To the Editor:
The 5/2/19 issue of The Catholic Messenger, front page, had an article by Tom Chapman (executive director of the Iowa Catholic Conference) that reports on legislative issues addressed by the recent Iowa legislative session. In HF 766, a provision was included which stops Medicaid from paying for “gender reassignment” surgeries.
The article then states “…The Catholic Church believes that men and women have been willed by God in ‘their respective beings as man and woman’ (No. 369, Catechism of the Catholic Church)”. Really? Current estimates have pegged the number of transgender persons in the United States alone to be between 1 million and 1.5 Million. Has God screwed up that many times?
It is difficult to see our legislature’s insensitivity to our transgender population’s issues and needs. It is even more difficult to see my church’s support of such insensitivity.
Philip Laughlin
Knoxville