As I have said before, I don’t like to talk about religion on She’s Right, but sometimes it comes up. Religion is part of politics. And when people hear the word conservative these days, the word theocracy often follows.
The irony in that is that many conservative Christians (meaning that their beliefs about Christ are conservative, not that their politics are necessarily conservative) are politically libertarian, insofar as they do not want the social policies of the Religious Right.
I worried that I was the only one. That’s part of why I don’t get in to it here – I don’t want to totally alienate my conservative friends. Then the other day, I read a Freedom Works e-mail from Dick Armey, in which he said,
As a united conservative movement, we win when we defend traditional values against big government pretensions to impose its brand of “morality” on the American people. We lose when we attempt to use government power to impose our values on others.
This is 100% spot on.
The irony of ironies is that I only turned away from the social conservative agenda after I became a Christian.
I have always been opposed to abortion since I was 14 and I saw the boyfriend of one of my foster sisters crying because she had aborted their baby. I realized at that moment that abortion does involve the loss of a life – or at the very least, the loss of what could have been – and there is grieving, sadness, and pain that come along with it. I never saw it as a religious issue. I never saw it as an attempt to impose my morality on another person any more than any other crime would be.
Hey, a woman in my neighborhood threatened to beat me up the other day, which of course would have been against the law. But wait. Who am I to impose my morality on her. Just because I think problems should be worked out with words, doesn’t mean she does! Obviously, there is still some debate within our society as to whether or not this behavior is acceptable. Perhaps we are imposing our morality on others by making it against the law to assault people.
I’m joking, of course.
At any rate, since I became a Christian, which was only like two years ago, I realized what a dangerous threat to my freedom it is for any group to use the law to impose morality on another.
For one, it sets a dangerous precedent. Someday there could be a group of people like this in power, who think that people with conservative religious beliefs should be classified as having a psychological disorder and medicated accordingly. For my own sake, I would like to keep the First Amendment – protecting my free exercise of my religion – intact.
Another point, not all Christians are the same. You would be amazed at the level of difference even among evangelicals, or other groups that are supposedly the same. I was totally overwhelmed when I was trying to find a church that had the same views that I have.
I do not want someone else dictating what kind of Christian I should be anymore than a non-Christian would.
Dick Armey frames the issue very well,
We must avoid the temptation to use the power of government to perfect our society and its citizens. That is the same urge that drives the Left and the socialists, and I can assure you that every program or power we give government today in the name of our values can be turned against us when the day comes where a majority of Congress is hostile to us.
And he concludes,
Our movement must avoid the temptations of power and those who would twist the good intentions of Christian voters to support policies that undermine freedom and grow government. Freedom is what gives America its unique place in the world, and protecting and expanding our freedom is what creates the space necessary to keep our faith strong and growing.
So this is the other reason why I have become more libertarian-minded. I originally had included this in the “When Good Republicans Go Bad” post, but it just didn’t flow well. I’m glad I waited because the FreedomWorks e-mail gave me a good jumping-off point. Dick Armey really puts the whole issue into great perspective. I am trying to find a link to it, but so far, it is not on the website.
Update: It is now up on the FreedomWorks website. You can read the entire piece here.
