Different Sides of an Issue

Do you ever think about an issue and consider both sides of it and start to question your ability to determine right from wrong?

This happened to me yesterday (to be forthright, it happens a lot to me). I had watched a documentary on the AIDs epidemic and the involvement of a group called ACT UP.  This group represented people with AIDs in NYC that were trying to influence funding and research efforts for a cure for AIDs in the 1980s and 1990s, before any effective treatment was available. This just happened to be the time I entered the workforce. Even though I remember AIDs being a health concern without an effective treatment and some protesting to engage effort, I don’t remember some of the activity shown in the video.

This video showed the group protesting at FDA and NIH meeting and trying to engage presidential candidates to raise awareness, raise funding and influence prioritization of the effort by our medical research governmental agencies. So far, so good, right?  Then the video showed a Cardinal expressing that the Catholic Church was against condoms as being immoral (didn’t remember that but I’m not Catholic).  This group protested by disrupting services at the church and installed a tarp over the Cardinal’s house that was made to look like a condom (for sure don’t remember this).

I made the statement that while I was ok with protesting at government agency meetings, I thought disrupting a Catholic Mass was wrong and covering a priest’s home with a condom effigy was deplorable. The discussion then tended that the purpose of these shenanigans was to raise awareness, so what was deplorable about it?  Another person countered by suggesting the dividing line between appropriate and inappropriate protesting should be whether it was meant to add value to society or just cause a ruckus (closer to my beliefs). Another yet another person suggested that while activities like this would have been extremely controversial in the past, today we’ve seen so much it wouldn’t cause a stir (unfortunately probable true).  The more we talked, the more I started questioning the morality of my position and whether I should modify it.

I drifted towards thinking about contemporary protesters and their antics such as throwing soup on art in art museums (climate change) or blocking bridges on highways (Israel/Hamas situation) or even standing on a street corner with signs reading “God Hates Fags” (Westboro Baptist), the question that kept popping in my mind was where should a group draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate protesting?

“And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.” - Matthew 10:7-15 ESV

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” - 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

“You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.” - Galatians 5:7, 9-10

These passages turn the question upside down and look at it in a positive fashion of you doing what you can do to help others.  No where do I see anything suggesting negatively impacting others and, completely the opposite, I see suggestions to try to explain things and walk away if your audience doesn’t choose to hear. 

I’m the kind of person who, when confronted with visuals like the condom or soup thrown or traffic blocked or inflammatory signs, I diminish or dismiss the value of the protestor’s claim.  In fact, I can think of a few examples (such as the football kneeling actions of one Colin Kaepernick) where I’ve resolved to never to buy another product for the rest of my life from a company.  Just food for thought…