Tag: Politics

Obama Supports Gay Marriage

~ Evan Lenow

On the heels of the referendum vote in North Carolina yesterday, President Obama came out today in support of gay marriage in an interview with ABC News. Despite the fact that many referendum votes on gay marriage have resulted in huge margins of victories for supporters of traditional marriage (the NC vote was 61%–39% in favor of the marriage amendment), the President has reached his conclusions on the basis of personal experience.

President Obama had the following to say regarding the evolution of his position:

I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

Another telling point he made in the interview is that he previously thought that civil unions would have been sufficient to guarantee rights of hospital visitation and other rights related to marriage. He also expressed concern about infringing on the traditional and religious connotations of the term “marriage.” However, he finally concluded that he needed to stake his claim in support of same-sex marriage.

The President also considers the debate over same-sex marriage to be generational. He recounted that he speaks to Republicans on college campuses who share his views about same-sex marriage despite the fact that they have differing views on other policies.

Another interesting element of the interview is that the President recognizes his departure the historic Christian position on homosexuality. He states:

[Y]ou know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated.

While it may be a subtle acknowledgement, I am thankful to see that President Obama recognizes his views are at odds with the Christian community. In essence, he places his own personal experience above the teaching of Scripture and the church. Unfortunately for the President, this places him in a precarious position for an ethical standard. While he claims to live by the principles of Scripture, he is willing to set aside the standards of his own choosing to make himself and his friends feel better about their own experience. Instead of filtering his views through the lens of Scripture, he has filtered Scripture through the lens of experience.

Such an approach to ethics carries severe risks because the personal experience of individuals can be used to justify almost anything. What happens when the President meets polygamists who are in committed relationships seeking to rear their children? What happens when the President befriends a brother and sister who desire to have their incestuous relationship recognized as a legitimate marriage? If personal experience is our only guide, then we have jumped headlong down a very slippery slope.

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Rick Klein, “President Obama Affirms His Support for Same Sex Marriage,” May 9, 2012.

Defining Marriage in Politics

~ Evan Lenow

Tomorrow is a big day for marriage in North Carolina. The statewide primary election includes a vote on a referendum seeking to place a constitutional amendment on the books defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. This would, in effect, place a ban on same-sex marriages in the state. Heavy hitters from both sides of the spectrum have weighed in to the discussion including Billy Graham supporting the amendment and Bill Clinton speaking against it.

The May 8 vote in North Carolina comes on the heels of other politicos expressing their views on same-sex marriage. Over the weekend, Vice President Joe Biden declared that he is “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage. Biden’s comments stirred quite a bit of controversy among White House staffers since President Obama has yet to make any definitive statement regarding his own position. He has said that his views are still evolving. This morning, Education Secretary Arne Duncan also affirmed his support for gay marriage.

Both the marriage amendment vote and the statements by Biden and Duncan bring to the forefront the discussion of the definition of marriage. In all of these circumstances, marriage is being defined in political and legal terms. In his “Meet the Press” interview, Biden said:

I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.

Biden claims that marriage is about civil rights. These civil rights include inheritance rights, the ability to file joint tax returns, property rights, etc. This line of reasoning identifies the marriage debate as one similar to the civil rights debate of the 1960’s.

The NC marriage amendment reads as follows:

Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state. This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.

This views marriage as a legal contract recognized by the state. It is interesting to note that the amendment allows for other avenues to address property rights of individuals who want to enter contracts that are outside the legally recognized status of marriage.

What neither of these political definitions address is one of the most foundational roles of marriage—the rearing of children. Both theologically and biologically, one of the main ends of marriage is procreation and the rearing of children. In fact, this is a very real public good accomplished through marriage.

In Genesis 1:28, we see that God commands the first man and woman to be fruitful and multiply. In this very first command, we have the institution of one of the ends of marriage—procreation. By implication in that command is the idea that the couple will nurture their own children to maturity until the children can form marriages of their own and repeat the process.

Biologically, we recognize that heterosexual marriages are the only types of marriages that can reproduce their own biological offspring. Thus, homosexual marriages are cut off from accomplishing the task of rearing their own children.

Of course, we must admit that not all marriages include children and not all marriages that do include children are successful at rearing them. However, this does not invalidate this aspect of the argument against same-sex marriage. The biological potentiality of reproduction in heterosexual marriage points to the societal good accomplished by fathers and mothers in committed marriages.

The civil rights argument for same-sex marriage must institute a false limit to prevent the same argument from being used for polygamous, polyamorous, and incestuous marriages. True fidelity to the civil rights argument, by necessity, must include those forms of marriage in the definition. However, most proponents of homosexual marriage desire to stop short of that definition—claiming monogamy is still the ideal.

As we consider the political definitions of marriage thrust upon the public square by referendum and talking heads, we must recognize that there is more to the definition of marriage than just a contractual arrangement between a man and a woman. I have just attempted to demonstrate one aspect of the traditional definition of marriage neglected in recent political attempts to define marriage. A full discussion of a well-rounded definition of marriage is reserved for another time.

Let us not be sidetracked in our understanding of marriage to limit it simply to a domestic legal union recognized by the state. Certainly that is part of the contemporary context of marriage, but there is more to it than that.

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John Frank, “Final poll gives marriage amendment clear advantage,” News and Observer, May 7, 2012.

“Obama Cabinet member Arne Duncan backs gay marriage, one day after Biden comments,” Fox News, May 7, 2012.

The Feminist Idea of Reproductive Justice

~ Evan Lenow

I have already written a few pieces about the Health and Human Services mandate requiring contraceptives and birth control to be dispensed at no charge as part of group insurance plans. I have made theological and political arguments about the issue here. In a piece published this past weekend on The Public Discourse, Mary Rose Somarriba develops a natural law argument against the mandate and exposes the feminist idea of reproductive justice. Here are a few highlights:

For supporters of the recent HHS mandate that forces religious institutions to buy insurance that makes these items free to their employees and students, the cause served is “reproductive justice.” It was as past president of Law Students for Reproductive Justice that Sandra Fluke testified to Congress—as a victim of injustice who, along with her female peers at Georgetown, suffers from not having contraception paid for her in full.

But what is “reproductive justice”? To help answer that question, perhaps we should first ask: Who is guilty of the injustice? For Fluke, it’s her school that “creates untenable burdens that impede our academic success.” But of course it’s unfair to say that an institution, by not covering the cost of some product, implicitly creates burdens for its female students. My employer, by not covering my preferred allergy medicine, doesn’t create my burden of allergies. My allergy problems are internal to myself. They are, so to speak, natural problems I live with, ones I cannot label as someone else’s fault. Unless I were futilely to blame, say, God or nature.

Even though it seems ridiculous to blame nature for this “injustice,” Somarriba argues that blaming nature is exactly what feminists are doing with their arguments for reproductive justice and reproductive freedom. She continues:

But I would argue that underneath it all, advocates of “reproductive justice” do blame nature. Nature is the true obstacle to these women’s idea of justice.

Fluke might not put it this way, but radical feminists who cling to terms like “reproductive justice” and “reproductive freedom” are really trying to beat the cards that nature dealt them. They want sexual license outside the scope of what nature provides as the healthiest course—sex with one person for a lifetime. They object to the reality that sex can naturally lead to babies, creating burdens that research shows they’d be best suited to bear with the help of a husband. Underneath sexual liberationists’ wish to overthrow patriarchal traditions of marriage and religious institutions’ principles of sexual ethics, there seems to be a wish to overthrow the most stubborn foundation of all—nature herself.

The conclusion of the article is that reproductive justice and reproductive freedom are manufactured “rights” that have no grounding in nature nor the Constitution. Somarriba writes:

So, getting back to our original question: What is “true reproductive freedom”? If it means absolute sexual license without consequences such as pregnancy and children, then it has the unfortunate attribute of never before existing in history. It’s not a freedom that women have ever fully exercised; it isn’t one that was possessed by women at some time but was taken from them and thus needs to be safeguarded from violators.

Nevertheless, terms like “reproductive freedom” and “reproductive justice” are the rallying cries of such advocates. For Hoffman and her comrades, unwanted pregnancy is an unjust imposition on women who are sexually active. Technology such as contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization have nearly evened the scales of reproductive justice—even if not completely; as long as women have had to pay for these things, they’re still being treated unjustly.

The article is an interesting read and worth your time.

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Mary Rose Somarriba, “The Battle Against Nature’s Sexism,” The Public Discourse, April 20, 2012.

For my other articles on the so-called “contraceptive mandate,” visit https://evanlenow.wordpress.com/tag/contraception/.

Can an Unjust Law Be a Law at All?: The Contraceptive Mandate

~ Evan Lenow ~ 1 Comment

I have previously written about the Health and Human Services guideline to the Affordable Care Act (aka, ObamaCare) that will require religious institutions to provide all FDA-approved contraceptives to their employees at no charge through their group health insurance plans. I believe that such a mandate violates religious liberty and freedom of conscience that is guaranteed protection under the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Today the United States Senate voted to table the Blunt Amendment which would have protected those who object to this new insurance mandate. The vote was predictably along party lines with all but one Republican favoring the amendment and all but three Democrats opposing the amendment.

As this new mandate proceeds to take the form of law, we need to ask the questions:

Is this law unjust?

Can an unjust law be a law at all?

In relation to the justice of this law, I have previously argued that it violates the freedom of religion granted by the First Amendment. In addition, I believe this law is unjust because it violates God’s eternal law of protection of innocent life. We see in Genesis 1:27 that human beings are created in the image of God. Thus, the inherent value of humans begins at conception. Any attempt to end life after conception (e.g., Plan B, Ella, abortion, etc.) is a violation of the eternal law of God.

Thomas Aquinas gives us a good historical perspective from which to evaluate the justice of human law. Aquinas writes:

Laws framed by man are either just or unjust. If they be just, they have the power of binding in conscience, from the eternal law whence they are derived. . . . On the other hand laws may be unjust in two ways: first, by being contrary to human good . . . either in respect of the end . . . ; or in respect to the author, as when a man makes a law that goes beyond the power committed to him;—or in respect of the form, as when burdens are imposed unequally on the community, although with a view to the common good. . . . Secondly, laws may be unjust through being opposed to the Divine good: such are the laws of tyrants inducing idolatry, or to anything contrary to the Divine law: and laws of this kind must nowise be observed, because, as stated in Acts 5:29, we ought to obey God rather than men.

If we look at this mandate through a Thomistic lens, the contraception requirement is unjust on both levels. It is contrary to the human good because it goes beyond the power granted to the federal government and imposes an unequal burden on society. The Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to require purchase of health insurance nor to tell health insurance plans what must be offered and for how much money. Those with religious convictions against such birth control are burdened with violating their consciences. If no such mandate existed, those with no religious conviction against contraception could buy it on the open market. Those with convictions against it would not be unduly burdened.

Second, this mandate is opposed to the divine good because it violates the law of God to protect innocent human life. In Psalm 139:13–16, we read that God forms children in the womb, and He has planned our days before we are ever born. God is intimately involved in the creation of life from the very moment of conception. God values human life and calls upon us to protect it (Exodus 20:13).

That leads to the second question: Can an unjust law be a law at all? Turning to Aquinas again, he answers with a resounding “No!” Speaking of unjust laws, Aquinas writes, “The like are acts of violence rather than laws; because, as Augustine says, a law that is not just, seems to be no law at all.”

Believing this new mandate to be unjust and opposed to both the common good and divine good, I applaud Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and his colleagues for attempting to protect religious liberty. Those 51 senators who voted to table the amendment, effectively killing it, should recognize they have violated the sacred trust of their office to govern justly for the American people. We should strive for just laws enacted by our government and condemn unjust laws that are in fact no law at all.

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Tom Cohen and Dan Merica, “Senate kills controversial ‘conscience’ amendment,” CNN, March 1, 2012.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I–II.96.4.

My previous articles on this issue include: ObamaCare and the First Amendment and To Mr. Obama, From a Conscientious Objector.

Face-Washing or Whitewashed Tombs?

~ Evan Lenow

The Chinese government appears to be getting a little more politically correct in the enforcement of one of its most notorious policies—the one-child policy. According to the Shanghai Daily, the National Population and Family Planning Commission has initiated a new program called the “Face-Washing Project.” In an attempt to enforce this policy, apparently some local officials have threatened violators with forced sterilization, arrest, and even death.

The newspaper reports:

Some local officials in rural areas have come up with nasty slogans to intimidate couples planning to have more than one child. Simply reading some of them can send chills down one’s spine.

Some examples: “If you don’t receive the tubal ligation surgery by the deadline, your house will be demolished!” “We would rather scrape your womb than allow you to have a second child!” “Kill all your family members if you don’t follow the rule!”

“Once you get captured, an immediate tubal ligation will be done; Should you escape, we’ll hunt you down; If you attempt a suicide, we’ll offer you either the rope or a bottle of poison.”

Instead of using such intimidating slogans, the face-washing project wants to substitute “milder expressions in an effort to ‘avoid offending the public and stoking social tensions.’”

Population control has been a concern in China for quite some time. With the world’s largest population in excess of 1.3 billion people, the Chinese government has employed a number of measures in their attempt to curb population growth. The one-child policy was implemented in the 1970’s and restricts families in urban areas to one child. Violators face steep fines and even forced sterilization.

Rather than using threats of violence, the new government mandate wants to focus on China’s population problems. Forty years of the one-child policy has created gender imbalance in the nation. Li Bin, director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, stated that there were 118 boys born in 2010 for every 100 girls. As a result of gender imbalance, it is estimated that 30–40 million men will have difficulty finding a wife by 2020.

In addition, the population of China is aging. “Currently, 13.26 percent of China’s population is aged 60 or above. The percentage is expected to hit one-third, or 440 million people, by 2050, according to Li.” With only one child for every two adults, care for the elderly will become a major burden for the Chinese government.

In light of these problems, China is not backing down from its policy. Population control is still a major issue. The Chinese government is simply trying to put a new face on its policy.

This face-washing project reminds me of a condemnation Jesus made against the Pharisees. In Matthew 23:27–28, Jesus proclaimed:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

The problem is that the government is putting a coat of whitewash on a tomb. The unspoken problem with China’s policy is the proliferation of abortion, especially of little girls. If the people are only allowed one child, they want a son who will take care of them and carry their family name. The new slogans may present a nicer face, but the policy is still full of dead men’s bones, literally.

Before we condemn China for a policy that leads to sex-selective abortions, we need to recognize that only now is there legislation in the House Judiciary Committee to prevent sex-selective abortions in the US. The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act is working its way through the House of Representatives, but not without opposition. While there may not be a policy in the United States that limits families to one child, there is a sense among many Americans that having more than one or two children leads to imminent financial disaster. Therefore, we are beginning to see such sex-selective abortions in our own country as well.

May we heed the words of Jesus and recognize the underlying sin in our own lives and in our nation rather than simply applying a coat of whitewash.

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Li Qian, “Gentler reminders to replace ugliness,” Shanghai Daily, February 25, 2012.

Mark Norton, “House panel OKs ban on sex-based abortions,” Baptist Press, February 27, 2012.