Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Are any evangelicals concerned about what is going on in Uganda?

Elizabeth Kaeton (h/t to Mark Harris) observes that while Rome's solution to homosexuality troubles in the Anglican Communion is to offer a form of refuge to conservatives willing to accept the RC doctrine, Uganda's response to being troubled by homosexuality is to propose a law which permits the death penalty for homosexual behaviour. She goes on to observe that there is a resounding thunderclap of complete silence from Lambeth Palace etc. But, oddly, she makes a mistake in declaring that Rick Warren has written a published statement against the proposed bill. The link she gives takes the reader to a blog which reports that an organisation has drafted a letter which they are asking Rick Warren to sign! (I cannot see anything on Rick Warren's own site which indicate he has published such a statement whether drafted for him or anyone else).

Thus the question remains, will Christians, conservative, liberal and in between, speak, write, blog against Uganda's parliament passing a law leading to executions for homosexuals (to just name its most draconian part)?

In my view, no matter what we think about sexual behaviour, the worst penalties of the state should only apply for violent crimes against people not consenting to be victims (and there will always be debates about whether the death penalty should ever be applied to any crime).

It is difficult to conceive of any reason why the state (any state) should penalise sexual behaviour between consenting adults.

Uganda: stop now, and withdraw this law!

Evangelicals speak up about this ...

UPDATE: I note a Fulcrum thread on this topic here.

1 comment:

Kurt said...

The silence of Church leaders in the west speaks volumes.

Kurt
Brooklyn, NY