ooo! controversy! December 16, 2008

ok, this new WP dashboard layout is throwing me for a loop, but I’ll suffer through.

A while ago, a friend of mine asked me to justify my religious beliefs with my political alignment. Since this conversation took place on a message board, through the use of the private message feature, I can post my thoughts, exactly as I shared them with my friend.

          Gay marriage and abortion are both issues that I have struggled with where I stand in the past. I grew up with a very conservative family in a very strict, very very conservative church (dancing was considered a sin)–I was taught that abortion is murder and homosexuality is an abomination (and a choice). I have since, however, begun to form my own opinions, and I find that they differ greatly from my family’s.
          I have several friends that are gay and I just cannot believe/accept that they have chosen their sexual orientation. I have seen the daily struggles they have gone through (trying to live as an openly gay young man in high school in a small, SUPER conservative town in TN? not fun–dangerous, in fact), and I am just no where near being convinced that they aren’t born gay and can’t help it (in fact, I think that sexual orientation is determined in the womb, much like gender is). We, as straight women, can’t help who we fall in love with (and oh how much easier life would be if we could!)! Why is that any different for same sex couples? And I hate how politicians are running on platforms that try to give both sides what they want–that full legal rights without marriage crap. That is bullshit. If you want to give them rights, give them full marriage rights–don’t try to please both sides at the same time. If you say you believe in equality, prove it! It applies to everyone–you can’t pick and choose. The Right says that legalizing gay marriage will de-sanctify marriage. Well, if you look at the divorce rate, it hardly seems that Americans consider marriage to be sacred anymore really. If it was truly sacred, there would be very little divorce (or there would be a huge difference between Christian marriages and secular ones, but the rate is the same for both groups). I don’t see what allowing loving, committed same sex couples to marry will do to erode the nation’s morals. It just seems like a lot of people are reacting out of fear and ignorance.
          As for reconciling homosexuality with religious beliefs, like I said, I don’t think it’s a choice, so how can I condemn someone to live a loveless life just because the Bible says it’s wrong? The Bible also says adultery is wrong. And lying is wrong. And coveting is wrong. But people do those things all the time, and if the Bible says that all sins are equal (without grace we are condemned for any and all offenses), then why is homosexuality different? I don’t see how people can take this one issue out of all the others and make it a hill to die on.

         Now moving on to abortion…First off, let me say that I HATE abortion. I think it is terrible. BUT, do I think that there should be laws against it? No. I think each situation is unique, and there is no way that some type of blanket law criminalizing a young woman for making probably the hardest decision she will ever make can be right or fair. I do not believe that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe vs Wade (especially if Obama gets to appoint as many judges as I am thinking he will), so it’s pretty much useless, politically speaking, to push for that. I couldn’t agree more with what Hillary Clinton said about abortion: it should be SAFE, LEGAL, and RARE. Statistics show that the abortion rate does not change in countries where abortion is illegal–it is the same as in countries where it is legal. The only difference between the two is the safety and sanitation of the conditions. So, if these young girls are going to have an abortion anyway, why would we want to endanger their lives and health (and greatly increase the chance that they won’t be able to get pregnant again, when they’re ready to)? That seems cruel to me.

“The Democrats have proposed comprehensive legislation called the 95/10 initiative that aims to reduce the number of abortions that take place in this country by 95% within 10 years. While Barack Obama is a pro-choice candidate, he supports this and similar legislation. This is the only proposed and realistic strategy that can move us around the cultural impasse that is breathing hate and anger into the Christian community.” This is from Don Miller’s blog (he is the author of Blue Like Jazz). I think something like this is the only way that we will reduce the abortion rate. Oh, and for the record, Christians are quite hypocritical on this issue–I found these statistics online:
          “Women identifying themselves as Protestants obtain 37.4% of all abortions in the U.S.; Catholic women account for 31.3%, Jewish women account for 1.3%, and women with no religious affiliation obtain 23.7% of all abortions. 18% of all abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as “Born-again/Evangelical”.” Now, if you add all these numbers together, it equals 111.7%, so I don’t know what’s up with that, unless “Born-again/Evangelical is some sort of sub-group in the “Protestant” category. I think that the fact that more Christians are getting abortions than women with no religious affiliation speaks volumes about the state of the Church today. I think that much of the problem is rooted in the shame and stigma of a pregnancy outside of wedlock (even in the 21st century). Instead of having a compassionate support system, these young women are shunned and gossipped about. For many, I’m sure an abortion is preferable to public disgrace and condemnation from a judgemental Christian community. But all this is beside the point. Abortion, though it is very sad, should not be a crime. This seems to me to be a case of two wrongs don’t make a right.