Grand Rapids is fighting adult entertainment: "Grand Rapids- To avoid a free speech challenge, on Tuesday morning City Commissioner Rick Tormala suggested amending a proposed adult business ordinance to permit nude dancing."
As I read this article from WZZM in GRR, I thought about one of my notes that I wrote while at Battlecry (Acquire the Fire). If you aren't familiar with Acquire the Fire or Teen Mania, I encourage you to click on their links. Anyway, they have been sponsoring events to wake up the current teenage generation to what they can do for Christ, because the statistics are showing that the number of Christians at current rates from this generation will translate to only 4% of the population when they become adults. This is the current percentage of "post-Christian" Europe.
However, what got me thinking about this is that they are asking the kids to demonstrate at city halls across the US on May 12 when the final Battlecry event, for the year, takes place in Philadelphia. I remember my thoughts as we watched the video from the demonstration in San Francisco when people hurled insults at the kids who were doing nothing, but praying and holding signs that said, "Show us Godly relationships." This is meant more for the TV and movie industry, because they show mostly sex with no consequences and call it "love."
Here is what is going on in my beloved Grand Rapids (I love northern Michigan too, but I grew up outside of the Furniture City). There is a proposed city ordinance that will keep nude dancing out of the downtown area. One of the commissioners is going to propose a compromised ordinance so that the city won't get into a freedom speech court case. The rest of the city council is expected to approve the no nude dancing ordinance and rely on the money that a group has raised to defend the law.
Anyway, I began to ponder the question when are your "rights," nothing more than selfish desires that impinge on others rights to not view or be tempted. We can all say turn it off or don't go in, but when there is that temptation in full view of the public and kids, in a pretty much family friendly area of downtown GRR, is that not impinging on the freedom of speech to not view those things? Just wondering...
Update: Grand Rapids has passed the ordinance prohibiting nude dancing establishments in downtown. Now we need to defend it.
2 comments:
So you find people dancing nude in private buildings to be offensive? Okay. Let's say that there are people who find Christian worship offensive. It is okay for them to use government power to shut down such worship?
Once you establish that the purpose of government is to regulate the actions of consenting adults in private, what boundary is there between "offensive" behaviors?
I don't have problem with people dancing nude in private buildings. I have a problem with where the building will be located, which is the midst of a relatively "Family friendly zone." in the downtown area.
Zoning (and this is what this ordinace is trying to codify) is about regulating where certain businesses can go without causing a problem with the neighboring residents, be they other businesses or people's homes. I know that dancing business owners are trying to capitalize on being in the proximity to the arena to bring in more business, but what do you tell your kids when you have to walk past a "gentlemen's club" on the way to see say, "Disney on Ice," when they ask what do they do in there daddy? Not to mention the seeds that it plants in their minds if they know and it looks glamorous.
I continue to ponder the question when are your rights nothing more than selfish desires that impinge on my or my family's rights to not view or be tempted by them because, I don't want to deprive someone of their rights, no matter what they do behind closed doors. However, while we don't view the act, we do view the building, and unless it is nondescript, then people know what it is and what is going on. Also when do we become complicit in someone's sin when are we become enablers to the sin by allowing the business into the area? Am I causing my brother or sister to stumble, because I didn't speak out?
To me, there is a tension between allowing someone to choose to sin and enabling them to sin. I guess, I would prefer to err on the side of, "do we really need to have this here?"
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