Tuesday March 09, 2004 at 5:47 PM
God vs. Country, pt. 1
Appearing in Truth & Justice
And then there are those issues that sweep across the national debate with such velocity and fervor as to take most everyone by surprise, even those of us who spend an inordinate amount of our days paying attention to such things. Same-sex marriage is the latest example and if the resultant tidal wave of ink, IP-packets, and radio waves is any indication, this issue has definitely hit a nerve.
I last wrote about this issue following the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Texas’ anti-sodomy. Although there’s little reason to repeat the arguments that appeared in that posting as well as the comments that followed, it is worth reiterating my central thesis and primary concern. Regardless of your feelings about gay rights or whether you “approve” of homosexual behavior, if you believe in the sanctity of secular government, the primacy of separation of Church and State, and the importance of minority rights, you should be deeply concerned about how this debate is settled.
Although opponents of same-sex marriage readily claim that it is a threat to the “sacred institution” of marriage, what they fail to acknowledge however is that their call for a constitutional amendment not only threatens to blacken our nation’s most sacred text, it also undermines many of our most sacred social values as well as our most sacred principles of government.
Perhaps more than any other issue in American history, this debate truly pits the religious tenants of moral absolutism, biblical interpretation, and messianic zeal against the democratic values of tolerance, inclusion, and diversity, as well as the Constitutional principles of limited federal power, an independent judiciary, and the protection of minority rights.
With so many different aspects of this issue to consider and understand, it seems more than a stretch to cover them all in a single blog entry. With that in mind, I’ve decided to break things down into a collection of entries which I expect to post during the next week — maybe two, definitely not three. While not making promises to the precise content of those entries, I will most certainly hit upon the following:
- The mechanics and history of constitutional amendments
- Why the call for a constitutional amendment will undoubtedly fail regardless of majority opinion
- How this issue not only illustrates President Bush’s political desperation but also his tenuous loyalty to the principles of government set forth in the Constitution
Obviously there is plenty of ground to cover. For now however, I’ll leave you with this recent quote from Bob Herbert:
- “In a world beset by ignorance and poverty and suffering, a world wracked with wars and terror attacks and ethnic strife of every kind, it seems crazy to be twisting ourselves into knots over the desire of good men and women to transcend the prison of themselves and affirm their love for another by marrying.”
- Bob Herbert, Bliss and Bigotry
The New York Times, Feb 27, 2004
