Subject:
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Re: Santorum Fails In His Effort To Pervert The Constitution
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 20 Jul 2004 20:04:03 GMT
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Viewed:
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1606 times
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This is the point on which we apparently cannot agree. Let me restate that
I absolutely 100% support a the right of a church/faith/etc. to set the
criteria for legitimate marriage within that church/faith/etc. However,
those criteria are entirely separate from the legal criteria under the
Constitution. By all means, let the individual private groups set their
standards, but they have no business forcing their own views upon society as
a whole.
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But the fact remains that our society’s standards, as a whole, are
Judeo-Christian in origin.
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Over the past couple of months I have occasionally been sending letters to the
local paper in my neck of the woods in response to another gentleman who has
been doing the same. (Most of which, the paper has been printing on both sides
of the disscusion. Its nice having a small town local paper that is actually
unbiased and prints both sides with equal respect.) His views are very similar
to yours Mr. Neal. The letter which I have sent to the paper this morrning
actually has surprising relavence to this specific debate on the issue. And so
here its is:
“
Last time I checked preventing religious zealots from forcing their beliefs on
others counts as enforcing freedom of religion. If people perceive that
Judea-Christian (and Muslim as all three worship the God of Abram) religion is
somehow under attack, it is simply because those religions have been sticking
their noses where they don’t belong. [The person] stated that the
unconstitutional addition of the phrase, “under God,” to the Pledge of
Allegiance is based on a new interpretation of the constitution. The Baptist
Minister Francis Bellamy, the author of the pledge, intentionally left out any
mention of God so it would not violate the constitution. That is not exactly
what I would call a new interpretation.
To the continuing assertion that Christianity is the foundation of our country,
I once again point out article eleven of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship from
the Barbary Treaties. It states: “As the government of the United States of
America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, ...no pretext
arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the
harmony existing between the two countries.” This treaty was ratified by
congress June 10, 1797. You can find it on the Yale Law School’s internet site.
We must remember that when we declared our independence from the British crown
that the crown was the head of the Church of England. Lets also not forget that
at the time, anyone who pointed out the corruption in the Catholic Church was
branded a heretic by the Inquisition. (Very similar to the current state of
Islamic faith.) Don’t forget that Galileo was still considered a heretic even
though anyone with a telescope and some mathematics skills could easily see he
was correct in his assertion that the Earth revolved around the sun, rather than
the other way around as the Church maintained. Yes, our founders were aware of
these things.
Lets go back to the issue that really started all of this, Gay Marriage. People
have been saying that we can not allow activist judges to change our laws via
creative misinterpretation of the Constitution. (which would also apply to issue
of ‘under god’ in the Pledge) Unfortunately for those who wish to force their
religious beliefs on us, all of the court rulings regarding Gay Marriage (and
the Pledge) are completely accurate to the meaning and intent of first
amendment. (An example of an actual creative misinterpretation would be the
notion that the second amendment ratified in 1791 does not refer to the people
as it says but rather the national guard which was created in 1917. Do you see
how that is an attempt to change the second amendment’s meaning, where enforcing
what the first amendment actually says is not a misinterpretation?)
The real problem is that the definition of marriage was changed many decades ago
when the government began controlling it. People can actually get married
without a church, temple, etc., and a church, temple, etc. can’t legally marry
people with out the government’s permission. Outrageous isn’t it. The damage has
already been done, in order to comply with the first amendment either the
government must abolish legal marriages altogether and allow churches, temples,
etc. to handle it themselves or the government must allow any willing
participants to be married. Of course I should point out that some Churches
recently began supporting gay marriage, sparking the debate in the first place.
This is the one point which I have yet to see a response from anyone. If the
first amendment doesn’t mean exactly what it says and protect all religious
beliefs equally, why would we need a constitutional amendment against gay
marriage?
”
-Mike Petrucelli
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