I recently had a somewhat strange conversation.
Ostensibly, it was about the 1st amendment and the concept of Separation of church and state (which, although not stated in the amendment, is derived therefrom). After a while, though, I realized that this person was somehow arguing for a separation between state and morality, which is a whole different kettle of fish. It’s also absurd.
Here’s how I think things should work: The people (or their representatives) vote. They establish laws within the framework of the Constitution. These laws are then applied equally to all people, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. If they screw up and make a law that’s outside the framework of the Constitution, it gets struck down by the courts.
Here’s three examples:
The people (or their representatives) decide that two-person marriage is good, and should be supported through tax breaks, credits, whatever. Now, they can’t apply this pairing to specific genders, races, etc., so if marriage is legal, gay marriage is legal. End of issue.
The people vote. They say that the age of “adulthood” is 18 or 21 or whatever. All laws for adults must now apply to all people of that age. I mean, this whole “Have fun fighting in Iraq, but don’t have a beer, kid!” thing is kind of absurd.
The people vote. They say “Life begins at viability.” Or a heartbeat. Or brainwaves. All laws protecting human life must now apply to all living people. This makes abortion illegal unless there’s a threat to the mother’s life, in which case, honestly, I have no idea.
Uh oh. I just outlawed abortion. Now what?
See, gay marriage is a no-brainer. Hell, it’s an ANTI-brainer. If you don’t support it, then you’re not applying the law equally, and you are wrong. It’s really the easiest issue there is, and one of the few about which I am completely dismissive of arguments “against.”
Personally, I don’t want to legalize drinking for 18 year olds. So I’d reinstate the draft and have it start at 21. (Yeah, I just combined two issues. Sue me.) Put it to a vote, I say: should there be a draft or not? At what age?
Abortion. Oh, lord. This is where I become a hypocrite. I believe that abortion should be a choice. I really do. At the same time, I think it’s painful and sad and much worse. The thing is, though, the playing field isn’t even. Take my church, for instance. The Roman Catholic Church is, obviously, completely pro-life. But they’re also anti-birth control. We’re not talking RU-486/Plan B here… the Roman Catholic Church is dead set against pre-conception birth control (except for abstinence).
Oh, there’s workarounds. The Catholic Church teaches all about fertility tracking, which, wink-wink, is a birth control method too, but it’s not birth control to prevent birth, right? Wink.
The question for me is: do I want to put this to a vote? Let the people decide where “protected life” begins?
Roe v. Wade, which is based on a Right to Privacy derived from the Fourteenth Amendments, would clearly be superceded by a legal declaration of citizenship for the unborn.
I’ve now written myself into a corner. It’s like I’m the most pro-life pro-choice person ever. Conflict, conflict.
I can’t end this with a solution. Not everything is black and white. I’m pro-choice with a guilty conscience.
Love to all. Even you, Justice Blackmun.
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I think your choices for a vote on where life begins would have to be broadened to make it a valid vote. You give 2 choices that happen long before viability outside the mother is achieved.
It’s complicated. No simple answers even with a vote. I do think that, given how and why our country was founded, that churches don’t have a place in the law.
I think I followed your reasoning. Here’s where we differ:
I love the fact it’s difficult to amend the Constitution. It was last amended over 15 years ago (1992, the 27th Amendment: No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened), and that certainly wasn’t a barn burner (no, I wrote BARN, not FLAG) of an amendment, was it? Prior to that, 18-yr. olds were given the vote way back in 1971…
I believe the fact it’s difficult to amend the thing promotes an ongoing exchange of ideas and encourages each of us to have our own take and support it persuavely. Take this week’s DC 2nd Amendment/handgun ban challenge in front of Supreme Court, for instance. I’m pretty much anti-handgun, however I can’t say I disagree with the premise of the challenge to the DC ban. As the Constitution changes glacially, interpretation is (virtually) everything.
Anyway, Rich, I’m off on a tangent here, but I just wanted to say I am a fan of the current process, and wouldn’t welcome a more fluid Constitution.
Jeremy: I definitely don’t want a fluid Constitution either. DeToqueville, man. It’s the only thing preventing Tyranny of the Majority. What made you think I did?
Kizz: That’s my point, though. The Law shouldn’t be based on the canon of any specific church, but the morality of anyone’s religion certainly drives the thinking behind the law. That’s why it’s key to have a Constitutional framework that’s hard to change (see Jeremy’s comment).
If you simplify things so, you put a lot of experts out of work.
Really, though, I agree with you on all points except choice. And I don’t exactly disagree with you either because the point is that the way we define life is so squishy and even if we could come to some nat’l consensus on when life begins, there are always going to be what ifs and grey areas.
And don’t get me started on the whole “pro-life”/death penalty thing.
But thank you for writing about marriage laws in a way that DOES simplify it. That argument has been such a pain in my ass for much too long.
Wow, Rich. Very awesome post, seriously, very straightforward, very thought provoking, very well presented.
You know, I was one of those kids who - gasp - was legal to drink at 18 before - RIGHT BEFORE - they started moving it up and down.
Since then, as I have experienced it - there has been a lot of prolonging adolescence and delaying adulthood.
Could we please outlaw war, though? I mean, seriously, if killing is wrong, let’s apply it to ALL people. For God’s sake there must be a better way to hash things out. That does NOT include Gitmo, by the way.
Thanks for a very very good post. Smartie.
Nanna: Thanks so much! Interesting difference between the Catholic and Jewish commandments. Catholic = thou shall not kill. Jewish = thou shall not murder. I think I’m more in agreement with the Old Testament version. Because I’m not sure there’s always going to be a better way to hash things out. I mean, when the Nazis were on their rampage, what choice was there?
DCup: How do you disagree with me on choice? I’m totally pro-choice. I just think the reasoning behind the law is incredibly flawed. It’s based on Due Process, which is just strange.
Correction: What I should have said was I agree with you on choice except for the guilt thing. Oh, hell, I even agree with you on the guilt thing about abortion and so much more!
Here’s my thoughts on the matters: First I will say I am LDS (mormon) and my views are pretty different from what other mormons believe, but they are my beliefs.
Abortion: pro-choice for everyone else, pro-life for myself (unless I was raped). I believe that if you want that choice you should have a safe reliable place to have an abortion. We don’t always know the circumstances of everyones situation.
The draft: No way! it should not be reinstated. I have 3 boys and I told my husband if we are still in this war in the next 10 years and the draft is reinstated I am moving out of this country. He agreed and my family supports me. If my sons wanted to enlist, that would be there choice, but I will not let them go to war by force of our government. My brother went to Iraq and he was one of the lucky ones. I will not sacrifice my sons for the stupidity of a President, who has never sacrificed anything. (kind of a touchy subject right now)
I am so disappointed and discouraged in our government for the most part, there are a few glimmers of hope, but not enough. I don’t think the constitution should be easy to change, especially by leaders that think the rules don’t apply to them.
Have a great day! : )
Thank you for the marriage thing. It’s what I’ve been saying for YEARS.
As far as the abortion question goes, I’m not sure that the law should have ANY say in the matter. It is a profoundly personal thing to decide to terminate a pregnancy, and I don’t think that anyone other than the woman (and, perhaps, her partner) should have any rights whatsoever in that decision-making process. How does abortion (or not) affect our society as a whole? I know that MY life certainly isn’t impacted one way or another if Suzi Citizen down the street decides to terminate her pregnancy, so I don’t see why there should be any laws about it at all. If there are doctors willing to perform abortions - and I DO believe it should be the doctors’ choice whether or not they do - then what I think about it is entirely irrelevant.
Excellent post.
I agree with everything you said more or less. I think.
You can separate church and state, but our laws are essentially a moral outline, so you can’t separate morality and the state. However, those guiding morals set forth by the state should be intended to protect man from man, not man from himself.
Abortion is tricky. I am pro-choice, but also consider myself pro-life. And as a Catholic (bad one, though I may be), I am proud to say that at least the Roman Catholic church is consistent in its pro-life positions: anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, anti-war.
And I agree…I think I like the Jewish take on “thou shalt not kill/murder” better than the Christian interpretation.
Christi: If there were a draft, there would be no war in Iraq. Can I ask why you think I want the Constitution to be easy to change?
Dawn: It’s tough, tough, tough not to see everything in black and white.
Chili: I’m going to have to think about that comment… there’s a lot to it.
Your marriage example doesn’t work. If we the people, through our elected representatives, decide two-person marriage is good, etc., and forbid polygamy, we can decide heterosexual marriage is good and forbid homosexual marriage. Why should the number of spouses be treated differently than the sex of those spouses? A social contract is a social contract.
I think the real solution is to take marriage away from the state, period. The state can treat any kind of partnership in contractual terms, but leave marriage to religious institutions.
As for abortion, I take a libertarian stance. That is, liberty and property are moot if you have no life. Libertarian philosophy, the backbone of the Constitution, if I understand correctly, holds that nobody has the right to forcefully take life, liberty, or property from someone else. One may defend one’s own life or the life of another, even if it involves killing. The killing must be justified, though. The tricky part of the abortion debate is the question of when inalienable rights can be attributed to an unborn child. That is, when does an unborn child become a person?
That’s not a simple question to answer with certainty, and there will always be grey areas and complicated cases. However, I think some reasonable boundaries can be applied. Partial-birth abortion, for instance, is infanticide, plain and simple. My beef with the state of abortion law in this country is that there’s little room for compromise, and few politicians seem willing to moderate their stances. I’m fully pro-life and wish abortion was never practiced, but I’d settle for a drastic reduction in the number of procedures performed. I’d be thrilled to accept a compromise position that banned abortion after viability (erring on the side of caution, since there’s no single time for that). Many on the right won’t accept anything less than a full ban and many on the left treat abortion-on-deman like a sacrament.
Addendum: Obviously preserving the life of a mother could constitute a justified killing of an unborn child. However, as long as fetuses are legally denied personhood, regardless of stage, they have no inalienable right to life (according to the state).
Wonderful, super, incredible, insightful dialogue taking place here. I’m impressed. I think quite the same as you - but for the moment - the most challenging steps that need to be taken are to enforce and secure the position of President of the United States - in other words, make sure that another idiot has to face certain consequences when he undertakes impeachable offenses as he has in declaring war in Iraq and thumbing his nose at the other arms of our government. Checks and Balances have gone to hell and allowed this idiot (yes our “Commander in Chief” is an IDIOT) to run amok. I believe everything should be redacted BEFORE it comes out of his mouth - interesting thought - but without a brain (Dubya) this won’t be changing for the next 304 days.
Eric: Actually, I disagree. If we voted that male/female marriage was marriage, that would be struck down as unconstitutional, as you’re granting rights unequally.
TheMom: What’s sadder to me is that checks and balances didn’t get restored (at least not with teeth) when the Dems took control of the Senate, either.
I never comment, but I simply can’t let this one pass. I’m a southern protestant and totally agree with you (as if that makes my comment mean more in some way). Marriage is marriage is marriage, duh. What a great concept…21 is adulthood, therefore if they can’t make good decisions about alcohol, we shouldn’t be sending them to war. And then there’s the abortion issue. Wow. You totally summed up exactly how I feel about it. I’m conflicted. I love the label pro-choice with a guilty conscience, because I believe that’s exactly what I am. I wish they never happened. I don’t see an instance where I’d ever have one. However, I cannot allow anyone to take the choice away . So, in this case I believe we should strive to keep them legal, safe, and rare, while striving to educate and offer alternatives and in your brilliant daily words….love.
I think it interesting you boil adulthood down to two issues - voting and drinking. Shouldn’t the legal driving age, the legal age of consent, the smoking age, the age for paying adult fares also be a factor? Here in Australia, 18 is the age for drinking and voting. But an ‘adult’ can still be assessed on their parent’s income when it comes to student welfare until they’re 25! (But that’s just so the government can get out paying support to students, so it’s purely a dollar-driven decision).
I seem to remember when I was in that 16-20 age range, it used to piss me off that I was considered an adult for some things and not others. Perhaps there should be one age applicable to all things - and if you’re an adult, you can make your own choices, and if you’re not, you can’t?
The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and many other ‘historical documents’ were written with credence or reference to a Higher Power. Whether that Power had basis in Christianity, or Theism, or Deism is a mystery.
Tweaking the law to make it more palatable or more relevant to the standards of a modern society may strengthen or weaken it - depending on your views.
The bottom line? Many people in Positions of Power like to throw out catch phrases and mini quotes to get voted in, but don’t necessarily understand what they are saying. Or they do and are outright lying to get voted in. Until voters begin to take a hard look at who is running - and hold people accountable to do their jobs and follow through, nothing will change.
My recommendation? Cut all government salaries to minimum wage, make it blue collar work, and make people punch in and out. They should have to keep a public To Do list and note progress for the general public to see. If appropriate progress is not made in what the public feels is a “timely manner”, the public should reserve the right to fire or demote the politician. If these people are to be working FOR us, then they should have to prove it. If I pulled half the crap that politicians do at MY job?! I would have been fired a LONG time ago.
In the end? It doesn’t really matter what I believe. And that is pretty frigging sad.
Some religions permit or encourage polygamy. How is it equal to forbid their adherents to have multiple spouses?
Sometimes the arguments for homosexual marriage remind of Monty Python’s The Life of Brian. Eric Idle’s character wishes to become a woman and demands to be fairly treated as such - including the right to bear children. Of course, it’s anatomically impossible for him to do so, so the demand for that right makes no sense. Likewise, if marriage is defined minimally as a consensual contract between a human male and a human female, denying two males or two females the “right” to marry is no more unfair than forbidding a coercive marriage (such as between an adult and a child) or an interspecies marriage (such as between a human and a dog - a practice common in India). Denying gay marriage is only an unequal granting or protection of rights if marriage is defined as a consensual contract between two humans. Why stop there, though? Why not make marriage a contract between any number of consenting parties? This is intended neither as a reductio ad absurdum argument, nor as a slippery slope argument. I am seriously asking why restricting gender is unfair but restricting number is not.
Eric: Your polygamy example is faulty. That has nothing to do with gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. If society as a whole agreed that polygamy was fine, then it would be fine. But it isn’t.
Aurelius: Actually, I’m using two issues to talk about adulthood, which is totally different than defining adulthood by two issues. But overall, I’m, inclined to agree with you. Perhaps the age of adulthood should be universally applicable to all rights and privileges.
Renn: I see your point, but if folks could fire their representatives, the Passion of the Day, whatever it may be, would sweep people out of office every couple of days, you know? Sometimes we DO need to raise taxes… but that couldn’t happen if there was month-to-month accountability. Also, real change takes time… and people are impatient. I totally understand where you’re coming from, though. Hugely.
Rich, part of that “etc” you refer to is religion. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Why doesn’t polygamy make the cut?
Eric: By your argument, you’re saying that a religion that believes in child sacrifice, then we really ought to let those folks kill children because it’s part of their religion. Or, if you want to be less harsh, a religion can believe in ignoring red lights. Or that all property is owned by everyone. Or whaever. See what I mean?
There’s a difference between creating a societally supported moral structure, and religion. Obviously, society isn’t going to agree with every religion out there, and will contradict some of them. But that’s not the same as establishing a state religion.
Ok. had a long rant. Deleted it in favor of: I’m with Rich.
Wow, Rich. Is polygamy really comparable to child sacrifice? And I took flak for comparing homophilia and pedophilia as varieties of psychological and/or neurological disorders…
Please address my 11:06 AM comment.
Eric: Did you not even READ my whole response? Like, the part that said:
“Or, if you want to be less harsh, a religion can believe in ignoring red lights. Or that all property is owned by everyone.”
Ginamonster: Then I KNOW I’m onto something.
I was being a smartass. I guess I should have put in a sarcasm alert in the comment.
I was just amused by the irony.
Eric: Oh. Phew. I was completely confused.
you certainly do know how to start a comment-fest. any one of these topics alone might’ve drawn out the lurkers, but you went for a controversy hat-trick. everything i might say, has been said one or more times in one or more comments. now, you and eric w make nice. j/k.