"The Great Moral Issues of Our Time"

Last week, James Dobson and a number of other Religious Right leaders wrote a letter to the National Association of Evangelicals, claiming that work on climate change was a distraction from "the great moral issues of our time”.
The letter reads:
"More importantly, we have observed that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children."

Dear Dr Dobson.
I live in South Africa. We are a country that faces poverty, the ravages of Hiv/Aids, violent crime, gangsterism and drugs in our townships, and corrupt public officials. And the drought caused by global warming has ravaged the maize crops, and people are going to starve. But you want to tell us that abortion, gay marriages, and sexual abstinence are “the great moral issues of our time”? While these are indeed important issues, they are not the ‘great moral issues’. Our country needs the followers of Jesus to teach honesty and integrity, to encourage compassion for the sick, to stir a nation’s conscience to dismantling poverty, and to reclaim our sense of stewardship of the earth for God. Might I suggest that it is only the well fed, the healthy, the employed, and the physically safe who have the luxury of choosing human sexuality as the great debate of our time. The rest of us live with real issues of life and death!

But then, we are told, there was a time in history when the religious leaders debated “How many angels can dance on the point of a very fine needle, without jostling one another?..." (Isaac D'Israeli, "Curiosities of Literature", 1791) – this at a time when the general populace lived lives of quiet desperation.

Mr Dobson, Sir, please join us as debate the real moral issues of our day!