Marc Fischer writes a surprising piece for the Washington Post with the headline “Black Pastors Take Heat for Not Viewing Same-Sex Marriage as Civil Rights Matter.” With Maryland (it seems) about to become the eighth state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage, it’s novel for black pastors to hear that they’re “on the wrong side of history.” The comparison made by advocates of same-sex marriage between the urgency of their position and that of Martin Luther King’s is not new, but these pastors are convinced that the answer to the question of same-sex marriage is rather straightforward, and doesn’t have to do with rights:
Rather, they say, it is a question of Scripture, of whether a country based on Judeo-Christian principles will honor what’s written in Romans or decide to make secular decisions about what’s right. In Maryland, as in California and New York, opinion polls have shown that although a majority of white voters support recognition of same-sex marriage, a majority of blacks oppose it, often on religious grounds.
Read the story here
February 28th, 2012 | 12:33 pm
While I think there is nothing at all to be gained by accusing a black pastor (or anyone) who opposes same-sex marriage—for purely scriptural or religious reasons—of being a bigot, it certainly is true that many opponents of integration (and certainly many anti-Semites) considered themselves to be supported by scripture.
February 28th, 2012 | 1:13 pm
there is no higher prize than being able to claim the term “civil right” for your position. It is the equivalent of the “good housekeeping seal of approval”. It immunizes you from scrutiny and stigmatizes those who disagree with you.
The fact that the term seems to be an empty vessel into which anyone can pour their claims does not yet seem to have diminished its cache. Eventually people will catch on to the fact that it doesn’t seem to have any particular meaning, which will be a great loss for those who do have a legitimate claim for special protections.
February 28th, 2012 | 1:43 pm
“Rather, they say, it is a question of Scripture, of whether a country based on Judeo-Christian principles will honor what’s written in Romans,…”
If you are a Jewish believer why do you care what’s written in “Romans.” Jewish folks don’t believe “Romans” is valid revelation in a God speaking to man sense. Heck a lot of Christians (after Thomas Jefferson) don’t either.
February 28th, 2012 | 2:10 pm
Scriptures must be read as a whole, and should inspire justice here on earth. What else are they for?
February 28th, 2012 | 2:48 pm
What scriptures are not for is making concrete recommendations on disputed public policy issues. If I were walking home one day and Zeus appeared in front of me and said, “I think the capital gains tax rate should be doubled!” I would not expect my Congressman to consider that a serious reason to modify tax laws.
Revelations in Romans, the Catechism, the Qur’an, the Book of Mormon and the Teachings of L. Ron Hubbard should have the same status as revelations from Zeus. Valid arguments for formulating secular law must be based on objective, empirically discoverable, publicly verifiable evidence.
“Because it would make it very difficult to maintain the prohibitions on polygamous and consensually incestuous marriage” is a valid reason for not changing the law. “Because Zeus says so” is not.
February 28th, 2012 | 3:18 pm
As Pastor Thomas notes, robust civil unions would drain (steal?) a lot of tension from the debate. Sadly, in Michigan and Virginia, the “defense of marriage” amendments set a precedent of banning civil unions.
“Do not interfere with an army that is returning home. When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.” – Sun Tzu
If you force an all-or-nothing conflict, don’t be surprised when your opponent goes all-or-nothing, too.
February 28th, 2012 | 3:33 pm
Maryland will likely not become the eighth state with legal same-sex marriage. A petition campaign has already begun to take the bill to referendum in November. It is probable that the bill will be defeated by the voters. Thank God for black pastors, at least one of whom is a state delegate and gave wonderful speeches in the legislature. I hope he made his white liberal opponents on this matter feel at least somewhat guilty at their appropriation of the “civil rights” mantle.
February 28th, 2012 | 4:18 pm
felapton:
“Valid arguments for formulating secular law must be based on objective, empirically discoverable, publicly verifiable evidence.”
how is this statement empirically discoverable? what sort of scientific experiment did you run to arrive at this conclusion?
February 28th, 2012 | 4:31 pm
Having a religious reason for supporting something (or opposing something) does not make a person right or exempt a person from criticism. There have been many cases in which a religious belief was used (and quite sincerely) to justify what was obviously bigotry.
Here’s a wonderfully dramatic moment from an old Time Magazine story about Archbishop Rummel of New Orleans, who excommunicated three people in the early 1960s because they interfered with his efforts to integrate the Catholic schools:
Was Mrs. Gaillot a bigot? I would say most definitely so. But she was apparently a very sincere bigot whose opposition to segregation was religious in nature.
February 28th, 2012 | 4:35 pm
@Andrew,
Historically, whenever it has been violated, the result has been an unmitigated disaster.
February 28th, 2012 | 5:59 pm
David, a person can be wrong and a person can be right; everyone has sincere beliefs about things. What is your point? People can be wrong? That is not news.
You apparently think that because there has been racism in the past, we cannot distinguish between that and claims of ‘discrimination’ today? Anybody could claim ‘discrimination’ if they wanted to; it needs to be evaluated. And most black people, who have seen genuine discrimination, do not believe that the ‘discrimination’ gays claim is the same in any sense.
When someone like Emmett Burns, a MD delegate from Baltimore who has actually lived through the black civil rights movement, loudly voices his objection to the legislation, he is dismissed by the Washington Post. But then that makes perfect sense- two elements of the Democratic Party are having a fight, and the Washington Post, being essentially a party paper, wants to quiet that down.
Who, I wonder is putting ‘heat’ on black pastors for their positions? The Washington Post? Outside of Montgomery County, few people care what the Washington Post says. Fortunately, the people of Maryland will have the final say on this issue, and although the Washington Post will try to sway opinion (as it tried to in Virginia in 2006) I doubt it will work.
February 28th, 2012 | 7:50 pm
felapton,
can the study of history ever be “empirical” and “objective?”
thanks.
February 28th, 2012 | 9:05 pm
What is your point?
Mike P.,
My point is very simple. “I’m just following the Bible,” or “I’m just doing what God wants” are not, in and of themselves, defenses against the charge of bigotry. I am not arguing about whether gay people are, or have been, discriminated against. I am saying the “religious defense” against charges of bigotry is insufficient, whether the bigotry is anti-gay, or anti-Jew, or anti-Catholic, or anti-Protestant, or anti-Muslim.
February 28th, 2012 | 9:50 pm
My point is very simple. “I’m just following the Bible,” or “I’m just doing what God wants” are not, in and of themselves, defenses against the charge of bigotry.
Yes, whenever anyone uses the term “bigotry” – for any purpose – you must immediately do whatever you are told to do – believe whatever you are told to believe, accept any position no matter how illogical or just plain wrong – or else you are a “bigot”.
On the bright side, the currency backing that term “bigot” is so debased it is almost useless. The word “bigot” used to be a word to describe people who were genuinely bad people, or people who did genuinely bad things.
Like the “boy who cried wolf”, someday people might need to describe the phenomenon the term “bigotry” used to describe. But there will be no word, because people have declared that refusing to affirm unhealthy sexual preferences is somehow morally the same as murdering Emmet Till.
When a word is used to describe everything, it loses its ability to describe anything.
February 28th, 2012 | 10:05 pm
there is no higher prize than being able to claim the term “civil right” for your position. It is the equivalent of the “good housekeeping seal of approval”. It immunizes you from scrutiny and stigmatizes those who disagree with you.
The fact that the term seems to be an empty vessel into which anyone can pour their claims does not yet seem to have diminished its cache.
I believe our society is still in a long-term process of transition. It used to be that we congregated by tribe – to be European meant belonging to “Western Christendom”.
As a people, we have been moving toward getting rid of the race-based categorizations and we have been increasingly grouping according to a conception of shared national values that is not based on race (and is even capable of describing race as an “artificial” demarcation or “social construct” – an idea that would have been nonsensical in the year Shakespeare wrote Othello).
It is not a coincidence that around the same time we were having a big civil rights movement to work toward assimilating blacks as full members of society – full and equal citizens of America – the colonies and former colonies were having very similar movements. This happened because it was a historical moment when we were all ready to approach reconciling the tension between our new beliefs (rejection of the Divine Right of Kings and of aristocracy, embracing of ideas such as “all men are created equal”, etc.)
It was the moment when our society was finally, finally ready to start trying to live up to its ideals.
To pretend that today’s rather petty claims and concerns are the same in kind is the absurdity of those who haven’t got a better argument. Unlike real civil rights movements, their claims can’t stand on their own, but require a carefully framed context in order to make their claims seem somehow more important than they are (“not being able to marry is like what we used to do to black people!”, as if the whole point of rejecting gay marriage was because we were afraid that the gay genes might – contaminate the non-gay gene pool?)
Under the logical construction the Left is trying to bombard us with, anything they want can and will be justified as a “civil rights issue”. Everyone has a right to be what they are – that is what the civil rights movement established. Therefore everyone has the right to do whatever they want, and has a right to be given whatever they need – these are what’s new, what’s been added, the parts that weren’t there when Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of having a “dream”.
February 28th, 2012 | 10:13 pm
David,
I think the pastor’s argument is a little different than that. His claim is that marriage as established in the United States is based on scripture, specifically Judeo-Christian scripture. He claims that is historical fact. That’s different than arguing that only the definition of marriage in the Bible is pertinent. If someone believes that is no longer sustainable, perhaps for reasons of separation of church and state, than the reasonable argument is that marriage should be left to the churches and the state should get out of the business, not that the name should be expropriated for a different purpose.
We have these curious ideas that SSM is banned by current marriage laws and that disagreeing with SSM is bigotry. Then there’s the claim that the 14th amendment supports these views. Odd that for over a hundred years, nobody noticed that fact. These ideas are not based on objective, empirically discoverable, publicly verifiable evidence. By these arguments, “marriage” can be defined anyway desired by a sufficiently large special interest group. If SSM succeeds, that will probably follow.
My own opinion: “marriage” is becoming just another bundle of government paid benefits.
February 28th, 2012 | 11:30 pm
Felapton,
“Valid arguments for formulating secular law must be based on objective, empirically discoverable, publicly verifiable evidence.”
“Historically, whenever it has been violated, the result has been an unmitigated disaster.”
What an astoundingly broad, self-assured and entirely unsupported assertion.
Nobody had to perform an empirical data check to determine whether or not the perseverance of the institution of slavery in this country was wrong, and all sorts of economic and sociological arguments, based on “empirically discoverable evidence”, could probably have been concocted to justify the maintenance of that “peculiar institution”.
Eugenics was/is a supposedly “objective” and “scientific” discipline.
February 29th, 2012 | 3:12 am
I think the pastor’s argument is a little different than that. His claim is that marriage as established in the United States is based on scripture, specifically Judeo-Christian scripture.
Mike Melendez,
I have not really addressed what the pastor says, but it was, at a time, quite possible to argue that slavery was based on scripture, or anti-miscegenation laws were based on scripture, or segregation was based on scripture. While everyone has a right to argue their views on same-sex marriage in the light of what the Bible says, those arguments mean nothing in a court of law (and actually will hurt the case).
The concept of “Judeo-Christian” did not come along until more than a century after the founding of this country. The New Testament is not “Judeo-Christian” scripture. It’s Christian scripture. If “Judeo-Christian” is to be used at all, it should be limited to what Jews and Christians hold in common, and that excludes Romans and the rest of the New Testament, otherwise you would have to classify the Talmud as “Judeo-Christian.”
February 29th, 2012 | 4:44 am
Ramesh Ponnuru once remarked that “Liberals tend to assume, without realizing it, that the rational view of any controversial moral issue is likely to be the one that most non-religious people take. The idea that a religious tradition could strengthen people’s reason—could help them reach rationally sound conclusions they might not otherwise reach, and stick to them when there may be reasons of emotion or self-interest not to do so—rarely occurs to them.”
February 29th, 2012 | 9:54 am
“Liberals tend to assume, without realizing it, that the rational view of any controversial moral issue is likely to be the one that most non-religious people take.”
Let’s look at some controversial issues: I think the leadership of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s was very much influenced by religion, and I think it was basically a liberal cause. I think the opposition to capital punishment is largely religious in nature, and that too strikes me as a liberal cause. I think those in favor of gun control would welcome any religious support they could get, and I would imagine most clergy are in favor of tighter controls on guns (although I don’t have any statistics at hand). I would also expect that on economic issues like the minimum wage, the religious view is more in line with the liberal view than the conservative view. I think religious people are more likely to be concerned about income inequality than non-religious people.
Conservatives would like to think religion and religious people are always on their side, but I don’t believe that’s the case. Catholic Social Teaching, it seems to me, is quite “liberal.” The Catholic idea of the just wage is so liberal, in my view, that even American liberals can’t accept it.
February 29th, 2012 | 10:15 am
Martin Luther King, Jr. said he looked forward to the day when people were judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. That is a noble goal. The matter of those engaging in homosexual acts is precisely a matter of character, it seems to me. That is why homosexual marriage is not a proper civil rights issue.
February 29th, 2012 | 12:23 pm
“The New Testament is not “Judeo-Christian” scripture. It’s Christian scripture.”
David, I know you’re aware that the Old Testament of the Christian Bible is the same as the Jewish TANAKH just as the Torah subset corresponds to the Pentateuch. And you are also aware that meanings exist before terms are invented to contain them. So your counter-arguments are lacking a level of logic. They are merely misdirections.
And, as always, you redefine terms to meet your arguments rather than looking for the meaning of the terms in use. Judeo-Christian is, in part, a recognition that the later came from the former. To use set logic, it is as much about the union of the two teachings as it is about the intersection of them.
As regards the second quote, you are closer to reality, but that’s an easy one given the categorical use of “liberal” and “conservative” and its implicit assumption that only conservatives are religious. Still, the thrust can be understood. Arguments against SSM tend to be dismissed as “religious” and therefore, as someone on this thread says, “won’t stand up in court”.
February 29th, 2012 | 12:57 pm
both michael ps and shmuel ben-gad make incisive comments.
it seems when most “liberals” think of “religious” objections to a certain policy, they probably pre-cognitively think of such objections as necessarily “irrational.” and please, no irrational beliefs at the public square….
ironically, simply assuming the truth of such a facile “religious = irrational” equation is itself evidence of intellectual laziness, if not irrationality.
February 29th, 2012 | 1:02 pm
Calling the civil rights movement a liberal cause is wrong. Republican/conservative support for racial equality often outdid democratic support.
For just a few examples:
October 13, 1858
During Lincoln-Douglas debates, U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas (D-IL) states: “I do not regard the Negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother, or any kin to me whatever”; Douglas became Democratic Party’s 1860 presidential nominee
April 16, 1862
President Lincoln signs bill abolishing slavery in District of Columbia; in Congress, 99% of Republicans vote yes, 83% of Democrats vote no
September 30, 1953
Earl Warren, California’s three-term Republican Governor and 1948 Republican vice presidential nominee, nominated to be Chief Justice; wrote landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education
November 25, 1955
Eisenhower administration bans racial segregation of interstate bus travel
March 12, 1956
Ninety-seven Democrats in Congress condemn Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and pledge to continue segregation
June 5, 1956
Republican federal judge Frank Johnson rules in favor of Rosa Parks in decision striking down “blacks in the back of the bus” law
November 6, 1956
African-American civil rights leaders Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy vote for Republican Dwight Eisenhower for President
September 9, 1957
President Dwight Eisenhower signs Republican Party’s 1957 Civil Rights Act
September 24, 1957
Sparking criticism from Democrats such as Senators John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, President Dwight Eisenhower deploys the 82nd Airborne Division to Little Rock, AR to force Democrat Governor Orval Faubus to integrate public schools
August 4, 1965
Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL) overcomes Democrat attempts to block 1965 Voting Rights Act; 94% of Senate Republicans vote for landmark civil right legislation, while 27% of Democrats oppose. Voting Rights Act of 1965, abolishing literacy tests and other measures devised by Democrats to prevent African-Americans from voting, signed into law; higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats vote in favor
And Catholic social teaching is not liberal – if you’re living it right, you’re not liberal or conservative — you’re CATHOLIC. I’m pretty sure Catholic social teaching calls for a just wage society (though doesn’t demand that a government do such a thing by force — and in fact does not state which type of government is best nor give specific details on what forms of laws and legislations would best create such a
society — these are open questions that are valid to debate on their moralities AND OVERALL EFECTS) but also for a society that respects the dignity of all life, from the moment of conception until natural death. And I don’t see those falling in line with the liberal cause.
And since the right of every life to exist without threat of death due to inconvenience does, according to Catholic social teaching, trump a call for just wage for all (since there are many morally valid ways to try and reach this point, both liberal and conservative), you should be able to see why many religious people would logically expect the conservative movement really DOES have religion on its side.
February 29th, 2012 | 1:33 pm
Arguments against SSM tend to be dismissed as “religious” and therefore, as someone on this thread says, “won’t stand up in court”.
Mike Melendez,
There are arguably cases against same-sex marriage that are not religious, but we are discussing in this thread black pastors who are very definitely making religious arguments against same-sex marriage that would not hold up in court:
Now, voters may base their votes on whatever they choose, including religious doctrines. But legislatures and courts in American democracy may not decide against same-sex marriage in order to “honor what’s written in Romans.” Legislatures and courts are required to make secular decisions.
February 29th, 2012 | 5:08 pm
“Legislatures and courts are required to make secular decisions.”
What requires them to do that? Not the establishment clause, surely, which says nothing about the basis of public decision-making, only the prohibition on the establishment of religion. Voting on a bill because of what Romans says in conjunction with your belief that Romans is correct, has nothing to do with state support of ecclesiastical bodies or enforcement of doctrine.
February 29th, 2012 | 8:08 pm
Voting on a bill because of what Romans says in conjunction with your belief that Romans is correct, has nothing to do with state support of ecclesiastical bodies or enforcement of doctrine.
pentamom,
You are of course correct. If a legislator voted for an anti-same-sex-marriage bill because of what Paul says in Romans, the legislator would be well within his rights. However, that anti-same-sex-marriage bill itself would have to be secular in nature. It could not invoke Paul as an authority or even say it was God’s plan that only a man and a woman could marry. And if people were to try to use Romans as an authority in an argument before a court, they would be out of their minds.
By the way, St. Paul doesn’t actually make an argument against homosexuality in Romans. He clearly assumes it to be very bad indeed, but he doesn’t make a case against it. You can’t take Chapter 1 of Romans, remove the religious content, and have a secular argument. Homosexuality is not what Paul is condemning. It is the refusal of the Romans to see and acknowledge a self-evident God. Homosexuality was not their sin, but rather their punishment.
February 29th, 2012 | 11:52 pm
“However, that anti-same-sex-marriage bill itself would have to be secular in nature. It could not invoke Paul as an authority or even say it was God’s plan that only a man and a woman could marry. And if people were to try to use Romans as an authority in an argument before a court, they would be out of their minds. ”
You ignored my question. Why? Why “could it not” invoke Paul as an authority or refer to God’s plan?
“And if people were to try to use Romans as an authority in an argument before a court, they would be out of their minds.”
I agree that it would be ineffective if used as the sole argument, so it would be pretty foolish to limit one’s legal arguments that way. But that’s a different matter from sweeping statements like laws “must be” secular and legislation “cannot” refer to the Bible.
On what do you base these very definitive statements?
“By the way, St. Paul doesn’t actually make an argument against homosexuality in Romans.”
Yes, I know. But I was just continuing with the Romans example since you referred to it. It’s just that — an example. You could substitute other issues and other books of the Bible; that’s beside the point.
March 1st, 2012 | 8:52 am
“Homosexuality is not what Paul is condemning. It is the refusal of the Romans to see and acknowledge a self-evident God. Homosexuality was not their sin, but rather their punishment.”
Punishment?
So according to your understanding, St Paul instructs us that the God the Romans refused to acknowledge or believe in had the power to make them gay?
Wow. That’s a new one.
Does this mean all Romans gay?
Wow. That’s another new one
What does this do to the new Christian thinking that one is born gay? A baby can’t acknowledge God, much less a baby born in the womb. Or are you saying a baby in the womb can and does acknowledge God? And some in the womb don’t acknowledge God so he makes them gay?
Wow.
How does this affect the new Christian thinking abortion is a-ok?
I dunno. Call me a dinosaur or a bigot –whichever you prefer — perhaps Paul is/was saying homosexuality one of the natural outcomes possible thanks to spiritual blindness and arrogance?
He does expound on this idea elsewhere in the bible…
March 1st, 2012 | 10:56 am
So according to your understanding, St Paul instructs us that the God the Romans refused to acknowledge or believe in had the power to make them gay?
Wow. That’s a new one.
Mrs. Jackson,
I suggest you read Romans 1 and also consult a good commentary.
March 1st, 2012 | 11:17 am
Thank you David. I have read it. Many times.
I was commenting on your commentary.
March 1st, 2012 | 4:58 pm
We have these curious ideas that SSM is banned by current marriage laws and that disagreeing with SSM is bigotry. Then there’s the claim that the 14th amendment supports these views. Odd that for over a hundred years, nobody noticed that fact. These ideas are not based on objective, empirically discoverable, publicly verifiable evidence. By these arguments, “marriage” can be defined anyway desired by a sufficiently large special interest group. If SSM succeeds, that will probably follow.
What is more frightening: if SSM succeeds, “family” will no longer be defined by biology, but by the government’s power to establish and dissolve the ties that form family.
There are three sources of legitimate authority, or three ways that people group themselves together into social units: shared kinship (family), shared faith-beliefs (values communities or religion), and shared community (common economic and defense needs). Our nation wants to eradicate and take over the other two sources of authority and legitimacy, and become THE sole source of all power, authority, legitimacy (this is what puts the “total” in “totalitarianism”).
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