It Comes Back to "Hearts and Minds"


A regular columnist on the Christian site, Christian Post.com lamented that Christians have not been successful in convincing people that being gay, lesbian or trans is a sin. Instead, such folks are accepted more now than they ever have been in our U.S. history. His point was that civil laws against gay marriage, book banning and all the other silliness that has transpired has done nothing to change the course of the acceptance of diversity. Prohibition of alcohol did nothing to curb the desire of the public to buy it and prohibition was abandoned.

The link points out that full throated opposition to gay marriage probably gave a boost to legalizing it. 

Precisely the same point can be made about abortion. To those of us who have understood since day one abortion is something needed and those who need it will obtain it regardless of laws and religion, the idea of legal abortion bans have always seemed peculiar if not fool hardy. To eliminate abortion, it is imperative individual women be persuaded not to purchase abortion services or medicines. This has never been accomplished in the history of humans. The full throated opposition to abortion has increased abortion availability in some states like California.  Why is this so hard to understand?

The link author believes gender issues like homosexuality and trans are the result of persuasion of individual people by others who have this persuasion as a goal. He and others use the term "agenda." That is there exists an "agenda" by liberals to persuade others to change their sexual orientation or the gender they self-identify. 

This latter notion of an "agenda" is familiar to us because it is taught "Satan has an agenda." For some reason it is easy for some Christians to believe there is an actual invisible being called "Satan." It is even easier to attribute to this being every bad thought has occurred in their own minds. It seems to me that when the current Pope talks of a literal Satan he attributes to Satan what he himself is thinking.

Antia-abortion zealots could help themselves by pledging to adopt reality. Reality is women need abortions for various reasons. Passing laws against abortion does not change the reasons women need them. If the zealots want fewer abortions, they need to understand their tearful message, "It's a baby" means nothing to the woman with reason problems. Zealots need to solve the woman's problems. Maybe it is a bad man. Or, her other children need more attention. Or, she needs more money to raise another child. To eliminate, or even reduce, abortions the reason there are abortions need to be taken away. Passing anti-abortion laws does nothing about the woman's reasons to wanting one.

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