Cross-post of my response to FB article post from Micah Sapienza:
Hmm...I think the author's heart is in the right place, but his thinking is very cloudy.
First he seems to be trying to rally a liberal constituency with language like "not just a symptom of conservatism or of the Deep South". The appeal is, essentially, "Hey now folks. We know that people with conservative values, including many believers and especially those SOBs down South, are ignorant hateful cretins, but *even* in bastions of progressive reasonableness, such as San Francisco and Berkeley, the homeless are being targeted!" (And really, is Atlanta, with a Democrat mayor, actually a ''conservative bulwark"?)
Second, he's running the same play that the Focus on the Family crowd gets lambasted for: Conflating America and The Church and then asserting that it's 'our' (America/The City on A Hill) moral responsibility to use the force of government to solve the dilemma at hand. Government does have a role to play, but it's not because it's a wing of the Church.
Lastly, the author paints a false view of the issue at hand in an attempt to stack the deck in favor of his argument. Unfortunately it only reinforces his own ignorance and lack of compassion. Regarding the former, the author's overly-simplistic piece ignores the complicated causes of homelessness, and therefore, the possibility of discussing real solutions. (If you want to pretend your cancer is a contagious viral infection, be my guest. But your prognosis is going to be very poor). Many homeless are that way because they choose to be. This is difficult for many of us to wrap our heads around, but it is the truth nonetheless, and needs to be factored into any solutions that are developed. Regarding compassion, some of the ordinances in question may be unfair or even unjust. But none of them seem to preclude one from taking in a homeless person. The great irony is that this idea - of compassion being dispensed through any mechanism other than a social welfare program - is completely foreign to those such as the author. “Well sure, I’ll volunteer down at the soup kitchen 4 days a week, or lobby for more government intervention, or even get by on a smaller salary to work for a foundation that ‘serves’ the homeless, but you surely don’t expect me to let any of those smelly urchins into *my* house!” No, in the minds of those like the author, compassion is something that must be dispensed by government agencies in our urban centers, just like Jesus did. Makes one wonder what the real agenda is.
