Just Do Right:

I serve on the Planning Commission in the small city where I live. One of the tasks we have been working on for the last few months is to come up with some recommendations for controlling "nuisance vehicles"--commercial trucks parked in residential areas, too many cars, trailers, and trucks parked on a small lot, inoperative vehicles, etc..
As I sat there last night listening to the discussion I thought about the mess that President Obama recently stepped into. Some Muslims--the some being a group with the resources to actually do it--want to build a mosque basically on the site where the twin towers were destroyed by a terrorist attack motivated by sect of Islam. The President is trying to thread a needle in the midst of a storm. (Why he chose to take thread and needle in hand is beyond me.) Those creating the public relations/political storm can't even agree which end of the needle has the hole.
Should people have the freedom to worship according to their conscience? Certainly. In the same way, on a much smaller level, people should have the right to control their own property. I don't like the idea of telling my neighbor how many or what kind of car or truck he can have.
Should the Muslims build a place of Islamic worship on the spot leveled by the attack of Islamic extremists, or should I use my property, and the public areas adjacent to it, in such a way that it becomes a nuisance to my neighbors? Absolutely not.
The struggle has to do with the stress between should and can. Another version of the dilemma has to do with the despicable Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist "church." Should he interrupt the funerals of fallen service women/men? I can't say "No!" loud enough. But trying to craft a law that will make him do what he should do without interfering with rights that we want to preserve is really tough.
Chuck Colson pointed out in a recent article that ours used to be an honor culture. People would do what is right without being forced to do so.
No more. Stay tuned.
It's STTA.