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The Things that Divide Us

In today's political climate you hear a lot about the evil of divisiveness. We need unity and change, not arguments and disagreements. Let's all hold hands and chant or something...*note sarcasm*

This theme of divisiveness has been used recently to attack the "religious right" who bring up those polarizing issues of abortion and "same-sex marriage." How dare they introduce legislation that makes people feel uncomfortable, bring up topics in conversation where people passionately disagree. That's not loving. That's not compassionate. This Sunday's Patriot-News featured an op-ed by the president of Messiah College talking about their forum they held with presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

"The Compassion Forum is an important step forward to broaden the religious-political dialogue. The time has come for people of faith to expand the dialogue beyond a few limited issues and include morally significant concerns such as the global AIDS epidemic, domestic and international poverty, climate change, abortion, genocide in Darfur, human rights and torture."

Mrs. Phipps said their forum was going to be hospitable and gracious, not hostile and divisive. Good deal. EXCEPT, do we really believe that abortion and homosexuality are the only issues people disagree on? Let's talk about each of these topics mentioned in the quote above:

• global AIDS epidemic-
  
• side one: throw money at the problem, give them condoms and comprehensive sex education.
  
• side two: abstinence education, encouraging strong families. Very divisive. We have had debate on this very issue in Congress within the past few weeks.
• domestic and international poverty-
  
• side one: forgive all international debt and add more welfare programs and free handouts for poor Americans.
  
• side two: support beginning democracies and good money management, and domestically, focus on incentives to work and get out of poverty. Another passionate debate in the U.S.
• climate change-
  
• Wait, there are two sides to this issue? I thought we all agreed on this. Yeah, we don't. There are a large number of scientists who disagree with the whole global warming scare. This issue is so divisive that the pro-side chooses to act like the other side doesn't even exist!
• genocide in Darfur- I actually don't know two sides to this one, but I am sure there are.
• human rights-
  
• side one: right to abortion and right to marry anyone you want.
  
• side two: not everything is a right. Yikes, they kind of stumbled into very divisive waters here including the ones they wanted to avoid...(note: I was not at the forum so I don't know what this topic covered).
• torture-
  
• side one: waterboarding is evil.
  
• side two: we love Jack Bauer and waterboarding is A-ok. Pretty divisive. Did you see the protests in DC?

Why did I point all this out? Just to show you, my readers, that almost every issue is divisive. It's not a bad word. Yes, we should be polite and hospitable, but that doesn't mean not disagreeing and never telling someone that they are wrong. It's called public discourse. When people complain about divisiveness, it means they want you to just shut up and go along with what they think. Don't let them bully you.

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