Educate, Don't Legislate - Rev. J.T. Smith

Americans need to start implementing some common sense rather than trying to legislate everyone else's lives based on their own beliefs.

If you don't like gay marriage, don't marry someone of the same gender.

Regarding the debate over abortion ("pro-life" vs "pro-choice"): In a recent Salon article, writer Irin Carmon said, "Abortion foes would like nothing less than to focus the debate on later abortions… because they make more people uncomfortable."  But what anti-choice zealots are refusing to recognize is that it's cruel to ban abortion at a time when most women get prenatal testing to find out about their own health and the health of their pregnancy.  It's callous to disregard the complicated circumstances that cannot be diagnosed until later in pregnancy.  And it's morally wrong to deny women the essential medical care that they may need.

For every woman who's gone to Planned Parenthood regarding a pregnancy (i.e. to determine if you are pregnant and/or what to do about it), you need to realize that what happened next was your choice.  There is neither accusation nor admonishment in that statement.  You made a choice based on the options given.  If you feel that the wrong choice was made, that means you have regrets; it does not mean Planned Parenthood forced you into anything.  Their job is to advise based on the information given to them by the patient.  Blaming them for a decision you now regret is not the right answer.  Taking away the ability of another person to make their own choices because you regret the one(s) you made isn't the right answer.  We all need to come to terms with the choices we've made in life.  The reality is that every choice and decision we ever made was done for the same basic reason: Because it seemed like a good idea at the time.  And making bad choices is, unfortunately, the best way for us to learn.  While, yes, it is better and less painful to learn from the mistakes of others, ultimately we cannot force others to "learn from our mistakes."  At the end of the day, everyone needs to learn from their own mistakes regardless of what we may think/believe.

If you don't agree with abortion (for whatever your personal reasons are), then don't have an abortion.  

If you want your children to learn about the Christian concept of God, take them to a Christian church.

If you don't like the personal choices that other people make for themselves, then don't make those choices for your own self.

Trying to create laws that restrict other people's personal decisions is the wrong way to go about doing things.  We need to educate people rather than legislate them!!

by Rev. J.T. Smith