Fighting for freedom is difficult.  It's painful, too.  Ask anyone who has fought for her right to be free.  I think here about the multiple demonstrations that took place throughout Russia a few days ago.  United in common cause against what they perceive to be the autocratic ways of Vladimir Putin (a perception which, by the way, is shared by most nations around the world), thousands of brave people gathered to protest.  They were met with often brutal force.  Many were beaten, many were arrested.  Aleksei Navalny, organizer of the protests, was summarily tried and sentenced to thirty days in jail.
     Will this stop the protestors?  It's unlikely.  As someone living in a democracy which, although it has its problems, continues to offer, at least for the time being, its citizens tremendous amounts of freedom and ample opportunity to protest, without legal rebuke, governmental policies, I admire these protestors.  They are brave, they are hardy.  They are unafraid.  Like those (and I count myself among them) who marched and advocated for civil rights in America in the Sixties, they are making their convictions known, unfazed by what might happen.  Freedom is that important.
     God feels the same way.  While chapter thirteen of Paul's letter to the church at Rome calls its readers to support the governments under which they find themselves, we cannot ignore a basic fact:  what is legal isn't necessarily just.  Though we respect the notion of government, we certainly do not need to acquiesce to governments whose laws keep people from being free.
     And neither does God.  He made us to be, in every way--morally, culturally, and politically--free.