Comments on: AFA Leader Would Like to Fix Gays by Force of Law http://www.mrclay.org/2010/02/03/afa-leader-would-like-to-fix-gays-by-force-of-law/ Steve Clay on programming, music, public policy and other junk Tue, 17 Apr 2012 07:00:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Aaron Zinck http://www.mrclay.org/2010/02/03/afa-leader-would-like-to-fix-gays-by-force-of-law/comment-page-1/#comment-102615 Aaron Zinck Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:36:01 +0000 http://mrclay.org/?p=590#comment-102615 Wow, that boggles the mind. Even putting aside the big government and freedom implications (which are massive!), from a purely pragmatic perspective they're forgetting that culture tends to drive laws rather than the other way around in this country. The AFA's stance is actually typical of the attitude of many Americans right now; if something is not how we want it, then we want the government to "fix" it. A similar mentality led to a lot of the griping about the gov't's response to Katrina (there are good specific complaints to be made against the gov't response, but much of the whining was just refusing to accept that Bad Things Happen Sometimes), overzealous litigation, and some of the economic bailout efforts. I'm an evangelical Christian myself and while I do believe homosexual activity to be a sin, sinful should not always equal illegal. Unfortunately, many well-intentioned Christians have lost sight of the importance and power of the Gospel. They place more hope and trust in government to bring about behavioral modification than they do in Christ's death on the cross to bring about the true repentance and reconciliation that we all need. Sinful people (that's all of us) don't need a perfect culture, but a perfect savior. There's a myth in some Christian circles that we once lived in a perfect America where the culture was perfectly aligned with their beliefs and values. That America never existed and never will exist; and it shouldn't be surprising that people who don't believe the Bible is true draw different conclusions about how to live their lives. Unfortunately, I think all laws involve legislating morality to some extent. Key issues I'd consider, however, are (my own personal test! IANAL!) 1) is this legislation needed to protect the rights and freedoms of others in society (i.e., does someone participating in this action hurt someone else)? 2) does this law promote a behavior that is broadly considered beneficial to society without unduly diminishing freedoms? 3) how broad is the consensus that there should be a law against this. I think this proposed law fails all of those tests. One other note: as far as I can tell, Focus on the Family payed for the Tebow ad, not the AFA. While I don't seek to be an apologist for Focus on the Family, I think it highly unlikely that you would see them endorsing this sort of extreme position. Wow, that boggles the mind. Even putting aside the big government and freedom implications (which are massive!), from a purely pragmatic perspective they’re forgetting that culture tends to drive laws rather than the other way around in this country. The AFA’s stance is actually typical of the attitude of many Americans right now; if something is not how we want it, then we want the government to “fix” it. A similar mentality led to a lot of the griping about the gov’t's response to Katrina (there are good specific complaints to be made against the gov’t response, but much of the whining was just refusing to accept that Bad Things Happen Sometimes), overzealous litigation, and some of the economic bailout efforts.

I’m an evangelical Christian myself and while I do believe homosexual activity to be a sin, sinful should not always equal illegal. Unfortunately, many well-intentioned Christians have lost sight of the importance and power of the Gospel. They place more hope and trust in government to bring about behavioral modification than they do in Christ’s death on the cross to bring about the true repentance and reconciliation that we all need. Sinful people (that’s all of us) don’t need a perfect culture, but a perfect savior. There’s a myth in some Christian circles that we once lived in a perfect America where the culture was perfectly aligned with their beliefs and values. That America never existed and never will exist; and it shouldn’t be surprising that people who don’t believe the Bible is true draw different conclusions about how to live their lives.

Unfortunately, I think all laws involve legislating morality to some extent. Key issues I’d consider, however, are (my own personal test! IANAL!)
1) is this legislation needed to protect the rights and freedoms of others in society (i.e., does someone participating in this action hurt someone else)?
2) does this law promote a behavior that is broadly considered beneficial to society without unduly diminishing freedoms?
3) how broad is the consensus that there should be a law against this.

I think this proposed law fails all of those tests.

One other note: as far as I can tell, Focus on the Family payed for the Tebow ad, not the AFA. While I don’t seek to be an apologist for Focus on the Family, I think it highly unlikely that you would see them endorsing this sort of extreme position.

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