News Intelligence Analysis
For Whom
the Bell Tolls
Revised
Why the President’s
Amendment to Ban Gay Marriages is Immoral
And Why Christians
and All Men and Women of Goodwill Must Oppose It
March 15, 2004
and Revised April 26, 2004
By Katherine
Yurica
“Never
send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
John Donne
In my essay, “The
Despoiling of America,” I traced the Dominionist movement
in its rise to power and revealed the movers and shakers of the
ideology. One of them is Karl Rove, an extremely brilliant man.
He knows things we don’t know. He knows the power of fear
and how it can be used to rule a people. He knows the power of
religious fervor and how it can be used to manipulate whole segments
of the American population. He knows Machiavelli well and he
knows how to use Machiavellian methods to cement political power
in its place.
Ed Vulliamy of the Guardian
has observed that no one knows if Karl Rove’s “politics
are religious or if politics are his religion,” but that
is a typical trait of Dominionists. Put another way, if pushing
the Dominionist’s agenda makes one a Dominionist, Karl Rove
qualifies. His political/religion calls for the subjugation of
all pluralistic-approving Americans; not just despised homosexuals,
adulterers and atheists but all main stream Christians and secular
Americans who embrace some form of humanism, whether it’s
support of the arts and literature or a liberal political philosophy
that endorses unions and fair wages, Social Security, Medicare,
and public education. Karl Rove and the religious right are fighting
a war against the very heart and spirit of the majority of the
American people. It is the very liberality of Americans, their
generous hearts that have become the object of disdain, contempt
and murderous intent. It is our joyous freedom that has become
despised; it’s our laughter, our songs, our dancing, our
art, our films and our intolerance of the Dominionist’s
bigotry that has wormed its way under their skins. When have
you ever heard a right wing fanatic really laugh with joy?
Oh, they’ll laugh derisively. But I mean the healthy laugh
of a healthy people.
George W. Bush agrees with Karl Rove’s
objectives largely because the first objective is to accomplish
the re-election of George W. Bush as President of the United
States. It entails using whatever methods are necessary to obtain
a win: even patently immoral means. They are a team.
Into the desperate struggle for the control
of the United States of America in 2004, comes a stealthy ploy
dressed in cleric’s robes, prodded by a boiling brew of
fear, consternation and loathing. The President wants to “safeguard”
and “protect” the institution of marriage at the expense
of making the most hated and misunderstood group of people among
us—homosexuals—even more hated and even more persecuted.
Make no mistake, it’s not about sexuality and it’s
not about marriage: it’s about a government using coercive
means to force a religious system upon all of us.
The Self-righteous Indignation against Same Sex
Marriages Is Misguided
There are millions and millions of good
people who are offended at the idea of same sex marriage. I suspect
that they are offended because of ignorance. Somehow, they think
that the issuance of a marriage license to a same sex couple
will diminish their own marriage. The religious Dominionists
are stirring up latent fears—hoping to manipulate us. If
we consider certain religious prohibitions for a moment, we’ll
see how far off the track the political operatives have succeeded
in pushing public opinion.
Let’s consider a case that only involves
sex indirectly: When the legal barriers to racially mixed marriages
came down in some states, did the fact that two people of two
different races married each other harm the institution of marriage
in any way? Can anyone really make a convincing argument
that Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s marriage
to a Caucasian weakens the institution of marriage? Unfortunately
there are probably some people in America who would argue that
racially mixed marriages are prohibited by some verse in the
Bible and would be willing to hang mixed marriage couples—even
today. But surely no sensible person would argue that his or
her marriage is denigrated because of Justice Thomas’s marriage.
Now, let’s look at the Gospels. In
Matthew 19:8-9 Jesus says:
“Moses…
[permitted] you to put away your wives, but from the beginning
it was not so.
“And I say
unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for
fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and
whosoever marrieth her who is put away doth commit adultery.”
(KJV)
This proscription uttered by Jesus has been
a source of great pain in the church for centuries. One attempt
at getting around the biblical prohibition was devised by the
Catholic Church, which has resorted to issuing annulments to
a partner (usually the husband) who desires to marry someone
else. The problem is an annulment means that the original marriage
never happened. The children of an annulled union are then considered
illegitimate by the church, but thankfully, not by the state.
Obviously the state allows adulterers to remarry. The state also
allows marriage between two adults who may have had sex prior
to their nuptials, whereas some religions might refuse to marry
a couple that had been living in “sin.”
Jesus is silent about homosexuality. There
is a reference to two men lying in a bed together without judgment
of any kind, only that “one shall be taken and the other
left.” (Luke 17:34) There is only one Old Testament prohibition
against men, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind.”
Leviticus 20:13 provides the death penalty for the offense. (No
biblical prohibition exists against women save the prohibition
of lying with a beast.) (Lev. 18:22, 23 KJV). Moreover, there
is no biblical prohibition against two women or two men living
together.
In contrast, St. Paul’s proscriptive
list of sexual misconduct in First Corinthians 6:9 (KJV) equates
“fornicators, and “adulterers” with “abusers
of themselves with mankind,” and this latter phrase is often
translated as “homosexuals” in other translations.
Paul’s list suggests that at the very least, Christians
have to equate fornication, adultery, and sodomy as equal offenses.
Therefore in considering the proposed amendment
banning same sex marriage, one ought to compare the issue with
the state’s position on adultery and ask, “Should the
United States of America create an amendment to the Constitution
prohibiting states from allowing adulterers to remarry?”
Such an amendment may in fact be the next proposal from Mr. Bush
and the Dominionists if they stay in power. (Significantly some
Dominionists already openly state the death penalty should be
extended to adulterers and homosexuals.)
Once we start looking at this subject, it
is easy to see that the state does not and cannot incorporate
religious prohibitions into its laws without violating the Constitution’s
separation of church and state. If the Bible itself suggests
no difference between adultery and sodomy, upon what grounds
can Mr. Bush and his operatives in congress justify prohibition
against same sex marriages while allowing adulterers to remarry?
If some “sins” are more equal than other “sins,”
the religious Dominionists are hypocrites who bellow at one perceived
“sin” while embracing another. Their hypocrisy cannot
become the standard of the United States of America.
To those who would still argue that marriage
is for the procreation of children, we have to ask: has the U.S.
government or the churches in America ever made an investigation
into whether or not each couple applying for a marriage license
was capable of conceiving a child? No heterosexual couple has
ever been denied a marriage license based on their inability
to have children, so why should same sex couples receive different
treatment?
The Proposed Constitutional Amendment
The proposed amendment to the Constitution
of the United States relating to marriage was originally stated
in SJ
Res. 26 as follows:
“Marriage
in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man
and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the Constitution
of any State, nor State or Federal law, shall be construed to
require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be
conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”
In other words, the original amendment prohibited
any law in the United States to confer either marital status
or the legal incidents to marriage upon any one but a
couple consisting of a man and woman.
While President Bush disingenuously assured the American
people, “The amendment should fully protect
marriage, while leaving the state legislatures free to make
their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage,”
the amendment did the opposite. According to Professor
Michael
C. Dorf of Columbia University, the amendment acted as a
bar to not only same-sex marriage “but also any of ‘the
legal
incidents’ of marriage.” Dorf wrote, “That
means that states and cities could not even provide for civil
unions or domestic partnership arrangements that fall short of
marriage.”
On March 22, 2004, Senator Wayne Allard
announced that he made changes to the original amendment for
clarification. The amendment now reads:
“Marriage in the United States shall
consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this
Constitution, nor the constitution of any state, shall be construed
to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred
upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”
Unfortunately, the revised version does
not improve the amendment. According to Jack M. Balkin, Knight
Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale
Law School, courts
are still prevented from holding that a state constitution
can be construed to require that the legal incidents of marriage
be conferred on same sex couples. In other words, a state cannot
pass a law granting equal protection or constitutional values
to same sex couples. Balkin
explained that the "legal incidents include a whole
bundle of rights in family law, pension law, tort law, property
law, and so on." The bottom line is that no judge, executive
or administrative official would be allowed to construe a state
constitution to allow the legal incidents of marriage--even if
the constitution said all civil unions are entitled to all the
legal incidents of marriage. This means that even if an employer
granted such benefits, they would be unenforceable in a court
of law. The amendment is still written to obscure its true intent.
Balkin
wrote that it's easy enough to write the amendment in a straight
forward manner. His draft reads:
"Section 1. Marriage in the United
States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.
Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state...shall
be construed to require that marital status be conferred upon
unmarried couples..."
"Section 2. Nothing in the first section
of this Article shall be construed to prevent either Congress
or the legislatures of the several states from providing any
other benefits, rights, or privileges, or combinations thereof,
to unmarried couples..."
There is a huge gap between what the text
says and what Senator Allard and his supporters claim it says.
The issue comes down to this statement
by Michael Dorf: “[T]here is simply no good reason why the
government should confer official recognition and financial benefits
on straight couples, while refusing the same to gay and lesbian
couples.” Therefore the amendment will unequivocally create
two classes of citizens: those who can receive official recognition
and financial benefits and those who are ultimately denied those
benefits. It is immoral to create two classes of American citizens.
The Declaration of
Independence
The hypocrisy and fraud being perpetrated
by the Dominionists on this issue deserves our attention. If
the President, Mr. Rove, Pat Robertson, other Dominionists and
the religious reactionaries who are clamoring for the amendment,
plus its ill driven sponsors in Congress, will all examine the
Declaration of Independence with me, through the eyes of Dominionist
theorists, I will show them they are violating a fundamental
principle of American freedom. I will demonstrate that they cannot
support the amendment without being immoral. The Declaration
states:
“We hold these
truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
On July 1, 1986, Dominionist Pat Robertson
interviewed two men: Harry Jaffa, a former student of Leo Strauss
as well as a Straussian neo-conservative, and Herb Titus an avowed
Dominionist as well as the former Dean of Robertson’s School
of Public Policy at the then CBN University (now Regent University).
The topic under discussion was the Declaration of Independence.
Robertson asked the key question: “Gentlemen, what does
it mean when we say all men are created equal?”
Jaffa responded:
“The equality
of man means something very specific, very sensible and very
self evident. That is that there is no difference between one
human being and another, as there is between any human being
and any dog or horse or between any human being and God…”
Titus said:
“All men who
composed the political entity were equally eligible to rule,
in terms of the civil power.”
Clearly, both Titus and Jaffa agreed there
is only one class of citizens contemplated by the Declaration
of Independence. But which document do the Dominionists hold
to be superior, the Declaration or the Constitution? Herb
Titus said that the Declaration was equivalent to the Articles
of Incorporation and the Constitution is equivalent to “bylaws.”
Jaffa went further, “Jefferson and
Madison said together in 1825, ‘If you want to find the
principles of the Constitution of the United States, you go first
to the Declaration of Independence.’”
Creating two classes of Americans with this
amendment, those who can marry and those who cannot and then
granting those who can legally marry the “legal incidents”
of marriage—the extra rights, privileges (for instance,
the right to visit a partner in the hospital) and financial advantages
over those who are forbidden to marry is discriminatory,
prejudiced and immoral. It’s a violation of the fundamental
freedoms of the Declaration of Independence, and a sham and fraud
against the American people as a whole.
The Proposed Amendment Shields Hatred and Violence
The writings of Dominionists are filled
with examples of how they intend to extend biblical law, including
the death penalty to homosexuals, adulterers and heretics. The
2002 Republican Party Platform
of Texas is as fine an example of unmitigated hatred as one
can find anywhere for it insulates criminals and wrong doers
from prosecution for even murder and hate crimes. The Texas Republican
Platform is also significant because Texas is the home state
of President George W. Bush. We have to assume since he didn’t
object to the platform publicly, that he tacitly accepted it.
It reads in part:
“Homosexuality
– …We are opposed to any granting of special legal
entitlements, recognition, or privileges including, but not limited
to, marriage between persons of the same sex, custody of children
by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits.
We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who
oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional
values.” (Emphasis added.)
“Texas
Sodomy Statutes –“The Party opposes the decriminalization
of sodomy.”
Sodomy, it should be noted is applicable
to all human sexuality, heterosexual or homosexual, including
“blow jobs.” One cannot help wondering if the
Texan Republicans, who oppose the decriminalization of sodomy,
would arrest members of their own party.
If we juxtapose the wording of the Constitution Restoration
Act of 2004 to the underlined sentence in the Texas Republican
Party Platform above, we have to ask whether the Dominionists
in Congress are preparing a way to allow “biblical executions”
and unthinkable acts of hatred to go without punishment of any
kind. H.R. 3799 reads:
“Notwithstanding
any other provision of this chapter, the Supreme Court shall
not have jurisdiction to review, by appeal, writ of certiorari,
or otherwise, any matter to the extent that relief is sought
against an element of Federal, State, or local government, or
against an officer of Federal, State, or local government (whether
or not acting in official personal capacity), by reason of
that element’s or officer’s acknowledgment of God as
the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government.”
(To be added to Sec. 1260 of Title 28, Chapter 81 of the
U.S. Code and see also S. 2082.)
I raised the question in an earlier
article, because the judiciary is “an element”
of the federal, state and local governments, does this wording,
if it becomes law, allow any judge to impose biblical punishments
or to sanction biblical punishments of religious fanatics without
being subject to review by the Supreme Court or the federal court
system? The answer appears to be “Yes.”
Follow me here: since a judge may assert
that God is the sovereign source of law under HR 3799, may not
that judge decree God’s law as stated in the Bible to be
supreme over every law written by mere mortals? By definition
the word “sovereign” means: “the supreme repository
of power in a political state.” (Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary). So the sentence in HR 3799 (and S.
2082) establishes the right of an individual to assert God’s
sovereignty over all laws in the United States.
If a judge can make this assertion with
impunity, what prevents him, should this ill advised law pass
Congress, from applying biblical law instead of the law of the
state? Of course he could be struck down by the appellate courts
in his state—but what if all those courts are packed with
Dominionists or the legislative body can impeach any judge in
the state for failure to follow God’s sovereign laws?
Let’s take a hypothetical situation.
A homosexual or an adulterer is arrested for violating the sodomy
laws of Texas. Regardless of the punishment for the crime of
sodomy in the statute, the Old Testament portion of the Bible
establishes the death penalty. So the Dominionist appointed judge
finds God to be the sovereign source of law.
He then finds the defendant guilty as charged
and issues the death penalty. All the appellate judges in the
state uphold the lower court judge out of fear. If HR 3799 (or
S. 2082) is passed and becomes the law, the defendant would not
be able to appeal to the Supreme Court or any federal court for
help because the law prohibits the Supreme Court from hearing
a case decided upon the basis of that individual’s belief
that God is the sovereign source of law.
Americans are
about to lose everything that makes America great. If you doubt
my assertions about the hatred being directed against homosexuals
in America, go see the web site of the Westboro Baptist Church
(WBC). It’s named http://www.godhatesfags.com/
The church claims to “vigorously preach the five points
of Calvinism.”
The church asks you to agree that you are
visiting their hellish web site of your own free will. You are
required to click on the WBC’s “Enter” icon at
the bottom of the page. Don’t allow your children to see
this material. Prepare yourself for one of the most vile and
violent exhibitions of hatred from a Baptist Church you will
ever see. There are photographs of sweet faced young people;
one of them is Matthew
Shepard, who was tied to a fence and beaten to death in Wyoming.
His photo is attached to a monument “dedicated to [his]
entry into hell,” which the church plans to erect in the
Casper City Park. There is also a photograph of Diane Whipple,
the young woman who was killed by two giant dogs in San Francisco.
She is shown surrounded by the flames of hell. If you stay long
enough, you’ll hear the screams of the victims. The church’s
web page shouts out that homosexuals will burn in hell forever.
The WBC has clocks going to inform the viewer how long the victim
has been suffering the torments of hell. Click
here if you want this verified.
But is hell reserved for homosexuals? Homosexuals
aren’t even mentioned, but the lecherous get a hefty whack!
(KJV) It’s instructive to know that according to the New
Testament, hell was made for the devil and his angels. And according
to the apocalyptic book of Revelations, hell will be occupied
by the group God hates the most: liars and the cowardly who submit
to the liars. The Amplified translation expresses it this way
in pertinent part:
“But as for
the cowards and the ignoble and the contemptible and the cravenly
lacking in courage and the cowardly submissive…and as for
the depraved…and as for murderers…and all liars [those
who knowingly convey untruth by word or deed, all of these shall
have] their part in the lake that blazes with fire and brimstone.”
(Rev. 21:8)
What Would Jesus Do?
He drew a line that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
—Edwin Markham
There are three illustrations in the Gospels
that tell us exactly what Jesus did when confronted with an individual
who was despised by the society of his time. While the Republican
Dominionists draw a line that excludes, Jesus drew a circle that
brought all mankind in.
There is the story of Zacchaeus, the hated
tax collector who climbed a tree so that he could see Jesus who
was expected to pass by that way. When Jesus saw him, instead
of averting his eyes from a despised person, he said, “Zacchaeus
make haste, and come down; for today I must abide at thy house.”
(Luke 19 1-10 KJV)
The second story reveals Jesus’ attitude
toward an outcast prostitute. He was the dinner guest of a prominent
Pharisee. While they were dining, the prostitute entered the
house and began to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiped
them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed
them with ointment. The Pharisee watched the episode and despised
Jesus, thinking that if he were a true prophet, he would have
known what kind of woman he was allowing to touch him. Jesus
then gave one of the most powerful sermons contrasting the woman
with the proud arrogance of his host. Jesus forgave the woman
her sins and told her, “Your faith has saved you; go in
peace.” (Luke 7:36-50 KJV)
The third story is in John 8:1-11. It is
a poignant statement, filled with drama. Here it is in the King
James translation:
“And the scribes
and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and
when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, ‘Master,
this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.’
‘‘Now
Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned; but
what sayest thou?
“This they
said [testing] him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus
stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though
he heard them not.
“So when they
continued asking him, he lifted himself up, and said unto them,
‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a
stone at her.’
“And again
he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
“And they
who heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out
one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last; and
Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
“When Jesus
had lifted himself up, and saw none but the woman, he said unto
her, ‘Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man
condemned thee?’
“She said,
‘No man, Lord.’ And Jesus said unto her, ‘Neither
do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.’”
For me, this passage has always been the
essence of what Christianity is. Today we have hatred driving
the White House, the Congress and most of the religious community
in America. Americans are being asked to censor, limit, and reject
groups of people that are presented as beneath them, unworthy
of recognition and equality. Today it is the homosexuals, tomorrow
it is us.
It is fitting to close with a famous quote
by Rev. Martin Niemoller from Nazii Germany in 1945:
“When the Nazis arrested the
Communists, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Communist.
“When they locked up the Social
Democrats, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Social Democrat.
“When they arrested the trade
unionists, I said nothing; after all, I was not a trade unionist.
“When they arrested the Jews,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Jew.
“When they arrested me, there
was no longer anyone who could protest.”
Katherine Yurica was educated at East Los
Angeles College, the University of Southern California and the
USC school of law. She worked as a consultant for Los Angeles
County and as a news correspondent for Christianity Today
plus as a freelance investigative reporter. She is the author
of three books. She is also the publisher of the Yurica Report.
Read
and or make comments about this article on our message board
Send
a letter
to the editor
about
this article
Related
Article
One
Very Good Reason
to Oppose a Constitutional
Amendment Barring Same-
Sex Marriage Law Professor
Michael C. Dorf explains why
the President's Amendment is
immoral.
Back
to The Yurica Report Home Page
Copyright © 2004 Yurica Report. All rights reserved.