Today I heard two stories that blow my little mind. First there was the artist that created "My Sweet Lord", an anatomically correct version of Jesus... just in time for Easter. The other was the man that sits quarantined in jail with a nearly untreatable strain of tuberculosis because he refused to wear a "germ" mask. Both stories cited free speech and personal civil rights as reasons for being in the controversial positions they find themselves in.
Let's take a look at each incident separately. The man that created the alleged "offensive sculpture" has a right to create anything that he wants to. This America not Iraq. So why are people freaking out over this so called sacrilege? If we view it morally, then there are lots of immoral statues and paintings on display in public places. How many high school students have not seen Michelangelo's David in class? If we view it as anti-Christian then we need to see where this artist is in terms of salvation. If he is a Christian, then the church needs to deal with him. If not, then we need to deal with it. Honestly, what makes a naked Jesus statue any different then any other naked statue? Nudity is nudity in my book. Why is it that the church takes public offense to a statue and there is little or no outcry over a million other things that really hurt people? I don't think this man is right, nor do I want this statue in public for personal reasons. However; we are not the judge or the jury.
What's the point? We have guns in our schools, we have a high rates of teenage suicide and pregnancies, drug and alcohol problems and myriad of of other sins right in the church. Where is the outcry over that? Where is the leadership on those issues? Are we condemning others while we stand by and watch people go to Hell for every other reason? Honestly!
Now, that case of this man who is supposedly "wrongly" quarantined. I don't get how his civil liberties should allow him to hurt other people. Ludicrous! My civil rights allow me to drive a car, but not on the sidewalk! Wear the mask, get some treatment and shut up... or sit in jail.
I think the deeper issue here is not really civil rights. No, it is a twisted version of freedom. Free speech gives us the right to say what we please, no matter how outlandish it may be. It doesn't even have to be true all the time. Civil rights afford us equal treatment under lawful circumstances. For example we have the right to come and go as we please as long as we are not infringing on the property of another. We should be able to be on equal footing when it comes to being served by government or business in the private sector. So how is it, that we have become so selfish as a society that a man with a deadly disease, one that refuses treatment gets to infect everyone else? That is ridiculous. And how selfish is it that we allow naked statues, when public nudity is illegal almost everywhere? The answer is this, we don't have a standard or code of ethics. If the Bible were a standard, there would be few debates over what is illegal and immoral. As a society we have adopted the attitude of I can do what feels good, right and moral to me. Morals like that change with the wind. Without a benchmark, we could easily make murder legal. Then who will be left?
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