This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Letting the children down

On Feb. 23, the Georgia state Senate passed a Religious Liberty Bill that grants adoption agencies autonomy to refuse services to LGBTQ couples wishing to adopt, despite the roughly 14,000 children in the Georgia foster care system. Republican politicians claimed they were tired of failing the children, yet fail to realize the value of a loving family, traditional or not. This moral absolutism will leave children stranded in poorly funded foster care homes, while there are LGBTQ couples that meet all requirements to adopt and raise a child, yet their sexual orientation prevents them from doing so.

Not only is this overtly discriminatory, but it also fails the 14,000 children that are in need of permanent loving parents. Regardless of whether a politician believes the bill is discriminatory or not, corporations such as Amazon wishing to establish themselves in Georgia are often turned away by any bill touting religious freedom, liberty, or autonomy. Passage of such laws is never well received on a national level as progressive companies now have global reputations to uphold and do not wish to associate themselves with such backward practices.

As a current Mercer student, I hope Nathan Deal, a former Mercerian upholds the values of his alma mater and vetoes this discriminatory bill as he has done before.

A bad look for Georgia

How can Georgia be so lucky to have a legislature and lieutenant governor who favor the NRA over Delta Airlines. I love my guns too, and at times when I fly Delta, I have my problems with them but Casey Cagle will not get my vote and it is not good for Georgia to get this kind of notoriety.

Do your duty to stop the madness

I am screaming to my elected officials: Tell me this: How many more? How many more days do I have to continue fearing my life? How many more children have to die? How many more times do I have to watch my friends and family be buried due to gun violence? What more can I do than to beg you to stop allowing my friends and family to be murdered, or that everyday I watch the news I have to watch another school face gun threats, shots fired, or worse, the murder of their classmates.

Do you know what it's like to fear your life just because you're at school? Do you know what it's like to watch the representatives, that you had no choice in choosing, sit back and say there is nothing more they can do other than provide their thoughts and prayers? Meanwhile, my representatives are being fed by the National Rifle Association, and living a guilt-free life. I don't mind if you want to fight for the right to bear arms. According to Politico, roughly 2 out of 3 Americans support stricter gun control. What more can I do other than beg you to hear me out that my life can offer so much more for the world than a gun can?

Please answer that question: What more can I do to get you to listen? I am who you're supposed to be representing.

The real path

A few weeks ago, Dr. Cummings wrote a column implying we are saved by works. For anyone who wants a quick summary of the topic, focus on the prepositions in Ephesians 2:8-10: by grace, through faith, unto good works. Works are a fruit, not the root, of salvation. If we can save ourselves, Christ died in vain (Galatians 2:21).

Carrying King’s work forward

Thank you, Sonny Harmon, for your column on Feb. 28, which paid tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Your memories of that fateful day in April 1968 run almost parallel with mine. I, too, heard the news of the assassination in my university days, as a grad student at Duke, where the memorial service featured a classmate of mine, Connie Jackson (now Carter — the late Maynard’s sister), sang King’s favorite hymn, “Precious Lord.” I, too, had attended all-white public schools up until college, and like you I never marched in the civil rights movement.

But about 14 years ago, God got my attention with a dream about Beloved Community, and it changed my life dramatically. Since 2005, I’ve been involved in racial reconciliation work through Mercer’s annual Building the Beloved Community Symposium. I’m pleased that you call for “more churches inviting churches of different colors to their worship services and picnics.” I can amen that. In fact, our Beloved Community work has organized a network of Paired Clergy in which just that is happening. Black and white churches and clergy in Macon are meeting together for worship, fellowship, conversations on race, and service projects in the community.

I hope any clergy interested in our group will log onto our webpage http://community.mercer.edu/beloved/paired-clergy-network/ and find out how to join.

Ignoring other problems

I have comments and questions for the young people so correctly upset over the senseless shooting of school children in Florida.

Have I missed your outrage over the despicable carnage and human garbage depicted by Hollywood in their productions which most older adults avoid, yet they receive such wealth for these perpetrators of filth productions. From whence does it come?

Why aren’t you “up in arms,” no pun intended, about the near universal push by some for the legalization of recreational “pot” while most authorities agree that the opiate epidemic in America is the cause of one of our greatest loss of life, with the young a significant number. (Are you not aware of the health consequences of addictive tobacco to the two prior generations , one mine, but I refused to participate?)

Consider the “Parable of the Index Finger” — pointing at a perceived or actual cause of a complex problem. The person/group pointing by index finger with three other fingers pointing at a very partially guilty part, “us.” As Pogo once said, we have met the enemy, and he is us. Something must be done. Histrionics may make you feel good, but results are what we need.

This story was originally published March 6, 2018 at 9:00 AM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, March 6, 2018."