflicted on other worshippers?  The idea that a person has a "right" to disrupt the worship of others is bizarre.  Legally, of course, it is not true, since governnmnet cannot interfere with the free exercise of religion (in other words, cannot impose rules on religious institutions that it might impose on employers).

Morally, however, I don't see it either.  Remember those transvestite "nuns" disrupting services in San Francisco?  They, of course, were doing it deliberately, but disruption is disruption.  Dhurches should not have to put up with it.

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