Robert King for the Indianapolis Star has an article entitled Fueled by her convictions, discussing how Senator Miller’s political career has been informed by her religious beliefs. The combination produced something of a firestorm earlier this fall when Senator Miller put legislation up for consideration by the Health Finance Commission that would restrict availability of reproductive assistive technology to heterosexual married couples only. In other words, singles and homosexuals suffering from infertility problems would have to remain childless in Indiana.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Senator Miller. She’s very pleasant, and she’s extremely hard working. From what I could tell, during the session, she was the first legislator in and the last one out during the day. She actually reads the legislation for which she’s called upon to cast a vote. I have no idea of the particulars of Senator Miller’s religious convictions and how they influence her decision making, so I have to resort to generalities. I’m always concerned when people unquestioningly base their morality on their religious beliefs. To me that is abdicating your responsibility as a moral decision maker to make the decisions yourself. You can go to your religion for guidance and suggestions, but at the end of the day, it is your duty to use your ability to reason to make a rational decision as to what is right and what is wrong. Spend more time reading your Bible and thinking about it than listening to your preacher and saying what he says. If more Christians acted in this fashion, I think we’d not hear too much about “the gay agenda.” Because, frankly, the Bible says far more about the evils of wealth than it does about the evils of homosexuality.
Of Senator Miller, the article says:
In the Statehouse, Miller has succeeded not only in winning a ban on human cloning, but also in setting strict limits on stem-cell research. She has opposed gay marriages and partial-birth abortions. She has supported limits on where sexually oriented businesses can locate.
In the church, Miller has for eight years led the Confessing Movement, an Indianapolis-based group trying to pull the denomination away from more liberal interpretations of Scripture and back to its roots. Part of that has meant resisting forces that want the church to bless same-sex marriages and ordain gay clergy. In a United Methodist Church that has drifted to the left since the 1960s, her Confessing Movement has emerged as the denomination’s conservative conscience.
The article goes on to describe the Confessing Movement and the schism it is creating in the United Methodist Church over the issue of homosexuality.
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