The “Gap” in Christian values
November 6th, 2007 by Eric
I am a Christian. While I don’t wear it on my sleeve in that I’m-holier-than-thou-and-judging-you-for-not-thinking-like-me way (at least I try not to), I have a very strong faith, and I’m proud to say that my religion gives me a very different worldview than many religious leaders whose faces appear so frequently on the TV screen next to Pat Robertson.
When a group from my church asked me if I would allow my daughter to participate in a children’s fashion show, I said I would. After all, showing off my daughter is the only vanity I allow myself. It wasn’t until after the show started that I learned that this “Fashion Show of Modesty” was themed around a few narrowly-interpreted Bible passages demanding that women be submissive to men.
But it wasn’t the encouragement of modesty in dress or the poorly translated and inaccurately transcribed words of a chauvinist apostle that had me biting my tongue. The fashion show was sponsored by GAP, which is consistently sited for gross human rights violations, including last week when the British paper, The Observer, described working conditions in GAP factories:
The Observer spoke to children as young as 10 who said they were working 16 hours a day for no pay. The paper described the workplace as a “derelict industrial unit” where the hallways were flowing with excrement from a flooded toilet.
A boy, 12, said he worked from dawn until 1 a.m. and was so tired he felt sick, according to the paper. But if any of the children cried, he told The Observer, they would be hit with a rubber pipe or punished with an oily cloth stuffed in their mouths.
The bitter irony is that much of the clothing in these sweatshops had inventory tags that matched up with the Christmas line for GapKids.
Any atheist can see that this is one of the most vile practices ever to stain our world of our conscience; they just call it “natural law” instead of “Christian values.” I know that other corporate clothing companies are likely no better than The Gap, but it seems to me that religious energy and activism is better spent fighting these atrocities than covering up belly buttons.
Do I have a problem with young people showing a little modesty in the way that they dress? Of course not. But when I’m standing at the Pearly Gates and Saint Peter asks me why I knowingly supported a company and a system that keeps millions of people living in abject poverty and violates human rights in astounding ways, I want to have a better response than, “Well, at least you couldn’t see my daughter’s midriff.”
Photo credit goes here.
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