New Stanek poll: Are you willing to commit acts of civil disobedience?
My new poll question comes via Priests for Life:
Are you willing to commit acts of civil disobedience in response to unjust laws?
We already know the Obama administration is trying to force those opposed to abortion based on their religious beliefs to buckle and fund it. The Christian owners of Hobby Lobby have already answered the poll question in the affirmative. Where do you stand?
Last week’s question was:
There is growing sentiment the term “pro-life” has become corrupted & absconded by the other side. Should we start using “anti-abortion”?
The overwhelming majority of you prefer “pro-life.” Here were your responses. Click to enlarge:
As always, make comments to either the previous or current poll here, not on the Poll Daddy website.
Jan.14, 2013 6:28 am |
Polls |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
If the government tried to force me to participate in or directly pay for an activity I found morally repugnant, I suppose I would be cool with civil disobedience. You gotta do what you gotta do. I would be sincerely unhappy if I went to jail and my ex got my kids though lol.
Absolutely!!
Yes, if the right situation came up.
I think the matter of civil-disobedience lies outside one’s comfort-zone. It need face an outrageous breech of law ie. an unjust law, and the nature of the civil dissent should make an impact ie. refusal to pay taxes.
Willing and able. My faith in Christ demands it.
I believe individuals are less likely to commit civil obedience today than they were 40 to 50 years ago. Remember, civil disobedience can result in possible jail time or fines. Too many people today, including devout Christians, may not be willing to risk jail time, especially if their financial situations or their jobs would be threatened. Also, people are more materialistic today than 40 or 50 years ago. Spending time in jail or prison is not a very fun thing to have to do. Few are “country clubs” like many in our society have been led to believe.
I am one of many pro-lifers who did “break the law” and got arrested many times. We blocked abortion mills’ doors with our bodies so abortive women could not enter. (Operation Rescue). It may come to that again. I would be willing if I previously considered all the ramifications of the particular situation.
Being arrested is one, very harsh form of civil disobedience. Perhaps we might list a few alternatives?
one very sunny day we thought picketing the sole building of doctors’ offices in our small town would be fine. We also decided on a very mild (but newsworthy) form of civil-disobedience. When the A-bomb hit Nagasaki, Japan it was so hot that only outlines of some people remained and reminded someone that SOMEONE DID EXIST HERE. So, our little troup (6-7 PL) marched and drew human outlines in colored chalk on the sidewalk. [Defacing public property IS AGAINST THE LAW, but is easily remedied with a wee bit of water or a rainfall. No police action was taken. We did (as hoped) get a spread in the local newspaper. In the USA you might consider a ‘weird’ salute when greeting your commander-in-chief. [The clenched-fist of the Black Brotherhood comes to mind.]
Why don’t you lose the euphemism here and phrase this question honestly: are you willing to break the law for the cause? It seems like most of this site’s readers are ready to take that step. I’ll remember to cite this poll the next time someone insists the “pro-life” movement is perfectly law-abiding.
I don’t like the fact that taxpayers money is used for religious activities. Particularly things like ‘pray away the gay’ programs.
But I don’t intend to undertake civil disobedience over it.
Part of a successful society is acknowledging the fact that people of disparate political, social and faith positions and beliefs all contribute to a pool of funds which are used for many things. Some we like, some we don’t. It’s how it is, it’s how it always was and how it always will be.
You do that Joanie.
And we’ll remind you when you pretend that the proabortion side is non violent.
This is a hard question for me because it’s not a yes/no answer. The Bible says we are to follow the laws of our governments as long as doing so does not directly cause you to disobey God. For instance first century Christians under Roman rule paid taxes which helped support the execution of Christians, they were required to give aid and shelter to Centurians who could be headed to crucify Christians and Jews as war criminals. They walked down streets filled with pagan temples where slaves were forced to work as prostitutes. However they refused to burn incense to Cesaer, as was law, even when the penalty for not obeying was death. Certainly from a worldly view giving aid to soliders or paying taxes or watching a slave raped on palace steps did more ‘harm’ than burning incense, but that’s the that.
On the other hand the highest law in the land, the Consitution, and the basis for our country, the Declaration of Independence, makes it our civic, citizen’s duty to protest laws we see as unjust and in fact the states (people) are called to ignore laws that are illegal on their face, which makes civil disobedience not only a right of American citizens, when other avenues have been explored, but even something of arguably a duty. The questions then become 1) as a Christian is the law asking me to directly violate God’s Word 2) as an American do I believe this law to be Constitutionally illegal and 3) have other avenues for change been exhausted? Those are very individual answers for each situation and can not be broadly answered. Yes, there *are* situations where I absolutely would be willing to commit civil disobedience, but I have not as of yet found myself presented with such a situation. Abortion is certainly horrendous, but I do not find lawful taxes (the key word there being ‘lawful’) going towards such a Biblical cause to disobey my lawful government, and given the recent spat of pro-life laws I would not say other avenues have been exhausted. However we have a right to protest and ‘bubble laws’ have been repeatedly found unconstitutional so if my city enacted such a law to curttail lawful protests, I would certainly find civil disobedience appropriate.
That all being said, just as I would never repudiate the Christians of the pre-civil war U.S. hiding escaped slaves and actively stealing away slaves from their ‘rightful’ owners, even when such actions were illegal, I would not repudiate anyone today who chooses *non-violent* civil disobedience, and that’s as true for causes I agree with, such as human chains blocking abortion access, as it is for causes I disagree with, such as human chains blocking logging access. Because I believe anyone who would take the extreme choice to participate in civil disobedience does believe there is no other way. BUT I also would expect them to stand up in court and plead guilty as charged when arrested.
I’d say no because I’m not in a position where I could afford the penalties or to possibly loose my job, but furthermore there are alternative, law abiding means to by which to further our cause.
In addition, committing acts of civil disobedience only furthers/perprates a negative public image and stereotype of us as crazed fanatics, an image which matters when appealing to the fence sitters & undecided.
I will NOT pay for someone else’s abortion!! I will not be forced to do anything that goes against my beliefs!!
If that makes me look like a crazed fanatic…..so be it.
This is not about image. If a fence sitter or someone who is undecided cannot google fetal development and embrace the scientific truth that life begins at conception I am not sure what my act of civil disobedience has to do with it.
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
-Thomas Jefferson
I am sure William Wilberforce stayed up late at night and fretted over his negative public image.
Can hardly believe just how huge the ‘opening’ Reality handed us. IMAGINED SCENARIO ::: gays a legally killable/eliminated. What will you do? Pay-your-taxes/go-to-jail/another-kind of civil-disobedience ….. or pay taxes as usual; be law abiding like usual (eh, joan)? And what if you knew your money paid for someone else to do the ‘dirty work’? Or will you just to yap and yap?
Carla, I don’t appreciate you distorting my argument. First of all, I pointed out there are law abiding peaceful means by which to argue for our rights & make our case, ie peaceful protests (with or without graphic imagery), our annual march, distribution of literature, sidewalk counseling, going through the courts & electing state state representatives and senators, etc. Second, public image is a side issue to all of this, but yet you’ve got to realize the undecided are influenced to a degree by the images and information they receive in the media and by how pro-choicers portray us. In other words, we don’t need to give more fuel to their fire. But I disagree. Maybe this will just have to be a point where we agree to disagree.
*I did not say we shouldn’t stand up for beliefs but rather we shouldn’t engage in civil disobedience when there are effective law abiding and peaceful alternatives.
But I disgress…maybe this will just have to be a point we agree to disagree on.
‘Effective’ protest often entails education in its broadest meaning Lacybug, but at times you must ‘bug’ and ‘bug’ and persist to ‘bug’ (and leave the ‘Lady’ part far behind!
Often people respond more to affrontery-to-image than to civil disobedience. A single finger means: ‘I’m #1 – a WINNER, yeah! {for the first digit when held aloft}. The second finger means …. F***-**F (or as Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada called it – fuddle-duddle).
What if all PL held up their hand sticking their baby-finger aloft? Just imagine the impact of 30,000 little fingers in the MARCH FOR LIFE. do you think the media will just ignore it?
We are not talking about law abiding peaceful means like the march for life or sidewalk counseling or handing out literature or voting for some prolife senator.
Hobby Lobby is engaged in civil disobedience right now. I stand with them. You CANNOT force individuals to go against their deeply held convictions and beliefs.
Participating in civil disobedience in response to unjust laws??
I say YES!!! Actually I say HE** YES!!
You say NO.
Duly noted.
DREAM —–>> IF ONLY there was a Pro-Life computer. Every single time you want direction or a ‘click’, instead of the ‘official-hand with the index finger-pointer; PL computers display a hand with-the-small-finger-‘up’ as their icon-of-choice.
Civil disobedience would have to occur under the most scrupulous standards. The main one is that the law being disobeyed must be inherently unjust. For instance, one may not protest the HHS mandate by breaking a trespass law that is itself wholly unrelated to the mandate. Of course a civil law that runs counter to God’s law cannot be obeyed. As Peter said to the Sanhedran, “we must obey God before man”.