Instead of tossing rhetorical grenades at the left and imploding the conversation, I would like to present a common-sense and compassionate argument in favor of Proposition 8. Proposition 8, if you have not heard, was a 2008 resolution to ban same-sex marriage in California. The voters of California passed it despite protests from the left. Now, Proposition 8 lies in the hands of the California Supreme Court.
Oklahoma has a better chance of repealing the ban on gay marriage than the California Supreme Court does of affirming it.
The issue is about marriage. Marriage is both legal and religious. Attempts to deny either the legality of the issue or its religious roots prove fallible.
First, a legal examination
Critics of the law contend that the revocation of homosexual marriage denies homosexuals equal protection under the law as outlined by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This assumes homosexuality is a protected class.
Justice Harlan Stone outlined protected classes for the Supreme Court in his famous “footnote four” of United States v. Carolene Products (1938). Here, Stone stated “discrete and insular” minorities must be given the strictest scrutiny of judicial protection under the Equal Protection Clause. In those days, the protected classes were obvious and included racial, ethnic, religious and gender minorities.
Justice Stone’s little footnote provided the context for positive change and paved the way for the passage of important civil rights laws and protection for protected classes in America. The central thread in each of these classes is what former Chief Justice William Rehnquist calls an “immutable characteristic.” An immutable characteristic is, simply, something physically inherent within us. It’s something we were born with – something we cannot change.
And what about religion? Is our faith an immutable characteristic? Maybe not, but religious identification and freedom is nevertheless so valued and fundamental to our traditions and character that it is given express protection apart from an analysis of what is immutable.
Religious freedom is protected not only in the 14th Amendment, but also the First Amendment. Respect for this freedom and legal protection is afforded because it is fundamental to a citizen’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
If the practice of homosexuality is to be given equal standing, the proper mechanism would be to amend the U.S. Constitution – something the homosexual activists have never attempted because they know they have no chance of success.
For homosexuality to be a protected class, subject to the same strict scrutiny as someone’s race, it must be proven that it is an immutable characteristic. Science has yet to produce such proof. Until an answer is proven – an unlikely probability – the legal grounds for Equal Protection becomes problematic.
To be clear, I am not advocating for discrimination based on sexual orientation. But let us bear in mind that orientation can be equated to preference. Just like I would not like someone discriminating against me based on my sexual preference for the opposite sex, I do not think we should discriminate based on one’s sexual preference for the same sex.
However, a legal line needs to be drawn. Marriage is an invention of the church. The church has strict guidelines regarding the issue and should not be compelled by the state to compromise them. Likewise, the church does not ask the state to compromise its institutions to appease its interests.
Second, a religious examination
Leviticus has become the favorite book of the Bible for proponents of gay marriage. They correctly quote from the 20th chapter that homosexuals (and beard trimmers) were condemned for their behavior. Sadly, their biblical investigation stops here.
Fast forward to the New Testament. One finds a different take on the issue embraced by most mainstream Christians today. In the first chapter of Romans, the Apostle Paul shares a laundry list of sins that afflicted people in Rome. Included is homosexuality. Paul encourages the people to repent and be forgiven.
His tone is not malicious. It is not hateful. Instead, Paul speaks with great concern for those living in sin. His purpose is not to damn. His gospel is one of reconciliation making God’s grace known and available to everyone – a definite big tent philosophy but with boundaries set by God, not man.
This begs an important question: Assuming homosexuality was an immutable characteristic, why would God want people to ask forgiveness for something they could not control? Would not God then ask people to repent for the shade of their skin, the color of their eyes or their country of origin?
This issue undoubtedly sets off emotional responses on both sides. A compromise, however, is possible.
Civil unions, where financial and medical benefits can be granted to same-sex couples, should be approved. This is not a spiritual covenant. It is a legal contract.
Proponents of Proposition 8 are protecting an institution that is fundamental to their faith. However, no form of hate should be tolerated or practiced by people of faith in the name of God. Protect your values and beliefs with humility.
On the contrary, opponents of Proposition 8 equate the resolution to majority-sponsored bigotry. I would encourage opponents of the bill to re-examine the issue. The Church is a Christian’s place of worship. Respect, which seems to be homosexual-rights activists’ principle request, cannot be a one-way street. If you desire tolerance for your lifestyle, please extend respect to an institution that is spiritually vital.
People of faith should respect a person’s ability to make their own choices. People in support of gay marriage should modify their aim as not to infringe on the sacred institution of the Church.
One hopes the two polarized camps can find a common ground of respect on which to operate.
-Matt Felty is a public adminstration senior.
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mfhayes 3 years, 3 months ago
I don't understand why you can make an exception on immutable characteristics when it comes to religion...
Ethnicity isn't an immutable characteristic either.
Marriage may be "an invention of the church", but you're forgetting that marriages can be formed free of the church, and they're still recognized as marriages, not just civil unions.
Other than an ancient book saying that homosexuals are evil, why does it even matter to you that homosexuals are treated equally under the law?
It's fine if churches don't want to recognize gay marriages, but what should the secular world have against it?
"People in support of gay marriage should modify their aim as not to infringe on the sacred institution of the Church."
How would a secular marriage contract "infringe on the sacred institution of the church"?
Should I lose my right to have a straight marriage free of the church?
Because clearly, I'm not adhering to your strict guidelines on what marriage should be... but guess what? I don't have to, and neither should homosexuals.
mburris 3 years, 3 months ago
Prop 8?
This was a good article, 5 months ago.
Mesocyclone 3 years, 3 months ago
This is a well-written article, and written in a compassionate, non-condescending Christian manner. Although there are a couple of things I disagree with in your column (for example, I don't think civil-unions should be granted to same-sex couples under any circumstances), overall I find your article to be well-reasoned and you have demonstrated something a lot of folks these days have lost - common sense. It is unfortunate that many who will post responses on here will still flame the hell out of you because your column is just ever-so-slightly to the right of center. Thank you for publishing this anyway.
sseaborn 3 years, 3 months ago
This is a human rights issue. How is this not obvious? Denying one human being the same rights granted to other human beings is unethical and unconstitutional.
swiggy3000 3 years, 3 months ago
So let's see here instead of just giving homosexuals the right to have a secular marriage, one in which if the church doesn't wish to participate they don't have too, let's just go with Civil Unions. I mean Civil Unions will work because they are seperate from marriage but they are eqaul. Seperate but equal. Sounds good, excpet that it didn't work because seperate but eqaul doesn't work. Because it didn't work the Supreme Court had to reverse it to insure that African-American's would have the same rights as everyone else.
So we could keep the sperate but equal idea or we could just say, "Yes, gay marriage is legal" and "If the churches do not wish to do it then a judge or someone else, with the power to, can". There you go a simple solution to a simple idea. If two people love each other let them get married, just don't force the church to do it.
mythman 3 years, 3 months ago
The fact that a third of your article is a religious case against same-sex marriage illustrates the problem. The first amendment clearly states that the government cannot legislate religious laws. This is not only a guarantee that religion will not corrupt the government, but that the government cannot corrupt religion.
What if we find a church that will agree to perform a same-sex marriage? The Unitarian Universalists will definitely agree, as well as other left-leaning churches. Who is the Mormon church to say what the Unitarian Universalist church can and cannot do?
Flips88 3 years, 3 months ago
So you don't want to toss rhetorical grenades at the left and implode the conversation, eh?
Let's take a look at your past articles (only the last year. If only we could access your past ones, the list would get much longer):
"I hope final exams require as much substance as a President Obama speech."
"Our football team is one victory away from South Beach. Gas is cheaper than milk. And every county in our state voted for Sen. John McCain for president."
"Yes, change has come to America, dear friends. No longer is experience a valued asset in our please-me-now country.
If the Army gets a new, smooth-talking private, make him a general. I am sure he will talk his men all the way to victory. Or certain defeat."
"Leave it to Joe the Plumber to unclog the golden turd of political rhetoric Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has flushed upon the American people."
"Joe the Plumber is cleaning the pipes that are Barack Obama." (I still don't understand this grammar, applying a plural metaphor to a single subject, but whatever).
"Driving in Oklahoma is like voting for Barack Obama. Throw on the blindfold and go."
"Rice contradicts 76 percent of the Bible despite having a divinity degree from Hahrvard." (your spelling error, not mine)
"New Yorker cover boy and junior senator from Illinois Barack (unpatriotic to mention middle name) Obama says “change” for the 1,000,376,000th time."
"High school drama classes may throw out “Romeo and Juliet” in favor of “Brokeback Mountain. ”
This is the threat."
So there's your track record, Felty. Maybe you couldn't throw any rhetorical grenades because you're fresh out from tossing them over the last year.
I mean, come on man, you write jokes like Dennis Miller, but a Dennis Miller who drank paint thinner as a child and who also liked to smell the fumes when mommy was getting gas.
I hope that someday you will realize that the history of America is one of social progress and one of people like the Prop 8 supporters delaying that progress for a time. Your nightmare of a world with gay marriage will be realized someday. All that you are doing now is delaying the inevitable.
isotope 3 years, 3 months ago
What if my church says that gay marriage is holy? Who are you, Matt Felty, to say that my idea of holy is wrong, and yours is right? For all of your talk about the 14th Amendment, you seem to have forgotten that your proposition (to protect your idea of holiness through government enforcement) would constitute a sickening violation of the 1st Amendment.
ZackKaplan 3 years, 3 months ago
Well, unfortunately I have to start by saying that I'm ashamed of our editorial staff. The author's confused and contradictory stance aside, this article has some shameful, high school level problems. But at least Matt Felty held no pretenses-- he gave us the cue that he either didn't care or wasn't paying attention in the first sentence, when he tried to tell us that grenades implode.
Even more than the misuse of simple tools like metaphors, Mr. Felty's inability to decide if he was talking about the 'church' or the 'Church,' and dummy sentence sets like "But let us bear in mind that orientation can be equated to preference" (actually not true at all, read a dictionary for once,) which tries to represent a pivot point in thought in order to make 'intellectual progress,' I was powerfully offended by the halfhearted attempt to excuse offensive views by using poorly thought-out arguments and appeals.
One of many was the simple 'fact' that "marriage is an invention of the church." Mr. Felty, did you sleep through all of your history classes? It's depressing to think that you don't even know about the origin of your religion. Marriage existed long before the church came along, and still exists in many venues aside from the church. It was unquestionably present in Judaism before Christianity was even a far off dream, and present in many cultures long before Judaism. The related argument that the legality of marriage is inseparable from the church is also backwards logic because legality is dominant. One can marry in a court-house without a church, but a church can't marry without the court-- it would be meaningless. This is just one relationship that you get backwards or wrong in your article. There are many, many more.
The statement that "People [who] support gay marriage should modify their aim as not to infringe on the sacred institution of the Church," is as ridiculous as the argument that the U.S. should modify its aims so that it does not infringe upon the holy actions of extremest religious groups, which just happen to also commit holy murders and various other holy acts (whether or not they are of a terrorist nature depends purely on point of view).
Finally, the last two paragraphs under "First, a legal examination," made me infinitely disappointed in the author. Matt Felty, do you even realize that you're saying we should have institutionalized discrimination, but not personalized? Not only is it appalling that institutionalized discrimination makes you feel clean inside, but it's foolish to think that it exists without discrimination on the personal level. To say there should be a legal line means that you're actively advocating discrimination based on orientation. Don't try to act good or just if your interests lie elsewhere.
I think you need some serious time alone. Not for your opinions, but for the lack of thought behind them. Is this your first time trying to write an article?
dargus 3 years, 3 months ago
I thought your article was well reasoned and made some valid points. However, I believe if the state won't recognize marriages for gays, only the legal construct of civil unions, then the same should go for the straits.
I also always enjoy how when making the religious, supposedly traditional, argument for marriage people almost always leave out the centuries of arranged marriages used to transfer or combine property. Many of those marriages were religious in nature.
arsmialek 3 years, 3 months ago
Let's put our various opinions on the issue aside and just focus on the "logic" used in this article for a second. I'd like to present just a few examples from the text.
Felty says, "Oklahoma has a better chance of repealing the ban on gay marriage than the California Supreme Court does of affirming it." This would seem to be the crux of the issue at hand. Or at least, it would be if this article was actually about Proposition 8, as it claims to be. But not only does Felty merely offer this as a blanket statement with no supporting facts or evidence of any kind, he leaves the supposed topic of the article behind entirely and never again comes back to say anything more on the issue.
He then discusses the issue of whether sexual orientation is an immutable property of a person, in which case it would have protection from discrimination under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (but wait! I thought this was an issue pertaining to California, not the entire United States). He freely admits that there is no compelling proof or evidence for either side of the question, so the fact that he takes this lack of evidence as evidence for one side is disturbing.
Felty goes on to say, "To be clear, I am not advocating for discrimination based on sexual orientation. But let us bear in mind that orientation can be equated to preference. Just like I would not like someone discriminating against me based on my sexual preference for the opposite sex, I do not think we should discriminate based on one’s sexual preference for the same sex. However, a legal line needs to be drawn." So essentially, he's saying he's not in favor of personal discrimination against homosexuals on account of their sexual orientation, but he is in favor of such discrimination if it is done in an institutionalized manner. This is logically equivalent to saying, "Racism is bad, but it's OK for the government to forcibly enslave black people because of their race."
Felty's next statement is, "Marriage is an invention of the church." This as laughably false an assertion as I've heard in several months. If the church invented marriage, how did Chinese or Indian or Native American people ever figure it out? Not to mention the Jews were marrying each other right and left long before there was any inkling of a Catholic Church. No, sir, I'm afraid the church (or the Church: I'm not sure how he means it since he's terribly inconsistent) has no more claim on having invented marriage than Al Gore does on having invented the internet.
arsmialek 3 years, 3 months ago
He then says, "The church has strict guidelines regarding the issue and should not be compelled by the state to compromise them. Likewise, the church does not ask the state to compromise its institutions to appease its interests." The first part is fair enough, but I'm not exactly sure how a lack of a governmental ban on gay marriage is forcing a priest or minister to perform a religious ceremony in their church. The second part is great, but Felty states at the end of the article, "People in support of gay marriage should modify their aim as not to infringe on the sacred institution of the Church." As he's just done what he claims not to do, I'm not quite sure what to think.
Felty's next section shows how the Bible says that sexual preference is not an immutable characteristic. This would be all fine and good, if the Bible had any semblance of admissibility as a scientific or legal document. As it stands, the entire line of reasoning is irrelevant.
In short, Felty's article is nothing but a logical black hole full of false assumptions, self-contradictions, and faulty reasoning. I'm a bit appalled that a senior at one of our nation's major universities could or would write this, and I'm even more appalled that the editors of said university's student newspaper would even consider publishing it.