One of my favorite activities in my off time is running obstacle course races. Up to 10 miles of terrain, peppered with a variety of physical challenges — great fun, and one of the best workouts I know of.
Strange thing is, as daunting as some obstacles look, it’s often the little things that are the hardest. Like mud. And hills. Climbing or crawling up hills when your footing is bad is very draining. Often, the best thing is for people who have finished climbing to reach back down and give the people behind a hand.
Get that? The best way up a slippery slope is for people to reach down from their high ground and help.
I mention that because the slippery slope has been a source of huge outrage in the last few weeks. First, the Boulder County district attorney was unable to charge Dynel Lane with murder after she lured a pregnant woman to her home on March 18, stabbed her repeatedly with a knife and a piece of broken glass, and then cut the baby from her womb with the intent of raising it as her own. The baby, who was later named Aurora, died.
Got that? Aurora died in the course of the attempted murder of her mother and forced extraction. But that’s not murder. Because, in Colorado, Aurora is completely unprotected by the law. Three times, lawmakers have attempted to create legal protections for the unborn in violent situations, and three times, pro-abortion forces have defeated the measure because of the “slippery slope” that might lead to restrictions on legal abortions.
No, the real outrage, from the philosophical left and Ashton Kutcher, was reserved for the state of Indiana, which passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), following the lead of the federal government (1993) and 19 other states. And, regardless of the reality that 20 years of RFRA has neither led to sanctioned bigotry or regimes of separate accommodations, the intelligentsia lost its collective mind, had a rally, and threatened boycotts. Finally, the state relented, and modified the law to reinforce existing nondiscrimination policies; it remains to be seen if Alabama will follow their lead on that.
I wish RFRA’s weren’t necessary. I should think that “Congress shall make no law … prohibiting the Free Exercise” should cover it. But, as the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver last year shows, the state actually is able to tell Christians that they have to participate in ceremonies that they object to on religious grounds, among other government coercions.
Of course, the howls are about the slippery slope: the fear is that the ability to refuse to be a part of a gay wedding will lead to the refusal to provide a seat on the bus or a hoagie at the lunch counter. The problem is, to beat a metaphor to death, slippery slopes go down the other side of the hill, also: If a photographer can be forced to participate in a gay wedding, then how long will it be until the archbishop of Denver is forced to perform a gay wedding at the basilica?
My marriage is a sacred covenant between myself, my wife and God. It is sacred because I treat it as a sacred place, and the great triumph of my marriage (beyond the fact that a woman actually agreed to marry me) is that it has survived 20 years, precisely because we treat it as a sacred place. When the great triumph of your marriage is that the state forced somebody to be there against their will, then you’ll have to forgive me that I don’t treat your marriage as a sacred thing.
But maybe, just maybe, it would be better if we all came down from the high ground, and just gave each other a hand. Maybe we could find it in ourselves to recognize a murder for what it is, recognize our common humanity does not demand that we all agree, and just help each other get up the hill. Life is hard enough, don’tcha think?
Michael J. Alcorn (mjalcorn@ ) of Arvada is a public school teacher, fitness instructor and father of three.
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