I guess I have many views that would align me with the Libertarian Party. As I have written in this space before, I don’t much care what your lifestyle is as long as you don’t shove it in my face and demand that I accept it as normal. That said, if you have male genitalia, you should use the men’s room even if you look in the mirror and see Lady Gaga. The ladies room is for those equipped as a female even if they look like The Incredible Hulk. Additionally, in my mind, the abortion decision should be left up to the woman, her physician, her family and the sperm donor. No government at any level should interfere or intercede in that decision-making process. Government screws up just about everything. See Care, Obama. Government spawned politics and politics is a mean business. Its close counterpart, gossip, is a cruel derivative of human nature. Nowhere are politics and gossip more viciously intertwined than within churches at odds. Imagine then the current state of affairs at the First Baptist Church of Gainesville – a huge congregation that counts among its members Governor Nathan Deal. That would be the same Gov. Deal who, amid much hue and cry last week, vetoed the so called Religious Freedom Restoration Act the state legislature had just spent an entire session wrangling over. Supposedly the bill would have protected from legal action ministers who refuse to perform gay marriages, bakers who refuse to bake wedding cakes for gay couples and religious schools who refuse to hire teachers not of the school’s religion of choice. I don’t understand why a couple would want a minister or baker who hated their lifestyle. I don’t know why a Muslim would want to teach at a Christian school or vice versa. Those in Georgia’s burgeoning film industry and many other business leaders told the governor straight up that his signature on the bill would be Georgia’s goodbye kiss to them. Weighing all the options, Gov. Deal probably made the right decision but I wonder how it went over at First Baptist of Gainesville. That would be the same First Baptist of Gainesville that was recently named in a lawsuit by a man who alleged he was molested 30 years ago by the scout leader of a troop associated with the church. The leader, though he admitted the molestation and others to church and scout leaders, became a deacon at FBC Gainesville and remains a member to this day. The lawsuit alleges the church covered up for its scout leader – an action tantamount to condoning the assaults, according to the plaintiff. That is one convoluted legal issue for a church to deal with, particularly the home church of a governor fresh off a highly controversial veto. I expect the church halls are slap full of gossip and political bickering. Ah, to be a fly on the wall. Walter Geiger is the editor and publisher of The Herald Gazette and Pike County Journal Reporter. He may be contacted by email at news@barnesville.com or by calling 770.358.NEWS.
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