When PC Endangers Children

There is never a shortage of examples of political correctness in Western society. And there is never a shortage of examples of how PC can be damaging and destructive of the very things we should really be caring about.

The way we treat various individuals, groups or lifestyles with kid gloves for fear of offending or marginalising them may seem like a noble intention. The idea is to create a more tolerant society. But good intentions can often lead to bad outcomes.

Effectively, political correctness has meant treating certain groups in a favoured manner, even if it means other groups are disadvantaged. Indeed, it often engenders even greater intolerance and ill will. As Jacques Barzun put it, “Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred.”

Thus muddle-headed notions of tolerance and getting along with others have meant a new strait-jacket has been imposed on us. Now we dare not speak our mind, for fear of being branded intolerant and insensitive. As another commentator remarked, it “causes us to lie silently instead of saying what we think.”

But sometimes speaking the truth is the most important thing we can do, even if it does offend somebody. Sometimes standing up for what is right is more important than being worried about hurting someone’s feelings.

A good example of all this can be seen in a recent episode of political correctness in the UK. It is simply one of the more recent examples of how PC harms instead of helps. Many thousands of other examples could be mentioned. But this one is sufficiently worrying that it deserves a separate hearing.

According to a report in the British Daily Telegraph (September 6, 2007), children as young as eight were sexually abused for years while in the care of two homosexuals. But a much-needed response was slow in coming because social workers were worried about being seen as homophobic. The opening paragraphs of the story read as follows:

“A council’s political correctness allowed a pair of homosexual foster parents to sexually abuse children in their care, a report has concluded. Managers and social workers were reluctant to investigate Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey for fear of being accused of prejudice. Instead, they were viewed as ‘trophy carers’ who, by virtue of their sexuality, had a ‘badge’ which made their actions less questionable.”

“A mother of eight-year-old twins raised concerns about them with social services after finding a photograph of one of the boys using the lavatory. But the authorities took no action, accepting that the two men had been ‘naive and silly’. In reality, they had been using the boys for sexual gratification within months of being approved as carers by the Labour-run Wakefield Metropolitan District Council.”

“Faunch, 42, and Wathey, 33, were jailed last year for a string of offences against four boys, aged eight and 14, at their home in Pontefract, West Yorks. The victims were among 18 children placed with the pair, Yorkshire’s first homosexual foster parents, between August 2003 and January 2005.”

Action was not taken sooner because of concerns about being seen as politically incorrect. An independent inquiry into the incident found that the “fear of being discriminatory led them to fail to discriminate between the appropriate and the abusive. These anxieties about discrimination have deep roots, we argue – in social work training, professional identity and organisational cultures, and the remedies for these go beyond the remit of any single council or inquiry report.”

As one social worker put it, “Everyone was saying, ‘Everything is not right, there is just something about them’. They were viewed as important foster carers, you didn’t want to be seen discriminating against a same-sex couple.”

This may be an extreme example of political correctness gone mad, but it is by no means unique. So frightened have we become of certain minority groups, that we will bend over backwards not to offend them, even if it means turning a blind eye to some clearly unacceptable behaviour.

The homosexual lobby in particular has become quite adept at bullying the rest of society into submission. And much of the mainstream media has been happy to comply. Indeed, it is very difficult to find any articles in much of the press today that dare to even suggest that the homosexual lobby might need to be challenged.

So successful have the homosexual activists been that a rigid censorship has taken hold of much of the press. When was the last time an article appeared critical of the homosexual movement in such papers as the Melbourne Age, the Canberra Times or the Sydney Morning Herald? Yet many hundreds of pro-gay articles would have appeared in these PC papers in recent years.

We seem to be far more interested in placating the militant homosexual lobby than we are in defending innocent children. Here in the Australian state of Victoria, homosexuals can also foster children. While most homosexuals do not abuse children, a significant number do.

One study of 4,340 adults found that about a third of those who reported having been molested were homosexually molested. And another study reported in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy found that homosexual paedophiles victimise far more children than do heterosexual paedophiles (150 to 20).

As a recent example of all this, the founder of an under-18 homosexual disco in Melbourne was recently charged with 11 counts of sexual assault involving a child under 16 years of age.

If there is a known risk to children, then measures should be taken to minimise that risk, not increase it. But in an age of political correctness, most Western governments are far too concerned about pandering to noisy minority groups than they are with putting the welfare of children first.

But as mentioned, when we grant special rights and privileges to certain groups, often it is the rest of society which suffers. That was certainly the case in the UK recently. And far too often it is the case elsewhere as well.

It is hoped that some sanity will one day soon return to the West, and that we will start putting the community good ahead of vacuous notions of tolerance; and that we start taking seriously the interests of children, rather than those of aggressive minority groups.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/06/nfoster106.xml

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24 Replies to “When PC Endangers Children”

  1. Thanks Bill. It is alarming, but sadly not all that surprising that these kids were allowed to suffer unnecessarily. The children should be put first.

    By the way, I have a problem with the phrase PC gone mad, because it is my belief that PC is in its nature mad. How can something that is mad by nature go mad?

    Matthew Mulvaney

  2. Thanks for this Bill. Christian charity encourages compassion and tolerance but not as absolutes in themselves. There is an overarching law that regulates the expression of love within the confines of truth and righteousness.

    PC is the world’s attempt to create a charitable outcome but without the constraints that true love operates within.
    Hence, as Matthew points out, it is mad, or perhaps a monstrosity.

    John Nelson

  3. Take note of the date of this article (2003), concerning Newham labour run council:
    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-7710095-details/New+social+worker+condemns+Hodge/article.do;jsessionid=dMnWGxfcP6RhrdyJcKhkw7XXDrQpZ3dBTJwFWhLpvT93t63V7sj7!71957603!-1407319226!7001!-1

    And yet this appears four years later, early in 2007, concerning the same council. In passing, the terrible hypocrisy of this Daily Mail web page is that, whilst denouncing paedophilia, it is glorifying heterosexual adultery. Keep your eyes steady.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=431917&in_page_id=1770

    You may have heard of Peter Tatchell in Australia. He is very much the accepted, international face of homosexuality in Britain, often appearing on the BBC Any Questions and Question Time programmes. Yet not many viewers and listeners would have gone to his web site Outrage to see the true face of this man: http://www.petertatchell.net/
    Especially note the article Age of Consent at the top of the list, on the left hand side of this page.

    Those who practice evil on a spectacular scale have the advantage over us because decent, law abiding folks, especially those who sit in the pews on Sunday morning don’t – understandably- want to go anywhere near sites like Outrage – let alone talk about such issues. Yet, like the good citizens of Auschwitz and Belson, maybe one day we will be forced to see what we as a society have condoned and encouraged – simply by remaining silent.

    All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing

    David Skinner, UK

  4. Without moral absolutes, this is all leading to one thing – anarchy. Yep, that’s right, I am calling the PC community, the homosexual community, the pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia community anarchists. It will not be too long before pedophilia and public sex will be tolerated and embraced. I sure hope the tide turns before that, but otherwise, it is the only logical conclusion.

    David Clay, Melbourne

  5. Bill,

    We’ve seen countless examples of molestation of children by Christian clergy over the last few decades, and cover-ups by the church hierarchies. The most recent example was a fundamentalist preacher who had sex with his daughters and claimed it was to educate them about how to be submissive Christian wives. His church continues to support him.

    You rail regularly against secular society as if unbelievers cause all the evil in the world. Surely you should also critically examine the scandals that have plagued the church.

    Steve Angelino, WA

  6. Thanks Steve

    Yes I fully expected a comment such as yours to appear. And it is a valid point indeed. As I have stated elsewhere on this site, Christian leaders who abuse children are doubly guilty. First, because child abuse is always wrong. And second, because people claiming to represent Jesus Christ should never engage in such activities.

    Nonetheless, a few points to bear in mind. As horrible and as often as these events may be in the church, they represent a tiny fraction of Christian clergy. The overwhelming majority of those who are leaders of Christ’s flock never have done, and never would do, such a thing. That tiny minority which does abuse children of course must be roundly condemned.

    But another point I tried to make in my article was this: a number of studies have found that although homosexuals make up a small fraction of the population (between one to two per cent), they account for a relatively large hunk of all child abuse cases. Thus they tend to be more guilty of this activity, proportionally speaking.

    But yes you are right, this should be condemned whenever it occurs. And no, I have never said secularists are the cause of all the misery and evil in the world.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  7. Thanks for an excellent article Bill. I have a theory on Political Correctness. Apart from the fact that these PCers want their own way in this world, I believe that the so-called “rules” of PC stem from the fact that these people have done away with adhering to the genuine 10 commandments, but don’t want to be seen to have no moral high ground, so they have substituted God’s 10 commandments, with their 10 commandments, centered around their ideology involving extreme positions on enviromental nonsense, feminism, race and many other matters, including speech. It has affected many people, who usually couldn’t be considered PC. The word “man” is now considered a swear word. Have you ever noticed a policeman being interviewed on TV about a crime He’s not prepared to refer to someone as a man. He calls them a “male person”. The fact that the extreme PCers adhere to the wrong set of ten commandments, is why they make so many mistakes in life- they lack basic wisdom or common sense, which in fact is not too common today.
    Frank Bellet, Petrie, Queensland

  8. So many good comments – Matthew Mulvaney and Frank Bellett. Funny how when you know the Lord Jesus He gives you seminal moments. I could take you back to the spot just off Bridge St Tamworth, where I was driving around 1982. The radio was on and John Tingle was making a comment. He stated that “if we give extra rights to any particular group in the community, we do it at the expense of others in the community”. This is so true. “Rights” are like market share – if you are increasing your market share, you are doing it at the expense of some other player.PC is mad. PCers have replaced God with another man-made orthodoxy. God bless you Bill.
    Ian Brearley

  9. Bernard Goldberg pointed out that “pedophile priests” are really gay priests (Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite). Tammy Bruce, herself a lesbian, pointed out the evils of homosexuals going into the priesthood and exploiting their position while opposing everything the priesthood is meant to stand for (The Death of Right and Wrong).
    Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane

  10. Steve Angelino, Since roughly a third of paedophilic crimes are committed by a certain percentage of the homosexual community who represent only 1-3% of the population, one can assume that if the homosexual community were to triple to around 3-9 %, there would be a minority group, amongst its ranks, who would be responsible for the lion’s share of paedophilia. But you have not stated where you stand with regard to this. Do you subscribe to the views of this political group?
    http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Dutch-paedophiles-want-consent-cut-to-12/2006/05/30/1148956347332.html

    Further, it may well be that secularist society is not responsible for “all the evils in the world”, but it certainly is not helping to stop the slide into moral anarchy. If we accept that secularism has come out of Darwinist humanism (which has given the orientation towards sodomy a scientific nomenclature, “homosexuality“, and thus the previously unrecognised status of being a genetically predetermined and separate species) it is responsible for those like paedophiles and the incestuous who are also claiming the same recognition.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,2022008,00.html and no doubt polyamory and polygamy:http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/301
    As a secularist, would you see these developments as progress towards a freer and more egalitarian society?

    I would agree with Frank Bellet about people not wanting to be seen as having no moral high ground. In prison, paedophiles are used by the other prisoners as a way of diverting attention from their own crimes: “At least we are not as bad as them” and the paedophile becomes the whipping boy, the scapegoats onto which to pour their hatred and guilt.

    Which causes me to return to Steve. In Romans 1, Paul says that the consequence of denying the existence of God is the behaviour that we see, precisely in 21st century society. With regard, Steve, to your reference “what about the fundamentalist preacher who had sex with his daughters, Paul goes onto to say in Romans, Chapter 2, talking about Christians, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” Christians are sinners but saved by grace. No Christian would be rash enough to claim that the day they became such they were suddenly transformed into perfect human beings. Till the day that we die will have to confront our old nature, except that now we have the power of the Holy Spirit and the promises of Jesus Christ to overcome one battle after another.
    David Skinner, UK

  11. Bill
    I’m so happy that you have finally presented numerical support for your claims. Please can you indicate the full citations of these two pieces of evidence that you have drawn to your readers attention:
    “One study of 4,340 adults found that about a third of those who reported having been molested were homosexually molested. And another study reported in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy found that homosexual paedophiles victimise far more children than do heterosexual paedophiles (150 to 20).”
    Thank you.
    Matt Page

  12. I can not believe that a homosexual couple were given the privledge of looking after foster children. Has the world gone completely mad? It is hard enough for a child emotionally to be put into care without devious adults taking advantage of these innocent souls. I have had a foster daughter in the past and she confided in me that in the foster homes that she had been put she was abused sexually by the carer’s sons at different times and I know the emotional pain and trauma she endured. A person never gets over abuse!
    Rae Wallace, Devonport, Tasmania

  13. Well done, Bill! There is certainly a tyranny in this ‘tolerance’. The fashionable view of tolerance is that we have to give up any claims to knowing the truth or that there are moral absolutes. ‘There is no such thing as truth.’ But if that is so, how can they know that this is true? ‘There are no moral absolutes.’ Except tolerance of course! These are arguments that suicide and they need to be exposed.
    Don Batten, Australia

  14. Thanks Matt

    But there is plenty more where that came from. Blogsites are not easily conducive to footnoting and proper referencing. There is so much data on this and related material that I need to put it all into book form. It is too much for short articles here.

    As to these references, the first is this: The Los Angeles Times, August 25-26, 1985, but I can hunt up the rest of the reference. And the second is this: Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, vol. 18, Spring,1992, pp. 34-43.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  15. The whole concept of “rights” is an illusion. I am willing to be corrected on this, but, I believe the term “rights” as used in western civilization from the time of the “enlightenment” onwards originated from such documents as the Magna Carta and then the English Bill of Rights. However, I believe its original meaning especially in the Magna Carta was more a case of What was “Right” for the Sovereign to do towards and for His subjects. An obligation to your fellow man if you will. It did not mean, especially given the Gospel based nature of English society at that time (See the Coronation Oath), that the Kings subjects had or owned intrinsic “rights” in the sense that the term is used today. Ultimately unregenerate man has no rights before a Holy God that he has offended. The king was recognized as his loyal servant, there to execute His justice. Outside of Christ we are paupers that own nothing and have no standing before God, especially not “rights” against a Holy and Sovereign God. Furthermore, when Jesus summarized the law in the 2 great commandments, Love the Lord your God and Love your neigbour, He put obligations upon us. He did not impart “rights” or privileges to us. Yes, as Christians we do have the priviledge to be able to come into Gods presence through prayer, etc, but this is not a “right”, not something that I own outright, it is a gracious concession from the Sovereign God, made possible by the atoning death and resurrection of His Son. We should be humbled by this, not proudly seizing and claiming our “rights” against one another. I think the best example of the damage that this misunderstanding has caused in modern western civilisation is the American Declaration of Independence. “All men …endowed with certain inalienable rights..”. Says who? I do not see this language in the God breathed Holy Scriptures. This declaration, this false law, is ultimately, largely responsible for for the majority of the vociferous minority “rights” groups today and there “political correctness”.

    Robert Phillips, Melton

  16. Bill, “political correctness” and “rights” go hand in hand, as political correctness is being used to establish ever expanding rights to the aggressive minority groups who are using them to suppress moral truths. In Victoria we have seen the passing of the vilification laws and the Human Rights Charter and in the pipeline there is a planned review of the Equal Opportunity Commission, which will inevitably give it teeth to start own-motion investigations and prosecutions.

    The aggressive minorities tout the new rights as inalienable rights. Nonsense! The very use of the word “inalienable” makes a mockery of the term. Each of these new rights is legislated and just as easily as they are created, they can also be repealed. In fact, the second stage of implementation of the Human Rights Charter in Victoria will only come into force on January 1 2008, and yet it is already scheduled for review to see if the rights need to be alterned or expanded. Hence, these rights are not attributed to a man by virtue that he is a man, but are merely the creation of society through the legislature and subsequently subject to the whim of the legislature. As social attitudes change (and consequently what is politically correct), so will the rights be changed (either by the legislature or through interpretation by the courts) to meet changing social attitudes. In other words, the so called inalienable rights are quite alienable.

    The only real rights are those founded on God’s truth. He created a natural order for the raising of children that the aggressive minorities show a complete distaste for. But the evidence against their rhetoric is mounting and they will not be able to avoid it forever. I am with you in hoping that one day soon sanity will return.

    Frank Norros

  17. I respectfully disagree from Robert Phillips. I believe the idea of rights is not an illusion. In my modest opinion the idea of basic human rights derives from the righteous character of our Creator. Since God loves justice and righteousness, law needs to protect the individual from all forms of political tyranny.

    Robert, I understand you might also be mixing two different categories of human ‘rights’.

    The first bills of rights in modern history were actually conceived by Christians who attempted to solve the problem of political tyranny. These are basic rights dealing with Lord Acton’s aphorism that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. A constant in the understanding of these rights is a preoccupation with the preservation of natural rights to life, liberty and property, ensuring the possibility of civil resistance against such tyranny.

    A new generation of rights, however, has appeared in more recent years. They cover ‘group rights’ and follow not biblical principles but rather the idea of ‘social evolution’. Naturally, these ‘group rights’ are of a distinct nature when compared with the basic rights revealed by the first modern charters of rights.

    In fact, sociology professor Alvin J. Schmidt points out: “Group rights that determine a person rights on the basis of belonging to a given ethnic or racial group, as presently advocated by multiculturalists and by affirmative action laws, nullify the rights of the individual. Group rights greatly reduce the freedom of the individual in that this rights stem only from the group; if he does not belong to the group, his rights are greatly curtailed… When group rights get the upper hand, gone are the ‘unalienable rights’ given to the individual by his Creator so admirably expressed in the American Declaration of Independence”.

    In the thirteenth century, Franciscan nominalists were the first philosophers to elaborate legal theories of God-given rights, as basic rights derived from a natural order sustained by God’s immutable laws of ‘right reason’.

    These medieval priests, who vehemently defended the papal primacy, nevertheless reminded their readers that ‘it is allowed to no one to act against natural law’. An imposing line of medieval Christian thinkers was that the political ruler is bound by the law, as he is a citizen exercising a governmental function and liable to be called to account for his deeds “as any subject who has broken the law”.

    The notion that law and basic human rights are inseparable comes from the fact that God has revealed his ‘higher law’ and, accordingly, this law must be placed above any governmental will. As such, liberty is found under the law of God, because, as the Holy Scriptures declares: ‘The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul’ (Psa19:7). This also means that everyone have the moral obligation to lawfully disobey any statutory provision that perverts God’s law, because the objective of civil government is to establish a godly order of justice and freedom.

    As for our British constitutional tradition, in declaring the equality of human souls in the sight of God, Christianity compelled the English King to recognize the supremacy of the divine law over his arbitrary will. The absolutist monarch inherited from Roman law was thereby counteracted and transformed into a monarch explicitly under the law.

    According to Charles Francis: “In England the Lord Chancellor played an important part in the development of common law rights. Those Chancellors were all Christians, and a number were ordained. Consequently the common law which evolved had a strong Christian basis. In passing it is interesting to note that even as late as 1932 in discussing the common law of negligence in England’s highest court Lord Atkin referred to the biblical question “Who is my neighbour?” He said in law the answer seems to be “persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions which are called into question”.

    In fact, the Christian faith provided to the people of England a status libertatis (state of liberty) which rested on the Christian presumption that God’s law always works for the good of society. With their conversion to Christianity, the kings of England would no longer possess an arbitrary power over the life and property of individuals, changing the basic laws of the kingdom at pleasure. Rather, they were told about God’s promise in the book Isaiah, to deal with civil authorities who enact unjust laws (Isaiah 10:1). In fact, the Bible contains many passages condemning the perversion of justice by them (Prov 17:15, 24:23; Exo 23:7; Deut 16:18; Hab 1:4; Isa 60:14; Lam 3:34).

    According to the English constitutionalist O.H. Philips:
    “Historically, the concept of the rule of law was, first used with reference to a belief in the existence of law possessing higher authority – whether divine or natural – than that o f the law promulgated by human rulers which imposed limits on their powers. It was probably in this sense that Aristotle expressed the view that “the rule of the law is preferable to that of any individual”. Bracton, writing in the thirteenth century adopted the theory generally held in the Middle Ages that the world was governed by law, human or divine; and that “the King himself ought not be subject to man but subject to God and to the law, because the law makes him king”. The same view is also expressed in the Year of Books of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Such superior law governed kings as well as subjects and set limits to the prerogative. On that ground Fortescue, in the middle of the fifteenth century, based his argument that there could be no taxation without the consent of Parliament”.

    And in explaining why the citizens of England had much more freedom than their French counterparts, Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) declared:
    ‘There is not land beneath the sun where there is an open Bible and a preached gospel, where a tyrant long can hold his place … Let the Bible be opened to be read by all men, and no tyrant can long rule in peace. England owes her freedom to the Bible; and France will never possess liberty, lasting and well-established, till she comes to reverence the gospel, which too long has rejected … The religion of Jesus makes men think, and to make men think is always dangerous to a despot’s power.’

    In saying so, however, I must necessarily add that Christianity is focused not just on rights but also on Biblically derived concepts of duties and responsibilities.

    In reality, the Biblical concept of justice has more to do with encouraging personal duties in protecting the weak, the poor, the widows, than it does with asking ‘rights’ from the government. This principle also reflects the democratic maturity of a free society, whereby the initiative (and creativity) of citizens is respected, and free from the excesses of government paternalism.

    Augusto Zimmermann

  18. I’m both shocked and not shocked at the same time. The new tolerance in today’s society is allowing the morally depraved to escape the consequences of their actions. When fear of reprisal is the motivator in remaining silent about the diabolical abuse of a child, something is very wrong. Politcal correctness is about relativism. The only thing that that seems to be an absolute in the majority world view today is that Christianity, or even more specifically, biblical meta-narative, is outdated and humankind has progressed beyond the Bible. Its apparently called being ‘enlightened’ – more like ‘endarkened’.

    It seems ‘the grey area is slowly disappearing and what will be left soon is only black and white’. Moral relativity is the precursor of much of the depravity we see happening in society. The Bible calls it lawlessness’. Any nation that divorces the Lord Jesus Christ and the absolute perfection and authority of the Bible in all matters will result in what we now are seeing. We need to kindle a passion in our churhes and homes so that when moral relativity arises we will stand and declare the truth unashamedly. Too many Christians that I know are silent about the moral terrorism that is taking place. We need to light the flame of truth!

    1 Peter 3:15-17 (ESV): ‘but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.’

    Vasko Kalapac

  19. Thank You Augusto Zimmerman,
    For your fullsome and edifying response. I concede that I may have overstated my position somewhat, in saying that “the concept of rights is an illusion”. I did not mean that people should not have access to Justice or be subject to Tyranny. My intent was get readers to realize that from a Christian perspective as we live our lives, always before God, we should realise that before God we cannot have any claims against Him. Also I was trying to illustrate, as I think you did better than I, that the emphasis should be placed on the obligation of the Christian and non Christian to treat his brother well because God has said he should, not so much because his brother insists on his “rights”. Gods Law applies equally to Christian and non Christian alike. I do not think we are that far apart and I found your response very good. Thank you for taking the time.

    God Bless, Robert Phillips

  20. Thank you Bill for the article and to others for their insights also.

    I do agree the concept of ‘Rights’ has been greatly abused. Obviously, as our society more and more denies the LORD as Creator, the rights become merely a social construct as determined by man instead of God.

    Unlike our eternal God, Man is fluid; here one day and gone the next, blown away like chaff. So are man-given ‘rights’.

    Jeremy Peet

  21. May I add my appreciation of Augusto Zimmerman’s scholarly and biblical post, which has thrown into even sharper relief the way the British government has appropriated God’s sovereignty by claiming that there is no greater moral conscience or authority than its own. One question to Augusto: Where can I buy a pair of Oliver Cromwell boots?
    David Skinner, UK

  22. Futher comments to Augusto Zimmerman,
    After a re-reading of your post I recognize better the distinction you are making between Individual & Group rights. You say: “When group rights get the upper hand, gone are the ‘unalienable rights’ given to the individual by his Creator so admirably expressed in the American Declaration of Independence”. Firstly, I was not and am not focusing on the distinction between group & individual rights, but “rights” versus obligations. The obligations are clearly spelt out in in the biblical record. The “rights” referred to in the declaration of independence are nowhere spelt out in the Bible, as such. Even the commandment to “fill the Earth & subdue it” is an obligation, but it is not a “right”. My point is simply that when people use the term “rights” today, whether in the context of Group or Individual rights, it creates in most peoples minds, the idea of something that the holder of that “right” owns or posseses. The individual is vaunted upwards, in effect challenging Gods primacy. God owns everything. Everything we have that we “own”, is really a form of usufruct from God. We actually individually and corporately, ultimately own nothing!!!
    Therefore, the modern day concept of “rights” creates a moral & social dynamic totally inverted from the Biblical Idea of personal & Group (Nation, Town, Association) obligations to carry out the Divine command. As it says in Michah 6:8, “But was does God require of you O man, but to do Justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God”.
    In executing this divine command no one should lay claim to individual or group ownership of “rights”. Furthermore, Groups are made up of individuals and therefore even claiming Group “rights” involves the glorification of the individual that belongs to that Group, as opposed to glorifying God, by carrying out his commands, as we are obliged to do.

    Robert Phillips.

  23. I find it extremely interesting in that Christians now complain abot PC. It has been a disease that has crept into our society over the last 40 to 50 years. Why? Simple, the silent majority has done just that, it has remained silent and allowed the noisy minority groups to take the freedoms that were enjoyed. We can sit and complain about the situation as long as we like, it will not help. The only real option is that the “silent majority” must establish a base core set of ethics and be prepared to stand and be counted. Am I angry, YES, for so long I have watched my rights being reduced and people’s attitudes changing until we have now reached a point where we suffer everything rather than standing. We have reached a point where we are too afraid to have an opinion because it is unfashionable. We are content to let the defenceless suffer because we may receive an antagonistic response.
    I give a lot of credit to the likes of Jim Wallace and the ACL, it’s great to see a group that are prepared to stand behind their beliefs.
    Jim Sturla

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