My video on the Chick-fil-A controversy has resulted in some good and thought provoking comments on my blog and youtube pages. At first I was only going to respond in the comments section, but I think there is a larger issue to address. How do we, as citizens in a democracy, have conversations about volatile subjects without it devolving into name calling and dogma?
One of the commenters, Jim, asked a good question that I’d like to try and answer. He asks,
“Did you miss when Cathy did say that we were "inviting God's judgement on our nation" when we allow LGBT people to get married? How is that different than the hypothetical "wrongness" you suggest of going to a group and saying "you are destroying our nation?"
This is a great question and I’m glad someone asked it. There is a difference in what Dan Cathy did vs. my hypothetical scenario of disrupting a LGBT meeting. Dan Cathy was asked in a public interview to express his views on gay marriage. And, that is what he did. He did not attack people. He didn’t barge into a LGBT meeting and start calling people names and making derogatory slurs. He shared his belief on the redefinition of marriage in our country. That is a big point and one that I (and I believe a lot of others) often miss when someone disagrees with choices I make. Please understand I am ONLY talking about the choice of voting for redefining marriage. I am NOT talking about the “choice” of homosexuality (quotes on the word choice on purpose, and maybe the subject of another blog someday). One of the points I was trying to make in the video in my comparison of Dan Cathy and Louis Farrakhan is that Dan Cathy was talking about redefining marriage not homosexuals. Louis Farrakhan has openly made very derogatory comments about Jews. To me, there is a large difference between the two.
Also, Dan Cathy did not “publicly claim LGBT people are destroying our nation.” He didn’t. What he stated, and I agree, is that our country will suffer and decline if we redefine the definition of marriage. Some people hold this belief because of sociological reasons and/or theological reasons.
The other great point that Jim brings up is the idea of legislating morality.
“Don't force your morality on others through law unless you would be fine with other religions forcing their moral standards on you. Anything less is pure hypocrisy.”
Jim, I wholly agree. Anything less would be pure hypocrisy.
And, all laws are the legislation of morality. That is what law is. It’s creating rules based on someone’s view of right and wrong. From traffic laws to foreign policy all laws stem from someone believing one thing is right and another is wrong. The United States has had a civil war, fought in two world wars, and many others to defend “right” and to stamp out “wrong.” I used quotes because not everyone agrees on what is right and wrong.
If you’re still reading, thank you. If you have more comments and/or questions please post them. I hope we can continue this conversation and many more without degrading each other. It would be easy if we didn’t take it personally, but if we didn’t, we wouldn’t care.
God Bless,
-Ryan
