• captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Yeah that’s my stance. Some people do a lot of bad before doing good. We shouldn’t blindly trust but we shouldn’t disincentivize change.

    Most who do harm will never do enough good to overcome it, but they can do a lot more good than they otherwise would, and they can do harm too. Tammy Faye Bakker was once not a good person, a conservative evangelical preacher and embezzler married to a rapist. When her and her husband’s lives fell apart she changed and wound up being a voice of progressive Christianity going as far as to hug a gay man with aids on television in the height of the aids crisis. She died speaking and listening to those who had been persecuted by American Christianity, and cherished by Christians among them. Her ex husband took a different path, and to this day is a bigot who sells bulk food for preppers.

    We shouldn’t let the right wing be the only people who will accept those who want to repent and change. We should instead offer the option of penance and restorative justice, forgiveness that means something because it’s actually earned