William F. Gavin on a recent ” dramatization of an ideological act of faith “:
There I was, watching yet another Law and Order re-run on TNT. In this episode a scientist claimed to have discovered a gene for homosexuality. During the second half of the show, the district attorneys had their usual strategy pow-wow. Executive Assistant District Attorney Michael Cutter suggested the murderer might be an angry homosexual, because if there is indeed a homosexual gene it could lead to abortions by “homophobic” parents.“That could lead to the elimination of an entire community,” D. A. Cutter said, obviously troubled.
I waited for one of the other characters to say something like: “But, Mike, that’s what abortion-on-demand does, eliminates communities. Hell, it eliminates whole populations. Gay, straight, male, female, black, white, whatever.”
Or, perhaps the resident Hot Babe Assistant D.A., a staple character on the show, could have said: “Mike, it’s a woman’s right to choose to kill her unborn child, even if she is a homophobic monster. We cannot make the choice for a gay-bashing, community-destroying, pre-life killing Nazi woman under those circumstances.”
But not a word was spoken by any character about Cutter’s concern. The highly educated, sophisticated, articulate, well-informed politically liberal characters — created by writers who share the same backgrounds and beliefs — went on trying to build a legal case, as if nothing odd had occurred.
We launched the First Things 2023 Year-End Campaign to keep articles like the one you just read free of charge to everyone.
Measured in dollars and cents, this doesn't make sense. But consider who is able to read First Things: pastors and priests, college students and professors, young professionals and families. Last year, we had more than three million unique readers on firstthings.com.
Informing and inspiring these people is why First Things doesn't only think in terms of dollars and cents. And it's why we urgently need your year-end support.
Will you give today?
