U-turn - 2 June 2009 |
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The San Diego County authorities have backed down – well, a bit. Having initially threatened to require a Pastor and his wife to apply for an expensive permit to allow them to hold Bible studies in their home, they’ve now apparently decided to hold fire until they can ‘[find] a solution to the matter’.
Was I being a bit harsh on San Diego County? After all, even if the State has no right to interfere in this case, there are of course some actions that Caesar ought to prohibit. And, moreover, merely attaching the slogan ‘religious’ to an action is not enough the establish that the State should keep its nose out. The ritual killings of young children that have been uncovered sporadically in the UK in recent years are murder, pure and simple; invoking ‘religion’ as an excuse, and then insisting that the State should not regulate religious expression, doesn’t get the murderers off the hook.
But this exposes the crucial underlying issue. At some point we have to decide what behaviours the State does have the right (and therefore the responsibility and authority) to prohibit, and what behaviours it does not. This in turn requires them to outline and justify the basis for the decision so made.
For more on that, you could do far worse than to look here.
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Current affairs, Minister's Blog