To be honest, I believe I did largely avoid legal discussions. I tried to engage it only b/c the people I am engaging were working with it. But primarily, the legal stuff is not my forte.

That said, I think there is still room for me to talk about protection of certain peoples. I don’t have to rely on government to do this. Though, it would certainly make life easier if Government cared about protecting the innocent.

Thank you for taking the time to understand my position. I deeply appreciate it.

Why stop at adultery? Why not lying to your parents? Cussing? Cheating on a test? Throw them all in jail for those sins committed!

Everyone has to answer the question, “Where do you draw the line?” Like Larry S said, unless your arguing for a theocracy (like theonomists do), then you cannot and should not criminalize every sin.

For me, the buck stops with crimes that violate the physical rights of another person. Murder, rape, assault, fraud, and theft are all crimes that violate the right of another person. The rest are non-violent sins and should not be prosecuted.

I just want to emphasize that regardless of what we think about our legislators and our laws, we should be about doing the hard work of persuading men to turn from their sins and embrace Christ. Leaving their sins voluntarily (instead of coercively under threat of imprisonment) speaks VOLUMES more about what God can do to change a man.

Per #1:

I agree.

Per #2:

I agree.

Per #3:

I agree.

Seriously, I DO agree with all of those statements. I’m not sure, if you ultimately do not care about the legal stuff, why you would say that everyone should be protected from hate crimes, but everything you just said I agree with.

If the government is not your concern, then you should probably distance yourself from legal language and stick to just the Christian virtues and principles you talked about in your last response to me. You made some good points in that last response that I think everyone here can benefit from.

I gotta say, at times it feels a bit wierd to be a Canadian Anabaptist (ie. trained and orientated towards biblical theology rather than systematics) to be reading / posting on a Southern Baptist site.

However, I learn from people who have different perspectives / backgrounds than my own.

Your link was helpful and deals with a matter which was heard before the a ‘Human Rights Tribunal.’ I’d want to do indepth research before engaging in debate about that particular incident.

However, I think it would be helpful to separate the ‘free speech’ issue from a Christians view of protecting people from violent acts motivated by hate (as per my #25 post). I’m not entirely thrilled with everything Human Rights Tribunals get involved in.

And by the way, does anybody else agree that Evangelical Christians have a history of hysteria in responding to issues and then looking a wee bit stupid?

If pressed I can come up with a few examples

Your thoughts were very helpful and right in line with my own.

I also appreciated the grace and gentleness with which you presented yourself.

Cheers.

I suppose you would be bewildered by any Christian who would support legistlation geared towards protecting blacks that type of activity.

thanks for the link Darius, i’ll take a look.

As opposed to your garden variety murder which is motivated by what, pure motives? This is such nonsense, it bewilders me that any Christian could possibly support it. The liberal intelligentsia has done quite the job on some people’s minds and hearts, to the point that they would even deny free speech in the name of “feelings.”

1. Darius in comment #10 makes some claims about Canadian legistlation. I’m wondering about the source of this information and how accurate it may be.

2. IMO, Evangelical Christians have the well earned reputation for reacting before they’ve done careful research.

3. Caveat; I have not read the US legislation mentioned in the Baptist article. I’m noticing posters appear to focus on the notion of ‘free speech.’ In other words a public speaker (pastor) saying somthing negative which incites someone else to do violence agianst a gay/lesbian person. [I would hope a thoughtful pastor, while speaking about his/her convictions, would also speak about the gay/lesbian person's right to life and safety.]

4. I did a bit of websearching about the July-16 US legislation noted in the Baptist article and found this news piece from someone named Welna (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106677813). Here’s a short quote: “The new law would expand the definition of a hate-crime to violence motivated by gender, sexual orientation, gender identification or disability. The House passed a version of the bill in April.”

In Canada I’ve seen ‘hate’ legislation used to protect minorities. Gay bashing (people out hunting gays) People of colour assaulted by people who say things like ‘we don’t like brown people.’

It seems to me that Christians should be concerned about protecting folks from ‘hate’ violence like this. IMO, its not good enough to say there are already laws on the books against assault. These are acts which because it can be proven in court are motivated by hate. By the way, proving motivation in criminal court is no easy matter.

5. George McDowell’s comments in #21 are puzzling. It sounds like he is arguing for Christian theocracy. In a pluralistic society made up of folk from different religons or no religon – how could that possibly be fair in a truly Christian way which allows for the freedom of a person to live by whatever belief system they choose? (more could be said about this, but my post is too long already).

blessings