Billoblog ®

A number of excellent articles have been written over the years about the two great excuses statists use to destroy liberty: security and health. Traditionally, those on the right destroy liberty by invoking security and those on the left do so invoking health. Now the Christian right has, regrettably decided to play both sides of the game. Overlawyered (via Instapundit) provides an example of a group in the Christian right trying to use science to justify censorship by discovering “erotoxins” produced by erotic material.

Please. As a physician, I hold the use of health care as a method of abrogating rights as frightening (and way to pervasive in the US). The drive to regulate lifestyle in the name of health is one of the greater threats to our freedoms. But as a Christian, I am appalled when people attempt to justify their dogma in terms of science and then use that as a basis for coercion.

If the proper place of the Christian is to oppose pornography, then the moral arguments should be clear. And we should stick to persuasion and personal transformation to affect the choices people voluntarily make. If the Spirit will lead Christians to eschew pornography, then we should get people to listen to the Spirit — not use bad science and the point of a gun to do it. When we sink to that level we are no different than the fanatics blowing up buildings in the name of Allah.