Asking people to make real choices is unpopular. Ironically, when we know we can and should change, that’s when it gets rough.

However, you are right about this: you have every right to be wrong. I think both liberals and conservatives might agree about this. But until we begin to argue with a greater sense of humility about our own position we won’t get anywhere.

Actually, Hugo, it isn’t the Manhattan Declaration for Pelvic Morality, but the Manhattan Declaration for Christian Conscience–as a former Anabaptist, you should resonate with the desire to give Caesar what is Caesar’s, but reserve to God what is God’s–that is, Catholic hospitals and adoption agencies, the sanction of Church marriage, and the continuing upholding of life in a network of crisis pregnancy centres paid for by people of conscience.

The Catholic Diocese of Auckland opened one here not long ago. The Bishop rose at Mass and said “I don’t have the money for this. The Pope has asked us to help these pregnant women. I put the first thousand dollars into the offering plate, and I’m asking you to join me”

He got his money, and the Centre is now open.

Cheap?

Nope. Unpopular, brave and utterly correct.

I think Hugo was taking it for granted that most of the usual suspects on the politico-religous right in the US don’t spend a minute a week talking about the death penalty, or the hundreds of thousands of deaths we’ve caused in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. It’s disingenuous of you to pretend that this isn’t common knowledge.

I always find it hypocritical when I see Christians who have been divorced and now are on their 2nd or 3rd wives/husbands condemn Gays, Lesbian, Bisexuals, Trangenders or Liberated Women but at the same time live lives that based on the New Testement are Adulterous and in Sin.

Mark 10:11 And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.

Mark 10:12 And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.

Luke 16:18 Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.

@Rachel - It varies widely. It takes cohones to stand up in All Saints and be in favor of traditional marriage. It takes cohones to stand up at East Backwash Community Baptist Church in rural Virginia and be in favor of gay rights.

@davev - Hypocrisy does indeed greatly undermine the credibility of people taking moral stands. (There’s a reason I’m not a big crusader for sexual morality!) The amusing hypocrites are the ones who think that some other good act makes up for their own embrace of what they’d call evil in someone else.

@Jendi - Really? Well, I guess I can think of some non-courageous motivations that might cause someone to take up an unpopular position, but in general I think to stand against what is locally popular is almost always courageous, even if it’s wrong. Courage is a morally neutral virtue; suicide bombers going into orphanages show courage - just mixed in with some other things without even courage’s dubious moral pedigree.

The document is incomplete, but it is not “cheap” by any stretch of the imagination.

I don’t think that “sanctity of life” deals ONLY with abortion. What about our recent problems with torturing people and putting innocent people on death row???

Affirming the dignity of marriage means that some pastor shouldn’t have an affair with the church secretary even though he REALLY, REALLY wants to.

Conscience and religious liberty are part of what makes America great. I don’t think that JW kids should be forced to stand for the pledge and I don’t think that pacifists should be forced to blow people up.

The bothersome thing is hypocrisy. The devout conservative who rails against divorce, but cheats with married people is full of hypocrisy. So is the liberal co-worker who is shrill about the impending disaster of global warming, but drives a big SUV.