Manhattan Manifesto

I’m frustrated and angry.  At people I love and care about.  I don’t like being this frustrated and angry.  I don’t like being upset like this.  The Manhattan Declaration upsets me so incredibly much.  How can people be so close-minded and so ignorant?

The Manhattan Declaration is a manifesto written by various denominations of the Christian religion.  It has three main point, lifted below right from their website.

SANCTITY OF LIFE A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable.

"Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child." ~ MOTHER TERESA, NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST, 1994

DIGNITY OF MARRIAGE The Union of one man and one woman.  Marriage is the first institution of human society – indeed it is the institution on which all other human institutions have their foundation.

"When the family collapses, it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale, the community itself is crippled." ~ LYNDON B. JOHNSON

FREEDOM OF RELIGION No one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will, nor should persons of faith be forbidden to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions.

"Religious freedom, an essential requirement of the dignity of every person, is a cornerstone of the structure of human rights, and for this reason, an irreplaceable factor in the good of individuals and of the whole of society as well as of the personal fulfillment of each individual." ~ POPE JOHN PAUL II

The first one I don’t want to get into terribly because its sticky wicket for me.  I believe that in a perfect world, abortions would be free, legal and available to everyone but no one would need one.  I believe that women have a right to make decisions about their own bodies free from government intervention (go ahead and ask if I think prostitution should be legal!).  Yet I also believe that life begins at conception.  It is due to that belief that I believe abortions are murder and murder is illegal.  Yet…  Its not that simple.  Like evidence gathered from a tainted warrant, my stance on abortion is way too centered on a Christian belief to convince me that non-Christians should be forced to follow it.  Still I believe in the sanctity of life – no abortions, no death penalty.

The second one angers me.  It angers me because one man plus one woman does not automatically equal dignified marriage.  Rather than restrict who can marry who, I’d rather restrict all marriage and all divorce.  Make it harder to get married, make it harder to get divorced – for everyone.  I cannot believe that the dignity of marriage is threatened by the gender of the parties.  I believe the dignity of marriage is threatened because its so easy to get married and divorced these days.  Its a commitment that far too many people take lightly.  Up the ante on the marriage overall.  This is a lifelong commitment.  This is not a ‘well, we’ll see how it goes’ kind of a thing.  (NOTE: Do not mistake me.  I do not support outlawing divorce.  Not one tiny bit.)  I don’t know how to enact that exactly though.  Should pre-marital counseling be a requirement for all marriages?  That in order to receive a marriage license, every couple must go through counseling? Who does that counseling?  Who approves that counseling?  I know for the Christian Church, it is a common practice.  Many pastors and ministers will not perform a wedding without pre-marital counseling.  I do not know about other religions.  And while I would support the theory of pre-marital counseling for everyone, the reality of it becomes complicated.  Who approves the counseling?  It cannot be a religion or church; it must be the government.  Well, what are the criteria?  Is it a class, with a test at the end?  Is it a psych evaluation?  Is that not just a step away from needing a credit or license to have children?  That just becomes no good.  Still, one man plus one woman does not equal a dignified marriage.

The last one is what I feel completely undermines the first two.  What does embracing a religion look like?  To follow its rules, among other things.  So how can I force people to embrace the rules and laws and statues of my religion?  I don’t believe homosexuality and abortions are part of God’s perfect world.  However, we don’t live in God’s perfect world.  We live in a fallen world.  All of us are twisted by sin and evil.  No one is exempt.  No one is free.  You know in a perfect world, people would never die.  Shall we attempt to outlaw death?  How exactly will that work?  So to me, its an incredibly hypocritical document.

And as a short aside – Those quotes are misleading and twisted.  They do more, in my mind, to support the argument against the original point.  Especially the Mother Theresa quote.  Now I don’t know the full context or true intentions of the speaker, so maybe I am twisting their original meaning myself.  But her quote makes me think of all the couples (homosexual and heterosexual) who are loving families and can provide a loving home to an unfortunate child.  There are so many children in our country and in the world who are without that.  There are so many children who are being raised by a single, heterosexual, UNFIT parent who would be better off in a loving home, no matter the sexual orientation of the parents.  The argument that children are better off with two parents is ridiculous.  Because then we should also be outlawing single parents.  There are single parents who are capable of taking care of their child(ren).  If the argument is that children must have two parents, then children of single parents should be taken away.  Now here’s an interesting twist.  Do I believe that children are better off with a mother and a father?  Yes.  Do I believe that children are better off in a loving home?  Yes. Are those two things always the same thing?  No.  Which is more important?  Are children better off with an abusive mother and an addict father who couldn’t care less about their offspring than they are with parents who love them and provide for them?

Now, play along with this scenario for a moment.  If today in the US, everyone stopped having abortions that would be over 3,000 more children born.  Every day.  That’s more than one million children a year brought into the world.  One million more children who need loving, stable homes.

So I don’t understand how people can sign that manifesto.  It just makes me mad.