http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2013-03/caught-middle
It is a thoughtful -- and very long piece -- that gives both issues much debate. After reading it, however, my own opinions remain unchanged.
Here are the first few paragraphs:
"In the present political atmosphere it is assumed that everybody must be on one of only two sides, liberal or conservative. It doesn’t matter that neither of these labels signifies much in the way of intellectual responsibility or that both are paralyzed in the face of the overpowering issue of our time: the destruction of land and people, of life itself, by means either economic or military. What does matter is that a person should choose one side or the other, accept the “thinking” and the “positions” of that side and its institutions and be so identified forevermore. How you vote is who you are.
We appear thus to have evolved into a sort of teenage culture of wishful thinking, of contending “positions,” oversimplified and absolute, requiring no knowledge and no thought, no loss, no tragedy, no strenuous effort, no bewilderment, no hard choices.
Depending on the issues, I am often in disagreement with both of the current political sides. I am especially in disagreement with them when they invoke the power and authority of government to enforce the moral responsibilities of persons. The appeal to government is made, whether or not it is defensible, when families and communities fail to meet their moral responsibilities. Between the two moralities now contending for political dominance, the middle ground is so shaken as to be almost no ground at all. The middle ground is the ground once occupied by communities and families whose coherence and authority have now been destroyed, with the connivance of both sides, by the economic determinism of the corporate industrialists. The fault of both sides is that, after accepting and abetting the dissolution of the necessary structures of family and community as an acceptable “price of progress,” they turn to government to fill the vacancy, or they allow government to be sucked into the vacuum. This, I think, explains both Prohibition and the war on drugs, to name two failed government remedies."
This is my reply to my friend:
(Some) might consider me simple minded, but I believe both issues have simple answers.
1. When life begins is defined in the Bible, the book most pro-fetus advocates claim to be the basis of their beliefs:
Genesis 2:7
King James Version (KJV)
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Some versions use the word "being" instead of "soul", and this book does use the word "man" which I assume pro-fetus and Bible literalists will allow means "human" -- otherwise women are off the hook for all manner of sins, acts and admonitions. The salient fact in this passage is that when the human breathes via his/her nostrils, s/he becomes a "living being/soul". So as long as the fetus cannot sustain life independent of its host, it is not a "living being/soul".
2. The great fallacy in debating the legality of marriage, same-gender or otherwise, is that the whole concept has has been distorted over time so that it violates the First Amendment's separation of church and state. Marriage is a religious rite and should not be related to how a person is taxed or to her/his government-granted rights. What- or whoever any church wants to perform marriage ceremonies for should be up to that church. That, however, should not determine the taxes, employment opportunities/restrictions or any other government benefits or guaranteed rights individuals who have participated in that religious rite pay or are entitled to -- just as whether or not a person is baptized/christened, takes communion, pledges celibacy, or whatever should have no bearing on her/his rights as an American citizen. Civil unions should be the way for governments to go if they want to recognize/legalize specific living/conjugal arrangements.
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