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This Month's Scripture Verse:

1 But false prophets also appeared among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. 2 Many will follow their indecent behavior, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; 3 and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep..
II Peter 2:1-3

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Showing posts with label LGBT Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LGBT Rights. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For March 13, 2019

March 12

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that complains about social media censoring conservative views such as those about sexuality. This appeared in Heidelblog

The censorship complained about above flows multiple ways. It sometimes strikes conservative views on issues while at other times it strikes leftist views. And it can be very defensive over statements made about Israel. And FB is not the only platform where the censors feel that they can strike at any post with impunity. At least, all of that has been a part of my experiences.

But some of the conservative complaint about how it is treated in social media seems to proceed without any self-awareness. That is especially true regarding LGBT issues. On the one hand, Clark complains about how those who oppose the sexual revolution are negatively portrayed as bigots. At the same time, he seems to be frustrated by the fact that the Millennials who now, according to Clark, seem to be in charge of the censorship, never knew of a time when homosexuality was considered to be immoral and illegal.

That combination causes some to question whether all who who oppose the sexual revolution form a monolith. Is a necessary part of rejecting the sexual revolution entail not just the marginalization of the LGBT community in society, but the opposition to the legalization of homosexual acts.

In one sense, I can't wait for Millennial Christians to take the place the current old guard. For the old guard, because of its past privileged place in society has learned to take much of its privilege status for granted. And thus it feels comfortable while living in denial of the harm it has caused to others.

Perhaps one more inconsistency should be pointed out here. While Clark has on more than one occasion complained about others censoring conservative views, he sees no inconsistency with him feeling very free in censoring comments that merely irritate him. He certainly has the right to censor comments on his blog; after all, it is his blog. But the inconsistency of complaining about others for doing what he himself feels free to do is inconsistent. One wonders whether the real reason for his complaints about conservative views being censored is that he believes that conservative views should receive privileged status over all other views.
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To Mark Malvasi and his blogpost progressivism in democracy. In that article, he made the case that only a strong centralized government could keep a strong corporate sector in check. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

Those who say that size is the issue or on which sector, the public or private, we should primarily depend miss the real problems that confront us. Government is like love in that size is not the issue, fidelity is. So when voters vote for representatives whom they hope to ignore until the next election, they are strongly inviting our governmental officials to embrace infidelity.

Likewise, to dis government involvement in the business world and market in the name of individualism and freedom is to forget that the primary interest of business and the market in any capitalist system is to maximize personal profits. It's not that we won't see a number of exceptions to the pursuit of maximizing profits in the business world and market, it is that  the Capitalist economic system directs its participants to pursuing self-interest and profit at the expense of people especially when those people do not contribute to the maximization of profits.

And those dissing governmental intervention in the business world and free market forget that in a working democracy, the government acts as a representative of the people. Thus to limit the government's voice to businesses and the participants in the market is to mute the voice of the people as they speak to businesses and the market.
Power does follow wealth in a Capitalist economic system. So perhaps focusing on changing that basic truth could play a role in the solution. Noting that centralizing power only encourages making the pursuit of self-interest an ethic that becomes more prevalent in society, redistributing power so that those from different economic classes and other groups must learn to listen to each other is at least part of the solution. What could emerge from structures that require people from different economic classes to collaborate and cooperate is the production of more people who learn that they need to pursue the multiple interests of all stakeholders along with self-interest in order to produce both and adequately prosperous and just society. The sticky point here is whether enough people in society will be willing to trade an adequately prosperous economy in order to further social justice for the maximization of personal profits. Our survival here depends on us choosing wisely.

Malvasi's article is helpful but misses the important points made above to varying degrees. In addition, he seems to forget that his claim that Wilson used a strong centralized government to hold businesses in check does not account for the policy decision that increased the profits of many businesses the most during his tenure: it was his support for England and France beforehand and his eventual decision to enter the US into WW I. In defense of that entry, Wilson also used the powers of a strong centralized government to incarcerate many who opposed the war. And one of the biggest beneficiaries of the American entry into the war was American banks who stood to lose a lot of money if England and France lost the war.




 
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Monday, February 12, 2018

ONIM For February 12, 2018

10 Best Fact Checking Sites Found Here.

If you are not sure about the validity of a news story linked to below, you can use  mediabiasfactcheck.com to check out the credibility of the source of most of the stories linked to here.

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Monday, July 31, 2017

ONIM For July 31, 2017

If you are not sure about the validity of a news story linked to below, you can use  mediabiasfactcheck.com to check out the credibility of the source of most of the stories linked to here.


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Friday, September 16, 2016

Looking For Freedom To Be Bull(y)

Joe Carter (click here for bio and proceed to the end of the page) has just written a short blogpost on the recent findings of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights as it pertains to the religious liberties of those who object to the increasing list of recognized rights of the LGBT community. In short, the news from the Commission is not good according to Carter. The title of Carter's article is U.S. Civil Rights Commission: 'Religious Freedom' Is Code Word For Racism, Homophobia And 'Christian Supremacy'  (click here for Carter's article). 

Where did Carter get such a long title for a short article? It comes from a quote from one of the Commission's reports where its chairman, Martin R. Castro, is quoted as saying:
The phrases “religious liberty” and “religious freedom” will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance

Here we should note the small but significant difference in Castro's wording from the title of Carter's article. Whereas the wording in Carter's title is a declarative statement, Castro's statement is conditional. So right here, we have a misrepresentation of part of the Commission's report. Whereas Carter states that the Commission is declaring that the term 'religious liberty' is code, Castro states that that term can be code when such liberty is used to excuse behaviors that deny the rights of others.

At this point, we see the problem with Carter's approach here especially with his warning at the end. For Carter denies how religious liberty can be misused to excuse how some can violate the rights of others. Indeed, such was the case when our nation allowed slavery and during Jim Crow. Some advocates of such practices used their religious beliefs, their Christian beliefs in particular, to rationalize those practices. And Carter's complaint here is that now the Commission is calling Christians to task for doing the same against the LGBT community. Here, Carter's only concern is not the discrimination experienced by others, but limits on the discriminatory practices being done in the name of religion by his fellow religiously conservative Christians.

Here, we make two observations about Carter's perspective as it pertains to religious liberty and the rights of those from the LGBT community. First, Carter is promoting a view that narcissistically myopic. For Carter can only see the effects that limiting behaviors based on religious beliefs has on his own group. And he directs his fellow Christians to be concerned about the potential loss of religious freedom they face if the line of thinking followed by this Commission continues. For toward the end of the article, Carter issues the following warning:
Unfortunately, if Christians don’t wake up to the reality of the threat we may soon find believers in France and China have more freedom to live as Christians than we do here in America.
 
Again, he seems only concerned with the ability of Christians to act on their faith regardless of what those actions are and how they might hurt others.

Thus, the second observation about Carter's views here is that discrimination as practiced by religiously conservative Christians against those from the LGBT community is a non issue for him. And thus, Carter is advocating that Christians act as the proverbial bull in a china shop. For Carter, it is more important that the bull move as it wishes than protecting the contents of the shop. And when we see this, we realize how accurate the quote taken from Castro about how religious liberty could be used is so very true. That some religiously conservative Christians want a superior position over others in society that would allow them to deny equality in society for those from the LGBT community. 

For Carter and others like him, our nation and The Constitution is not big enough to accommodate the rights of religiously conservative Christians and those of the LGBT community. Thus, someone's rights have to go. And that view is predicated on Carter's lack of respect for those from the LGBT community as equals. That when the term 'religious liberty' is used to justify discrimination and intolerance of others, the term simply becomes code just as it was during the days of slavery and Jim Crow. However, the difference between that past discrimination and intolerance with the discrimination and intolerance that Carter is advocating for now is that while such discrimination and intolerance based on race is wrong it it doesn't matter if they are exercised on the basis of sexual orientation and identity. Apparently, according to Carter, those from the LGBT community deserve our lack of respect. And like that proverbial bull in the china shop, Carter is clueless as to the potential harm his view poses and even causes not just to the LGBT community, but to the Gospel he claims to believe in and represent as well.



 
 

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Monday, May 9, 2016

ONIM For May 9, 2016

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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Some Important Points About Christians Opposing Same-Sex Marriage


  1. The Scriptures clearly speak against sexual relations outside of monogamous heterosexual marriages
  2. We are all sinners and thus we are all equals. None of us can afford to look down on anyone.
  3. The right to a same-sex marriage is not about the Biblical definition of marriage. It is about how we Christians will share society with others who are different. Will we share society with those from the LGBT community as equals or will we seek a privileged position over them?
  4. Claiming that we want to prohibit same-sex marriages in society for human flourishing and the good of society is a backdoor approach to assuming a privileged position over others in society. We can call this Christian Paternalism regarding Christian opposition to same-sex marriages.
  5. Will my fellow religiously conservative Christians continue to associate the Gospel with the right to discriminate? If so, future opposition to the Gospel and the Biblical view of sex cannot be solely blamed on the sinfulness of others; some of that opposition will be because of what we have associated the Gospel with.
  6. Reread point #2.
  7. Finally, in a Capitalist economic system, allowing a business to deny goods and services to a particular group allows for the possibility of that group experiencing partial or full deprivation of those goods and services either sporadically or consistently. That is because in a Capitalist economic system, businesses are the only providers of many goods and services.

    I know from personal experience that we aren't aware of all of our sins. For all of our lives, we will be unaware of some of our sins. For part of our lives, we will be unaware of some of our sins. And there are those few sins which we allow ourselves to acknowledge.  Such demands that we do all we can to be patient with each other because what we say about others can also be said about ourselves.
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