A rather intriguing case is to come before the South Australian courts regarding a man who is charged with raping his wife forty-seven years ago. Obviously for those involved the description of "intriguing" is hardly adequate but as a mere bystander I must confess that this case raises several legal and ethical issues worth discussing.
As we stand at the moment the South Australian Court of Criminal Appeal has affirmed the right to prosecute this man even though rape within marriage was not a crime in 1963. This raises the fundamental question of whether someone can be retrospectively guilty. That is, can someone commit a future crime?
Some ideas are best left in television shows. The problem is that, most of the time; the impressions given by these shows are taken on board by young viewers. Take, for instance, the story today of a Facebook site that has been started allows people to post rumours about others. Usually pretty scandalous rumours too. Unfortunately shows like Gossip Girl are affecting teens in a very negative sense and are influencing the way they relate to each other.
Perhaps one of the greatest things about having a relationship with God is that he doesn't let you get comfortable with what is happening in your life. Just when you think you've got life all figured out a spanner is thrown into the works.
My spanner came in the form of a bus that mangled the front end of my vehicle on the 19th of January 2011. In one split second the complexion of my life changed. I went from a man who was organising finances in his head, who was calm and centred and who had everything under control to a little, very shaken, boy.
Queensland is in agony at the moment. The flooding is massive and Toowoomba and surrounding areas yesterday received 115 millilitres of rain in an hour. It has devastated the region, killing eight people and leaving seventy-two unaccounted for. If ever we needed a reason to pray we have it now.
Unfortunately I feel that as Queensland towns get washed away those of us who are not directly affected by it are spending too much time watching it. Sure, it is very important to keep up to date and to know what is happening but at some stage whenever disaster hits we go past that point and start subliminally delighting in other people's misfortunes.
We don't want to see people suffer but deep down we tell ourselves "Gee, I'm glad that's not happening to me". The other response is to be too busy with life to care about what other people are going through. I am a victim of both mentalities and neither are Christian responses.
You know things have gone haywire when you see two stories in the space of a week about parents putting their selfish desires above the well-being of their child.
First there is the unnamed couple who terminated twin boys because they wanted a girl. Now they are going to VCAT in order to select the sex of the baby. There is something deeply wrong with our society when we have people who think in this manner. To read more on a Christian response go to Bill Muehlenberg's article.
However, the train has not finished derailing yet. Yesterday it was revealed at an inquest that the parents of a toddler with a disability were considering euthanasing her because it was "interfering with their "idyllic" lifestyle". Click here to read the whole article.
