GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE

A frequent trope in the attack on traditional marriage defenders by same-sex marriage advocates is to the claim that referring to religiously based truths is a violation of the separation of church and state. If we want to oppose same-sex marriage, we must use purely secular arguments.

Some examples:

• African-American columnist Sheryl McCarthy wrote in the USA Today, “I see marriage as a civil right, and no group’s religious beliefs should be allowed to deny the rights of others. And because blacks have suffered from bigotry and injustice that were cloaked by religion and morality, we should avoid doing the same thing to others.”

• An “Open Letter to the U.S. Senate from America’s Clergy” told the senators: “we respect the right of each religious group to decide, based on its own religious teachings, whether or not to sanction marriage of same-sex couples. It is surely not the federal government’s role to prefer one religious definition of marriage over another.”

• Early gay-marriage pioneer Andrew Sullivan wrote in the New Republic, “the religious content of marriage is irrelevant in this case. No one is proposing that faith communities be required to change their definitions of marriage…. The question at hand is civil marriage and only civil marriage. In a country where church and state are separate, this is no small distinction…. Many citizens adhere to no church at all. Should they be required to adhere to a religious teaching in order to be legally married?”

Now, these points of view are certainly legitimate. It’s just that they represent a tiny minority of the attitudes toward faith and politics in American history. Many outspoken Americans – from abolitionists to civil-rights practitioners of civil disobedience to conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War – have justified their activism in religious terms. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King even quoted the Book of Isaiah during his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

The most prominent and persuasive articulator of my attitude that religious arguments are perfectly proper in civil discourse happens to be running for president. And it’s not Bob Barr or even John McCain.

In an outstanding speech to a Christian social-justice group in Washington, DC, two years ago, Obama articulated how using religious arguments to achieve social change is not only legitimate, it is quintessentially American. Some excerpts:

If we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice. Imagine Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address without reference to “the judgments of the Lord,” or King’s I Have a Dream speech without reference to “all of God’s children.” Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible and move the nation to embrace a common destiny….

I think we should put more of our tax dollars into educating poor girls and boys, and give them the information about contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and help assure that that every child is loved and cherished. But my Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it….

Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King – indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history – were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public policy debates is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

McCarthy has written of Obama’s “extraordinary gifts.” The conservative Sullivan practically drools over the liberal Obama in his blog, calling him “the right candidate for right now.” I wonder how such public intellectuals justify their enthusiasm for someone who clearly agrees with me on the legitimacy not only of speaking in religious terms about civic issues, but of codifying religious values into law.

Let me be clear: anyone who thinks I mustn’t cite the Torah or the Talmud in justifying my support for man-woman marriage will get no flak from me for voting against the California Marriage Protection Act, as long as they also vote against the likely Democratic nominee.