Feed My Sheep…You’re Under Arrest!

You know, I can appreciate governmental desire to keep cities clean. It helps tax revenue by making the city more attractive to visitors. It helps keep costs low by reducing the work needed to straighten stuff up. But, at some point, the desire for a clean appearance and higher tax revenues tramples all over decent values and common sense. It’s the primary reason I consider myself a libertarian.

This article encapsulates the extreme idiocy our government is capable of. In short, the city of Orlando has a law on the books that makes it illegal to feed homeless people. Yup - you read that right. You can be arrested and thrown before the court if you hand a happy meal over to Homer, the crazy but likable Vietnam Vet living under the bridge.

So, in tried-and-true 1960’s protest fashion, a group of people decided to publicly mock the law by - GASP - feeding homeless people! Oh the horror! Sure enough, local government was not going to sit by while their constituents attempted to be more Christ-like. They arrested one of the chaps involved. And now he has to face a trial for his heinous actions against society.

Wait - what he did didn’t harm anybody. In fact, it helped some people. Oh, and what he did didn’t cost government anything. If anything, it saved government money. Oh yeah, what he did didn’t make the city any dirtier, but quite likely, made it cleaner (if not more satiated). Can someone out there explain to me what was inherently wrong with feeding the homeless?

The sad thing is, this law was very likely put forth and approved by a few Christians along the way. Statistically, the vast majority of policy makers in this country are “Christians”, so it stands to reason. I’m really trying to figure out how one resolves the conflict of making illegal one of Christ’s statements on what it means to love Him.  I’m wondering if the person who put this law together really believes that feeding the homeless is wrong and/or hurtful. On top of that, is this the kind of thing we want our underpaid police to be watching out for? Seriously - with everything else that goes on in the world, are we that concerned with a homeless person being given bread and soup?

These kind of laws scare me. They’re the ones that, as Christ followers, we need to break.

I’m left wondering what will be made illegal next…

This entry was posted on October 10, 2007 at 7:36 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.