Echoes in Eternity

I was riding through southern Indiana this weekend and saw a billboard with this on it: "Secondhand Smoke = Child Abuse"

I wonder how many people actually believe that... unfortunately, I fear that the government's campaign to save people from themselves and limit all forms of freedom has brainwashed many to believe that the billboard is correct.

I'm of a rather different opinion. For one, the evidence that secondhand smoke has long term negative side effects is dubious, at best. Most studies have shown no clear connection to increased health risks (not that the government or media would ever tell you this). Secondly, if we start blurring the lines of what constitutes child abuse (just like the terms "rape" and "hate" have long lost much of their meaning), how long will it be before some busybody turns a parent in for buying their children candy, since candy is obviously not healthy and if abused can lead to poor health in the future? As Christians, we should fight for the freedom of our neighbors to do as they please as long as it truly doesn't do serious damage to another and always err on the side of their freedom to live as they choose and to parent as they see fit. Christians should not be about using the government to force by compulsion that which only Christ can win over by grace. THAT is what truly conservative Christians are about when they engage in politics: improving people's lives and protecting those who can't protect themselves. Conservative Christians are not about forcing the Bible on others, not about making people moral in deed while still immoral in spirit, not about foisting a theocracy onto unbelievers. The law never brings freedom; this is as true of human law as it is of God's law.

Theologian Martin Niemöller's famous poem might be appropriately modified here:

First they came for the smokers, and I did not speak out—because I did not smoke;
Then they came for the donut eaters, and I did not speak out—because I did not like donuts;
Then they came for the gun owners, and I did not speak out—because I did not own a gun;
Then they came for the parents of obese children, and I did not speak out—because my children were fit;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.