Many things are condemned by the social witness policies of the Presbyterian Church (USA). However, the public outrage expressed by denominational leadership is overtly selective.
They have publicly threatened the Kentucky legislature with a statewide boycott if efforts to enforce federal laws related to illegal immigration are pursued. I find it strange that the same people who regard it as unseemly to withhold per-capita funds for reasons of conscience as a means of seeking to influence the denomination also regard it as appropriate to threaten the very state that grants the PCUSA economic exemptions for property taxes with an economic boycott. I imagine this puts our Moderator Cynthia Bolbach, who is an honorary Kentucky Colonel, in a difficult position.
The 2010 General Assembly took action to condemn the enforcement of federal laws by the state of Arizona to curb illegal immigration. Our denominational leaders are following through to advance that cause. However, they are not following through as vigorously on actions of the GA to condemn the defamatory use of the Lord’s name in broadcasting, nor earlier social witness policies related to child pornography or child sexual exploitation.
No outrage has been voiced and no similar boycott threatened against Viacom, MTV and all those who advertise during their new show Skins.
Are we more outraged over what might happen to undocumented illegal immigrants than we are outraged over what is happening right now to our children? Does child pornography, the sexual exploitation of children and the taking of the Lord’s name in vain not raise our ire? All of these are condemned by the social witness policy of the PCUSA and yet denominational leadership, which is vociferous in its outrage over immigration, is deafeningly silent about the broadcasting of child sex acts.
MTV’s new graphic teen sex show, Skins, features sexual promiscuity, illicit drug use and rampant profanity. Three million people watched the first episode target marketed over the past several months to our children. The actors are also teens as young as 15. The script calls for them to engage in frequent sex acts with a variety of partners. The legal description of that is “child pornography.”
I find it strange that the same people who are outraged over the societal forces that perpetuate generational poverty
are not equally outraged over legalized gambling. Why are we as a denomination not boycotting the 43 states that have a lottery, which is the most common form of legal gambling and widely acknowledged to prey on the poor? So, Presbyterians would be left to meet in Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. Remove from that list the states that allow other forms of gambling and we’re left only with Utah and Hawaii.
While we’re boycotting states based on our moral outrage, let us not neglect the issues of capital punishment and abortion. I find it strange that the same people who are offended by capital punishment are not equally outraged by the murder of innocent millions through abortion. Our social witness policy recognizes abortion as a grave moral sin, so why are we not boycotting every state where it is legal? (By the way, the death penalty is legal in Pennsylvania – the site of the PCUSA’s 2012 General Assembly. That state, along with Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Indiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, also is considering immigration laws similar to the one proposed in Kentucky.)
Where does that leave us? Of the states where gambling, prostitution and the death penalty are not legal, and state lawmakers aren’t threatening to enforce existing federal immigration laws, we’re left only with Hawaii.
Better beef up those travel budgets and let the Presbytery of the Pacific know we’re coming.
Selective outrage on social issues is not a very compelling witness for Jesus Christ.