A response to the editorial in the Des Moines Register, Sat, April 11, 2009 by Dan Berry, Cary Gordon, Michael Mudlaff and Keith Ratliff entitled
Man's law invalid when it conflicts with God's.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009904110305
Dear friends:
First of all, which God? There is not just one God or one interpretation of what God wants. I can't improve on the Court's comments that even the religious arguments are unclear on the matter:
"...much of society rejects same-sex marriage due to sincere, deeply ingrained - even fundamental - religious belief. ...Yet such views are not the only religious views of marriage .... other equally sincere groups and people in Iowa and around the nation have strong religious views that yield the opposite conclusion."
The Iowa Family Policy Center quotes the Bible on its website in support of marriage. The Bible is only one scripture out of many in use in our country. Moreover, it is hard to get a clear message about marriage from it. A quick look suggests that it condones polygamy and charges of adultery for people who get divorced and remarry. This is not the place for a Bible study. The point is that you can’t flatly claim the Bible supports your view. That is a good discussion to have, but it isn’t that simple. It is misleading to imply that there is one view of God’s wishes on this matter.
Second, it is undemocratic to invoke personal religious beliefs as a rationale for limiting the liberties of fellow citizens. It may be healthful to eat Kosher, but we can pass no law on the basis of Jewish Law. This would unduly restrict the liberties of our neighbors. Some believers withhold medical treatment for their children on religious grounds. We prosecute them for child neglect. Religious rationales have no place in American law. Obama said it forcefully in June, 2006:
"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all."
I have worked to understand the concerns of the religiously motivated. As I understand them, they are sincerely concerned that we will displease God, that we will lose His favor and that there is an Authority which we flout at our own peril. The problem is, how, in a pluralistic society, do we choose that authority? Facts, as revealed by science are the only universal truths. No one would seriously question whether we should respect Gravity. There is no need to legislate penalties, since Nature takes care of violators. Regarding human sexuality, however, there is no way to settle which God to try to please, so we use the democratic process instead, tempered by respect for human liberty. Our country has a long history of legislating against Christian sin. Cohabitation and sodomy laws have only recently been struck down in North Dakota and Texas. This shows both the long shadow, and the waning, of Christian-based legislation in America.
Instead of solely religious arguments, Mike Huckabee and others have invoked natural law, saying that since gay marriages can’t produce offspring, they are proscribed not by God, but by Nature. Are we to limit marriage to fertile couples? Surely there is more to marriage than children. My father remarried when my mother died. Is this against natural law? I bet you’d lose the AARP vote with that position. You say, “… everything about homosexuality conflicts with natural law.” Perhaps there are elements of heterosexual relationships that violate natural law. Are we to create a sex manual of allowed practices for our citizens based on natural law? Divining “natural law” is another good discussion to have, but it makes no sense to limit it to gay people. It is far from settled what natural law is telling us about human sexual behavior.
Often, a religious majority feels it is entirely appropriate to use the law to impose their vision of human activity. This is at odds with the Constitution's and the Bill of Rights' respect for human liberty. In general, government should protect our rights, not limit them, except to protect the rights of others. To my Christian friends, I put this question: What will you do when a Muslim majority in Detroit says your wife has to wear a veil? Laws prohibiting gay marriage should go the way of the miscegenation laws. The last of them finally disappeared in from the US in 1967. (They persisted in South Africa until 1985.) Laws like these are unworthy of our nation’s commitment to liberty. There is no good reason to create a class of people with diminished rights to satisfy the norms of a religious group.
I don't minimize your predicament. When conflicts between faith and reason arise, the faithful, by definition, choose faith. In this case, we have a choice between faith and democracy. We can not use our religious ideals as rationales in the legal arena. In a republic such as ours, the religious freedoms of others limit what a religious majority can do. Faith is often the highest value a person holds, but in our country, equal protection under the law is a higher value than any individual religious tenet. Faith sometimes has a high price. To be a good citizen and a good Christian is a true dilemma. Nonetheless, it is an appropriate role of government to protect the rights of its people from even a well-intentioned majority.
I’d like to remind you of options you may have neglected. You can moderate your faith. You can keep your faith personal and stop worrying about whether everyone adheres to it. There is a wide spectrum of possibilities open to you, apart from your stated intention of fighting for a constitutional amendment to undo this ruling. Many of your religious friends are pursuing those options. And God may be even more pleased with you for being peacemakers and friends of the weak.
Don Severs
Johnston, IA