Saturday, March 19, 2005
Does anyone know why God allows children to be brutalized & senselessly murdered? Do we blame God, or do we say that God's protection has been withdrawn from a sinful society? Many people do. I am certain that making children recite the Lord's Prayer in public schools & placing plaques of the Ten Commandments in courthouses won't stop or even slow down the predators. Amber Alerts have already saved lives. Teaching children how to protect themselves saves lives. The monsters who harm children are usually people the children know. Reactionary Christians think moral values peaked around 1955, back when child abuse hardly existed only because it was a terrible secret; acknowledging it was more taboo than the deed. Genesis 19:32-36 has Lot's daughters seducing their father, but in a patriarchal culture that countenanced polygamy, concubinage & slavery, what do you think really happened?
Unlike the partisans, I'm not at all sure what is the right thing to do in the tragedy of Terri Schindler-Schiavo. But it's not true that "The American people have screamed at the top of their lungs and asked for a federal legislature, a state legislature, anybody with any authority to get involved and to save this woman's life." as one right wing activist said with the moral certitude one expects of a religious zealot. On the contrary, I think most Americans, myself included, are conflicted, try to imagine ourselves & loved ones in similar situations, & sympathize with everyone directly affected by the terrible predicament. We wish it to be resolved one way or another & that Congress not grandstand on a family's sorrow.
Unlike the partisans, I'm not at all sure what is the right thing to do in the tragedy of Terri Schindler-Schiavo. But it's not true that "The American people have screamed at the top of their lungs and asked for a federal legislature, a state legislature, anybody with any authority to get involved and to save this woman's life." as one right wing activist said with the moral certitude one expects of a religious zealot. On the contrary, I think most Americans, myself included, are conflicted, try to imagine ourselves & loved ones in similar situations, & sympathize with everyone directly affected by the terrible predicament. We wish it to be resolved one way or another & that Congress not grandstand on a family's sorrow.
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
So eloquently put. Sadly, the very RTL movement that has taken up Ms. Schindler-Schiavo's torch seems to value life choices that are personal in nature. It doesn't seem to wish to associate itself with matters like war or capital punishment.
What unimaginable pain that family must feel.
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What unimaginable pain that family must feel.
# posted by 
: 8:55 AM
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