When does 2 + 2 = something other than 4?

"Does 2 + 2 = 4?"

This was the question I got asked one night after playing a solo gig at a coffeehouse in Yorba Linda, many years ago. I played my set to a crowd of 15 people or so, 6 or 7 of whom were sitting at one table talking while I played. They were polite, clapped when I finished, liked some songs more than others. When it came time to pack up, one guy from that table offered to help me load the gear into my Explorer.

As we did, he told me about his group. They were a bible study group from a local church. He began to veer into familiar but uncomfortable territory for me, and I knew where we were headed. He began to ask me about my faith, and I demurred, knowing that no answer about my searching would suffice. I held him off for awhile. About the time the last bit of gear was stowed in my car, he said something about how it all just made logical sense, his religious story. I explained that my faith was more complicated than that. That's when he said it.

"Does 2 + 2 = 4?"

I was, perhaps for the first time in my life, perfectly clear about what was wrong with his theology. I said, "Are you trying to reduce the complexity of the universe, the human condition, and everything the entire human race believes down to a first grade math equation?!"

He immediately backtracked. I said good night and got in my Explorer as quick as I could and drove away.
_______________________________

"But it's OK that we just go on killing babies."

"...they send their rapists, their murderers..."

"Abortion will be punishable by prison.: - The State of Georgia, 2019.

The first of those statements was by a guy I went to high school with, back before I realized that Facebook showed the worst part of the people we know, people we called "friends." (He's not that anymore.) The second, of course, was by the guy who won the vote of enough Americans in 2016 to be sitting in the oval office. And the third is my paraphrase of a law just passed in the U.S.A. in 2019. Ever since Roe vs. Wade - my entire life after toddlerhood, basically - people against abortion have crafted arguments to try to defeat it.

Some people like to see things in black and white, shun shades of gray. The problem with that is you tend to find yourself painted into an indefensible position in a corner, hemmed in by your own unwillingness to acknowledge clearly obvious facts. If you use the bible to cry against homosexuality, you are forced to come up with a rationalization for eating shellfish or wearing certain fabrics. If you take the hard line against abortion, you are forced to rationalize the forced birth of women who were raped, which is why Todd Akin was never a U.S. Senator (thank God.)

Or, if you are Georgia (or Alabama - it's coming), you enact a law that "recognizes" the life of a 7-week old fetus and rationalizes penalties for abortion that open up the most ridiculous possible outcomes.

Can a woman who is 7 weeks pregnant get child support? Can the fetus sue? Can a mother use the carpool lane? What to do with women who have ectopic pregnancies, or who miscarry? Full weight of the law and prison? Who decides?

This is how stupid we have become.

Abortion is a complicated issue. No one WANTS abortion, save for the lunatic fringe on the left. The vast majority of humans would rather fetuses be carried to full term. But the THINKING humans also understand that there is a vast difference between a baby and a zygote, or even a fetus at 7 weeks. People who are not infected by anti-abortion fundamentalism can live with a gray area, with the mother's right to choose on one side of the gray and a viable child on the other side of the gray. This is not hard.

But that's not where we are in 2019. The lunatics are in control, and they are arguing from the right. They are screaming "2 + 2  equals 4!!!"

To which, I scream back: "How dare you try to condense the entirety of the human experience to a first grade math equation."

These people have to be stopped.