However, apart from violations of the law, we in the United States have agreed in principle to put up with religious-type people who engage in missionary work and try to persuade us to join them in their forms of religious conviction and practice.
But shouldn't we in the United States allow the opposite to freedom of religion namely, freedom to criticize religion and religious beliefs and practices? After all, isn't turn-about fair play?
In a similar way, shouldn't Christians who want to act out their Christian missionary zeal, as Pope Benedict wants to, expect that they may be met not just by passive and polite resistance, but also by active and zealous opposition and criticism? After all, isn't turn-about fair play?
For example, doesn't non-violent Christian antiabortion aggression invite non-violent aggression from those of us who disagree with their opposition to legalized abortion in the first trimester? Isn't turn-about fair play?
Moreover, if non-violent Christian antiabortion aggression supposedly grows out of supposedly Christian principles, doesn't non-violent Christian antiabortion aggression throw open the entire thought edifice of Christianity itself for opposition and criticism?
According to Meichtry's story, the pope quoted Peter the Apostle on the "need to obey God instead of men."
I would urge Roman Catholics to stop obeying the men in the Vatican, including Pope Benedict XVI. The men in the Vatican, including the pope, are not God. Moreover, the men in the Vatican, including the pope, do not have a monopoly on reasonable and defensible moral reasoning about abortion in the first trimester.
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