{"id":165,"date":"2013-01-12T23:00:20","date_gmt":"2013-01-13T06:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/?p=165"},"modified":"2015-07-22T23:06:24","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T05:06:24","slug":"colorados-governors-cultural-crusade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/2013\/01\/12\/colorados-governors-cultural-crusade\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado’s governor’s cultural crusade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Governor Hickenlooper used his State of the State address as a bully pulpit, throwing his weight behind same-sex civil unions according to 9News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moving from economical concerns to cultural and religious assertions, the governor declared that “government should treat all people equally. It is time to pass civil unions.”<\/p>\n

Why is this a religious assertion? It is based on one of two (or more) unproven assumptions:<\/p>\n

1. The Bible’s assertions about homosexuality are morally wrong.
\n2. The Bible’s assertions about homosexuality are irrelevant to Colorado.<\/p>\n

In either case, the governor has made a hidden religious assertion wrapped in the pious language of equality. In a society historically rooted in Christian ideas and laws, the question of Christianity’s moral relevance is always in the background in the culture debates.<\/p>\n

But why does he use the weight of his public office to promote such a divisive viewpoint? Here is the entire quote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“As we strive to make Colorado healthier, we believe in equal rights for all regardless of race, creed, gender or sexual orientation. We don\u2019t believe we should legislate what happens inside a church or place of worship, but government should treat all people equally. It\u2019s time to pass civil unions.”<\/p>\n

Note the opening (unproven) premise: “we believe in equal rights for all regardless of race, creed, gender or sexual orientation.” The mantra cry of “equality” is designed to disarm opponents.<\/p>\n

Upon what moral authority is “equal rights” to be asserted and used? That is the real question between those promoting such (undefined) “rights” and conservative Christians.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, what are the parameters of this assertion? Should we take Hickenlooper’s words at face value and include multiple-partner marriages? Or pedophilia civil unions?<\/p>\n

I do not believe (nor know) if he does import any and all versions of “civil unions” in his unqualified language, but, then, that is the point: unqualified language is a wax nose or an empty, labeled box with limitless content. This is especially the case when the mantra is repeated in sound-bytes through the pop culture and news casts.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake: Hickenlooper now pushes religious assertions under the guise of a cultural crusade. But now he has the moral obligation to spend more time detailing his reasoning instead of promoting trite phrases that only obscure the real issues.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Governor Hickenlooper used his State of the State address as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[17,22,23],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-society","tag-christianity","tag-marriage","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions\/167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}