Much has been made about a supposed comment by Dr. Laura with references to the Torah. Therefore, I am doing some studying on the quotes from this "funny" email. It's an excellent study because in my experience, most people do not really understand the Torah or the Old Testament.
"I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?"
Actually, Leviticus chapter 11 is telling us:
(1) which animals we should avoid eating (including but certainly not limited to pigs).
(2) If you find ANY animal (even animals that we CAN eat) that keeled over and died, or was killed in a manner inconsistent with slaughtering for food, then you should avoid touching it if possible (sounds like good advice, not to play with road kill).
And (3) if you do touch such a dead animal (because you had to remove it from your front yard, for example), then you temporarily take on the legal status of ritual impurity. This legal status is often loosely translated as "uncleanness" for lack of a concise English word that means a temporary legal status that makes you temporarily ineligible to perform certain rituals in the Temple.
On the other hand, there's NOTHING in the Torah about avoiding a processed animal hide - from ANY animal whatsoever (including a processed pigskin football). Indeed, Torah-observant Jews utilized animal skins for clothing and shelter - for example, camel skin tents and rabbit skin coats, even though camels and rabbits are just as unkosher as pigs.