The Gorilla Had to Go because it's not about Justice

The prosecutor’s office is meeting with police to do something about the loss of Harambe, the gorilla who was killed by officials at the Cincinnati Zoo.  What, precisely, the prosecutor and police plan on doing isn’t exactly clear.  But, by golly, there has to be “justice.”

I wasn’t there and neither were 99.999999999999 percent of the people who are so “outraged” at the gorilla’s death.  So let’s get some perspective here.

First, only the Mom and maybe one or two other people actually know how the little boy got away from her.  Stop just assuming.  You don’t, in fact, know what happened because you weren’t there.

Second, this was a gorilla.  As the Judge in the Tommy the Chimp case said, "Needless to say, unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their action." (see my post here).   Just insert gorillas where it says chimpanzees.  No, there is no “justice” for gorillas because they’re ANIMALS.  That doesn’t mean the gorilla “deserved” to die, any more than a dog that bites a kid and is put to sleep “deserves” to die.  Animals deserve neither life nor death because they aren’t moral actors.  Gorillas don’t ponder the consequences of their actions – Harambe wasn’t wondering whether he should drag the boy around when he did it; he just did what gorillas do.  No one who is rational is blaming the gorilla but no one who is rational ought to believe Harambe was anything other than an animal.

Third, how is it that so many secular thinking people believe animals “ought” to have some sort of special “rights?”  I’m not talking about humans acting as good stewards of the planet because that’s a given.  I’m talking about the Tommy the Chimp kind of rights – the notion that somehow merely by existing animals obtain rights.  How is this possible?  If gorillas and chimps get rights, what about lower forms?  Do rats have rights?  What about spiders?  How about bacteria?  Where does the ‘right’ to “rights” end or does it?  Let’s face it people, if there is no God and we’re the sole arbiters of right and wrong, then this whole “justice for Harambe” thing is purely arbitrary and truly senseless.  He had rights; he didn’t have rights: it’s really all meaningless, anyway.  I don’t see people pushing for cockroach rights – but of course, there are zillions and zillions of them – plus they’re disgusting and disease carrying.  So we don’t care about them. We are inconsistent.  Gorillas are no more able to appreciate having rights as cockroaches are. (By the way, I’ll get to the “therefore babies in the womb don’t have rights, either” argument in a moment).   The secular view clearly depends solely and exclusively on totally arbitrary designations about which animals “deserve” rights and which don’t.  This is hardly a mechanism for any reasonable or rational discussion of rights and therefore not a reasonable or rational mechanism for discussing justice.

Yet, yet, for some odd reason many people are angry that this gorilla had to die.  And, YES, he HAD to die.  I’m not happy or pleased the Cincinnati Zoo personnel believed this was their only option, either.  But these folks are the experts and they acted under pressure and under troubling circumstances, making a very difficult choice.   I’m not in favor of killing such animals unless absolutely necessary.  But when it comes down to deciding whether an animal or human dies, I’m choosing the human, every time.  Even a crappy, no good, rotten, so and so, [expletive deleted] type human.  Why? Two reasons.  One, because as the eminently sensible judge in the Tommy case noted, animals don’t bear any legal duties or accept any social responsibility.  In other words, if you don’t have any responsibility, you don’t have any rights.  Second, and much more important, even the most corrupt human beings have a chance at salvation through the gospel of Jesus Christ; animals are not included in this offer (that doesn’t mean there won’t be animals in heaven, just that they aren’t “saved” like human beings can be).

Some will suggest my argument makes the case for abortion, since babies in the womb can’t have any responsibility, they don’t get rights.  The simple answer to that is babies have rights because God says so.  Moreover, babies in the womb will never come out as gorillas, or chimps, or dogs, or fish, or zebras, or elephants, or bacteria, or . . . you get the point.  They will only be human babies.  Humans are a special class, all to themselves.  Why?  Because we are the only part of creation made in God’s image.  Gorillas at the zoo, or in Africa, don’t get together for a colloquium entitled: Close Enough: Horseshoes, Hand-Grenades, and Humans, Why Humans Should be Called Gorillas and Given Gorilla Rights.  They simply don’t have the intellectual or moral capacity to fathom the concept of rights.  It is a uniquely human attribute.  It is so because we are not merely random products of the universe; we are not merely distant cousins of some primordial ooze.  We are something altogether different.  We are the very sons and daughters of the God of the universe.  As such, we are welcomed by him to repent of our sins and accept by faith that Jesus Christ lived the sinless life we couldn’t live, died the atoning death we couldn’t die, and raised himself from the dead, giving us everlasting life we could not obtain on our own.  No gorilla will ever receive this offer from God, ever. 

When you come to this discussion believing in a creator God, it changes everything.  Suddenly human babies do have rights.  Suddenly you do care that this gorilla was killed.  Suddenly you are worried about the little boy and how this event might affect him going forward.  Suddenly you care that the mom is apparently getting death threats (or at least people with her name are getting them) from people who weren’t there and have absolutely NO IDEA what happened.  Suddenly you care that people seem to be unable to logically process anything in these situations, but simply run on raw emotion.

Let’s face facts, people. 

Harambe had to die.  It’s sad, but true.  In the process, a little boy was saved.  It was not an equal exchange – the little boy is a human being – a unique and precious bearer of the image of the God of the universe.  Yes, he was more important than Harambe.  And not one of the “outraged” would be “outraged” if it were their child down there being tossed about by a nearly 500 pound gorilla. Not one.

Apparently I have "white fragility" and didn't know it

I just read an editorial by a young man named Bennett Carpenter, writing in The Duke Chronicle.  Frankly, it’s just so high-brow that a lowly puritanical nut like me is probably in way over his head to comment, but I’ll give it a whirl, since I can't help myself when there is so much irony packed into such a small package.

He starts his article by saying “I am thinking about how an urgent and overdue conversation about racism—on our campus and across our country—has been derailed by a diversionary and duplicitous obsession with the First Amendment.”  What I think he is suggesting is that not all speech is protected by the First Amendment and, therefore, hiding behind the First Amendment is unhelpful.  He is correct in this sense: you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater if there is no fire (which he incorrectly quotes as “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater” – we’ll give him a pass since he’s not a lawyer).  From this standpoint, he is correct in asserting the First Amendment (a) doesn’t protect all speech and (b) isn’t always implicated in speech.  Nonetheless, does it not follow that because the government can’t generally censor speech, and because of this country’s history of engaging in all kinds of speech, we don’t see a great deal of censorship at any level, including at the private level?  In other words, the First Amendment casts a long shadow, which helps protect speech even when it really has no true authority.  Duke University is a private institution that could have easily censored Mr. Carpenter’s article for any reason, some reason, or no reason at all, yet it chose not to do so.  Mr. Carpenter would have nothing to say if Duke did so, since the First Amendment clearly isn’t implicated (Duke is not a government actor).  Yet one can only wonder what howls would issue forth from Mr. Carpenter and like-minded thinkers if Duke decided it wasn’t going to allow his article to be placed in the university newspaper.

He loses me when he seems to suggest that in order to have an actual conversation about race, only those who are “anti-racist” should be invited.  He loses me when he excludes almost all white people from the conversation because they’re suffering from “white fragility” which he defines as “a range of defensive behaviors through which white people (or more accurately, people who believe they are white) deflect conversations about race and racism in order to protect themselves from race-based stress.”  Translated into plain English, I think he’s claiming most white people often try to avoid talking about racism because it makes them feel uncomfortable which, in turn, means they’re racist.  Ironically, even though he’s white, he’s not one of those people.  Reality check for Mr. Carpenter - about 65 percent of the US population is white, so you simply can't just erase them from the conversation.  Moreover, it is an absurdity of cataclysmic proportion to claim, without evidence, that "almost all" white people are racist.  How many of the roughly 214 million white people in America are, in fact, racist, Mr. Carpenter?  And upon what realistic basis did you arrive at your conclusion?

The heart of his argument is that despite appearances of “a nice equivalence between racists and anti-racists—both exercising free-speech freedoms, which must be equally and indiscriminately defended” this is, in fact, false.  Why?  Because “words are actions.”  According to Mr. Carpenter, because of “the centuries-long history of racialized oppression to which hate speech contributes . . . [h]ate speech is thus both violent and an incitement to further violence.”  Since it is per se  violent this should allow the government to step in to stop it and subject to punishment anyone who uses words to “harm.”  Never mind that the “harm” from words is, inevitably, subjective, as opposed, to say the harm from striking someone with a baseball bat.  Moreover, never mind that Mr. Carpenter seems blissfully unaware that there are actually people who might reasonably find some of the things he is saying harmful.  Ironically, either this thought has never crossed Mr. Carpenter’s mind or he doesn’t care because his kind of harm is okay since it's not racist.  Never mind that he might be egregiously offending others who are not racists (more on that below).

Mr. Carpenter implies there ought to be laws against hate speech, but then argues there’s no point in trying to get the government in on it, because “the very government quite literally built on white supremacy [can’t] save us from its effects.” 

The fundamental problem with Mr. Carpenter’s entire argument is that its underlying rationale assumes somehow banning racist speech will help.  We have laws by which we have banned murder and rape but last time I checked, that hasn’t stopped murder and rape. If such speech is tantamount to murder, as Mr. Carpenter suggests, then doesn’t logic indicate banning it won’t stop it?   The fact is that people who already think murder and rape are immoral refrain from engaging in the conduct – they don’t need laws to stop them.  Same with racism.  There are many white people who are not engaging in racism and aren’t having any “white fragility.”  Why?  Because they already believe racism is morally unacceptable and aren’t afraid to say so.  Ironically, Mr. Carpenter seems to include himself in this group.  These folks don’t need Mr. Carpenter’s speech laws to stop them from engaging in racist speech.  They already don’t do it. Racism is wrong.

Moreover, despite Mr. Carpenter’s assertions to the contrary, speech is NOT action.  Yelling a racial epithet at someone is unequivocally NOT the same as lynching them or beating them.  Yes, all three actions are harmful, but ask anyone who has been seriously beaten whether they’d rather just have someone yelling at them.  Reality has to enter the discussion.  In a free society we must come to a place where we draw a line in favor of, not against, ignorant, stupid, and even mean-spirited discourse, if only so those who do it may be shown to be the ignorant, stupid, and mean-spirited creatures they are by their very engagement in the speech.   Mr. Carpenter seems unable to appreciate how simple this is: when we grant people freedom to show how utterly ridiculous their beliefs are, others simply will not accept those beliefs.  That’s why Nazi marches attract more protesters than supporters.  That’s why you don’t see the Keeping Up with the KKK show on television – who’s going to watch it?  The very movement on college campuses against racism is, itself, ironic proof that freedom of speech works best to root out such things.  Are not college students free to rail against racism? 

The irony in all this is deliciously inescapable.  Via freely writing in a university newspaper, which gets freely distributed to students on campus, and which is freely disbursed across the internet, Mr. Carpenter argues there ought to be significant limitations on free speech.  Even more ironic, Mr. Carpenter graciously exempts himself from being one of those people, that is, the kind who say things that harm others.  Yet, his entire column smacks of a holier than thou attitude, as if his Duke education somehow grants him insight into all this that rest of us unwashed and pathetic ignoramuses lack.  Is that kind of noblesse oblige not offensive?  My dad understood race relations extremely well as a result of 30 years in the United States Air Force.  He would hardly need some 28 year old PhD. student explaining the facts of life to him.  He told me again and again from the time I was small that a man is judged by the content of his character, not the color of his skin (I wonder where that came from, Mr. Carpenter?).  Carpenter's entire column is a verbal punch in the face to men like my Dad who diligently sought to make sure his children were clear about what matters when it comes to engaging with others.  Apparently, Mr. Carpenter feels quite at ease offending such folks and is blissfully unaware of just how ignorant, vapid, and silly he sounds.

In the end I must forgive Mr. Carpenter for making such a fool of himself.  He’s a product of a system that has taught him that he makes sense and is behaving righteously.  Yet, as I am regularly reminded, none are righteous, no not one.  We are all in Mr. Carpenter’s boat (including me, most of all).  In making such absurd pronouncements Mr. Carpenter wants to do good; however, what he is really doing, and this is the most grotesque irony of all, is simply trying to soothe his own conscience, to show he doesn't have any white fragility.  Well, Mr. Carpenter, that isn’t going to happen by telling people there ought to be laws barring free speech.  That will only happen through the blood of Jesus, shed at the cross on Golgotha, where everyone is leveled to the same place – prostrate in front of the God of the universe begging for forgiveness.  Until you understand that reality, no amount of whining about white fragility will ever change anything.   

Be Careful When You Crush Someone Else's Liberty: Yours May Be Next

            In 1975 my family was moving from Hawaii to Missouri.  The car still had Hawaii license plates.  On our drive from California to Missouri, we went through Oklahoma.  My dad was driving more than 55, which at the time was the national speed limit and he was pulled over by an Oklahoma state trooper whose last name was Tremble.  I remember that episode because Trooper Tremble reminded my dad that the speed limit “here in the United States is 55”  then let him go with a warning after my dad explained our move to Missouri because of his military obligations.  My sisters and I had a good laugh at the Trooper’s expense, although given that Hawaii had been a state for less than twenty years, perhaps the Trooper could be forgiven his faux pas.

            Our constitution is now over 200 years old.  The First Amendment’s religious liberty clause was part of the original ten amendments which were spawned by a fear that the national government might get too powerful and trample on people’s liberties.  Yet, like Trooper Tremble, it seems that many “here in the United States” have forgotten their history.  All across the country religious liberty, and liberty generally, is falling on hard times. 

            At this point, any effort, no matter how timid, or even sensible, to protect matters of religious conscience, particularly Christian religious conscience, is seen as not simply morally suspect, but morally evil.  The states of Mississippi, North Carolina and Georgia have all dealt recently with national attention for efforts to protect religious liberty in various ways.  I haven’t read the specific legislation in any of these states and my point here isn’t to defend or condemn the specific statutes in question, nor to defend or condemn those on either side of these statutes.  What I want to address is the incredibly ironic lack of compassion amongst those who now seem to be engaged in a “to the victor goes the spoils” mentality of social justice.  Beware of pressing too hard, or you may just find you have seriously overplayed your hand.

            You see, religious liberty isn’t the only liberty protected by the first ten amendments to our constitution.  Right now, the LGBTQ crowd and its adherents are pushing their advantage as far as possible.  Having couched any objection to their goals and their lifestyle as bigotry and hatred, they have won the public relations war and successfully vilified Christians who read the Bible to say that such behavior falls outside that which God permits.  As a result, Coke, Disney and the NFL pressured the Georgia governor to veto a recent religious liberty bill.  Pay Pal won’t set up shop in North Carolina, and Bruce Springsteen and others have cancelled recent concerts there (oh, the agony, the pain, the vital loss of moral and spiritual elevation that surely accompanies the missing of a Bruce Springsteen concert) because of a recently passed North Carolina law.  Mississippi is suffering similar derision for a law passed there.

            So the LGBTQ crowd march onward and forward, oblivious of the precedent they are setting.  If you can so easily and quickly manipulate the public into vilifying Christian beliefs, who’s to say you aren’t next?  What if some other group comes along and determines that it is you who need a moral kick in the pants?  Unfortunately for you, you’ve done your job too well and now, instead of showing some restraint, you’ve decided that absolute destruction is the only acceptable goal to Christian beliefs about your behavior.  In trying to crush Christian resistance, you are setting a precedent that liberty as defined by the Constitution no longer matters.  We are free to ignore the wording of the Constitution in order to get rid of anything deemed offensive, intolerant or lacking “diversity.”  Such a liberty is no liberty at all, since it really becomes a raw majoritarian determination.  If the mob says so, it becomes so.  How do you know that the LGBTQ position will still be deemed acceptable in 10, 20, 30 or 50 years?

            More importantly, if my faith in Christ matters and God is real and there are consequences to our actions then ultimately crushing Christian “liberty” serves you no purpose.  I remain free because the God of the universe says so.  This freedom remains unbound by your laws, by your social derision, by your efforts to malign and crush me.  You cannot hurt me because my fate was sealed 2.000 years ago by a Jewish carpenter-king on a Roman cross. 

            But here’s the problem for you.  Trooper Tremble forgot Hawaii was an actual state.  It’s easy for us to forget even what should be clear in our minds.  But when you forget that liberty is precious and always endangered and you treat it as something to be used to crush your enemies, then you’ve already lost it.  Be warned, Christians are the least of your worries.  In twenty years the Trooper Trembles of the world might well forget it is bigoted and immoral to despise you.  And you will have set the precedent that liberty is a matter for the mob, not the Constitution.  To whom will you turn for help?

           Ironically, the only help you will find is from Christians.  We'll still love you and still be compassionate towards your plight because such is the nature of what it means to be a Christ follower.  Oh, we'll still tell you your lifestyle is wrong, but only after we've commiserated with you and made sure you have something to eat and somewhere to sleep.  We'll still treat you well even when your liberty is destroyed and even though you did your best to destroy ours.  Will it take such destruction before you see why what you're doing now makes no sense?  I hope not.