Marriage Protection Week, Part II [11.12.03]

I'd like to use my space this week to respond to the person who wrote in objection to my previous column.

First of all, thank you for caring enough to write. Most people do not have strong enough convictions to voice their opinions on controversial matters.

That said, I would like to address some of your reasoning. You say that the First Amendment was not intended to keep the church out of the government's business, only vice versa.

Allow me to pose and then answer two questions:

Question No. 1: Why was the freedom-of-religion clause of the First Amendment placed in the Bill of Rights?

Answer: Because many groups of people who had different sets of beliefs were sick of the English government telling them that there is only one legitimate set of beliefs and that all others should not be allowed.

Question No. 2: Why was the English government telling people there was only one legitimate set of beliefs?

Answer: Because it was controlled by people who adhered to that set of beliefs, and they used that control to impress their beliefs on everyone.

So while it is important to keep the government out of the church, it is equally if not more important to keep the church out of the government. It is impossible to separate the two ideas, especially because one of the main tenets of Christianity is to spread its message to everyone.

Throughout history, people have committed countless atrocities while trying to force their own beliefs on others. Focusing on Christianity, there were the Crusades, Christopher Columbus' brutal treatment of natives when he "discovered" the New World, Americans' genocide of the native peoples in the name of Manifest Destiny, and well, you get the picture.

And don't think it's all in the distant past, either. The Catholic Church is currently telling outright lies in Africa--telling people that condoms spread AIDS--because their belief system says abstinence is the only answer to any question regarding sex outside of marriage.

They are willing to risk peoples' lives in order to force their beliefs on them. So don't you think that Christians in our government would be only too happy to make laws that force their beliefs on all Americans if the Constitution didn't forbid it?

The framers of the Constitution knew that if no attempt was made to separate church and state, America would soon experience the same problems that caused so many people to leave England in the first place.

Also, I never claimed that Marriage Protection Week was unconstitutional. What I said was that the proposed Constitutional Amendment forbidding same-sex marriages is unconstitutional. I challenge you to explain how the Federal Marriage Amendment does not force Christian values on all Americans.

In fact, Don Hodel, our guy from Focus on the Family, said that's exactly what the point of the FMA is. To repeat his quote from my last column, Mr. Hodel said same-sex marriage is "an absolute negation of the Judeo-Christian value system upon which our laws and Constitution are based."

The First Amendment gives you and the right to believe same-sex marriages are immoral. However, it also prohibits you from telling others they have to feel the same way.