Opus 2012-51, Shoud-a-Beens: Big Parade, Not Big Tent

Is the church judgmental and harsh?  It is a common complaint.  Usually it comes from people who need someone to be judgmental and harsh with them.  But that isn’t my focus in this post.  I want to take such accusations and look at politics.  We see the same demands in politics.  We have all heard about the idea of “the big tent.”  The idea is that we need people of many different opinions working together to build strength.  There is a certain bit of truth to that but I think that too often the people who want to make the tent bigger end up pulling it apart at the seams.

We don’t need so much a big tent as a big campground.  I worked in Sequoia National Park one summer in my foolish, young days.  At the time you had a wide choice of accommodations.  You could stay in anything from a full service hotel to the extreme of backpacking into the wilderness.  There was a lot of variety but one thing was necessary.  You had to want to be in the mountains.  If your thing was surfing, you were in the wrong place.

We could also put it another way:  We don’t need a big float as much as a big parade.  Not everyone will fit on one float.  Not every float has the same design.  At the same time, certain things are necessary to be part of the parade:  Be there at the right time, at the right place, follow the same route.  There are limitations on the size of the floats and laws of the land, such as bans on nudity.  Within those parameters there is room for an incredible amount of “diversity.”  We need to know what is necessary within those bounds. 

So what makes a political party?  What is necessary to be a Republican or a Democrat?  What are the key issues?  It is a question people don’t want to answer and both parties are worse for it.  If you believe abortion is wrong, why are you registered as a Democrat?  If you believe that a woman has the right to choose to end the life within her, why are you a Republican?  (Guess where I stand.)  Each party has clear, agreed on, documented positions on key issues.  There are also many areas of diversity. 

So let’s have a grand re-alignment.  If you are in favor of traditional marriage, the right to bear arms, limited government then join the Republicans.  If you think abortion is always acceptable, that we are the world’s biggest bully, and that we need open borders, then switch to the Democratic Party.

There, that wasn’t so hard was it?

homo unius libri