Legislating Gluttony

I am always bothered by the imposition by some Christians of their beliefs and values on everyone around them by political means. Mostly, it bothers me because it seems to be selfish. For example, Christians may lobby against legalizing gay marriage, but gay marriage is of little or no consequence to them. It seems the underlying motivation for this is purism; they want nothing more than a "Christian nation" if there can be such a thing, meaning anything that is perceived as sin to them must go, or must be made illegal.

This is contrary to what the Bible has to say on the very issue of homosexuality. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 it says: "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” I think this is very clear that any of the above “sinners” (yet we are all still sinners), only limits themselves from entering the Kingdom, they don’t limit the Kingdom. And this is absent from the minds of many as they parade and protest, lobby, and vote. The sins of others are sins against themselves.

I am not one who believes you can legislate someone into salvation, how about you? If you make a person’s sins illegal, does it make them a non-sinner? Is a non-practicing homosexual not a homosexual? To make another point on that statement, wasn’t it Jesus who said that to even entertain the thought of committing adultery is the same sin as committing adultery? I'm trying to say that to ban a certain sin wouldn't get rid of the sin, dare I say, even if it went unpracticed on back streets and in dark rooms.

It also bothers me that these people are out there (defaming our good name mind you) judging for themselves which sins are worse than others. It always seems that homosexuality is the worst of all - the "triple X-rated sin" as my friend puts it. I could think of a million other sins to attack before homosexuality. In the Catholic tradition, there are the Seven Deadly Sins, which are: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.

How about legislating lust? How about pornography, which is a $10 Billion (yes billion!) industry in the US alone, and growing every year. Pornography not only works its black magic on those involved in its creation, but the end user also gains the potential for serious relationship problems (whether they have a relationship or not!).

How about legislating gluttony, which, as we all know, is an absolute epidemic in our society. Why not limit the marketing power of fast food companies? Why not restrict morbidly-sugared soft drink companies from gaining contracts with school districts? All these things are actually physically killing people – giving them diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc. There's a cause worth fighting for!

What about greed? Why doesn’t the Christian-Right lobby for restrictions on what you can own, or how much you can shop, or how late stores are open? It sounds ridiculous to us in our psycho-consumer society!

To all of the above, we can object and say, “It’s up to the individual person to make those choices! It comes down to your choice whether or not to be greedy or slothful or gluttonous or proud. The government shouldn’t interfere with that!” Well hello! How does that not apply to homosexuality? Who is it hurting? IMO, the above are worse and are actually destroying lives and bodies!

I would hate to live in a society where all wrongs were outlawed, quite frankly. There would be no real people, including myself. We would all walk around with a face on like nothing’s wrong and we didn’t do anything wrong, hoping no one catches on. In fact, that’s how people have lived for centuries in the church and under the reign of the church, or under the religious regimes of Israel (I’m speaking historically here), or under past and present Islamic regimes. In fact, in many of our present churches it’s the same; we all walk around like nothing is wrong, smile on our face. How horrendous to have no freedom of choice! How prideful of a government to take up the responsibility of legislating salvation.

I am so bothered by this; it turns people off of us, and could in fact be keeping people out of the church. How ironic – trying to legislate for the salvation of everyone is actually keeping people away from salvation. I guess our method is contrary to God's design (the same argument they use about homosexuality).