{"id":532,"date":"2004-12-24T13:26:33","date_gmt":"2004-12-24T20:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/wp2\/uncategorized\/am-i-moral\/"},"modified":"2004-12-24T13:26:33","modified_gmt":"2004-12-24T20:26:33","slug":"am-i-moral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/letters-to-the-editor\/am-i-moral\/","title":{"rendered":"Am I Moral?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the election, 20% of voters indicated “moral values” (a very vague phrase) guided their choice. Though this is a small percentage, certainly smaller than the percentage that believe all people were created equal or that there should be a wall separating church and state, nonetheless, this small percentage has us all atwitter. My question to those with such certainty: am I moral?<\/p>\n

I have never killed, robbed or beaten anyone. If I have been cruel, I hope it was a long time ago. Am I moral?<\/p>\n

My moral superiors need no more time or information to judge me, but let me add something. I am a middle aged white straight male who has been loyal to his beloved wife for 23 years. I own a very small business. I vote and pay taxes. I am sometimes nice to strangers. Am I moral?<\/p>\n

I don’t mean to exaggerate, but my small circle of friends includes people not exactly like me: women, gays, some people of color, Republicans, young and old, church goers, Jews and gentiles. Am I moral?<\/p>\n

Finally, if there is still any doubt in anyone’s mind, let me stress: I don’t believe in god and the Bible guides me less than Aesop’s Fables. I joke that I’m an “antagnostic,” one who doubts there is a god but wouldn’t like him if there were one. For some of our fellow citizens, I might as well have just shown my cloven hooves and tail. And yet, without a church or spiritual leader, I’ve lead a moderate life that just doesn’t strike me as immoral or *not* guided by moral values. At least I am not working every day to compel others to think the same way I do or become second-class citizens. I’m not exploiting cultural divisions to consolidate power and warp this country into something the Founders would revolt against. THAT would be immoral. mjh<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Happy Holidays!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the election, 20% of voters indicated “moral values” (a very vague phrase) guided their choice. Though this is a small percentage, certainly smaller than the percentage that believe all people were created equal or that there should be a wall separating church and state, nonetheless, this small percentage has us all atwitter. My question … Continue reading Am I Moral?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-to-the-editor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}