On the heels of the California Supreme Court hearing arguments on Proposition 8, a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, our own state lawmakers couldn’t help but make sure California’s problems do not come any farther east. In a political climate where the Republican Party is about as popular and likable as the loud,drunk uncle at family reunions,they are desperately trying once again to appeal to the religious right wing of their party by rolling out the tried and true whipping boy: same-sex marriage.
This year will make the sixth such attempt by the North Carolina legislature to push discrimination through and write it into our state’s constitution with language denying same-sex couples basic rights.
I can only hope that this attempt suffers the same failure as the first five. Not because I have disillusions about the buckle of the Bible belt ever loosening enough to actually afford the GLBT community equal rights, but because such an amendment, whether you agree with homosexuality or not, is completely unnecessary. The social environment is already hostile enough towards the GLBT community, and rights are already being wrongfully denied them even without an amendment featuring language so broad that it would even allow companies to deny basic domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples. Behind the beat of a party’s drum that claims high moral ground on issues like this, is a deeper, older and perhaps more important issue. It is an issue that plagued our nation from the start – the separation of church and state.
If I hear the phrase "founded as a Christian nation" too many more times I may have to light my hair on fire and run screaming into the ocean. I’ll spare the world the smell of over-processed hair and risk of lighter fluid shortage by simply stating
that whoever makes such a statement couldn’t be more wrong.
It may stop the presses at FOX News and The Wall Street Journal to find that our forefathers painstakingly went out of their way to keep our government
as secular as possible. The list of founding fathers included religious and Christian minds, but also featured men who had witnessed a corrupt system of
interlocked church and state in England; where to question government
was to question God. Given these facts there is little wonder why the Bill of Rights
states, "Congress should make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The language contained in the Treaty
of Tripoli also clarified any question about the Bill of Rights by saying, "The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian
religion." The treaty was supported by John Adams and was passed unanimously by the
Senate. It was only the third unanimous vote to that point after almost 400 votes on previous bills. No debate on the issue was ever recorded. The North Carolina state legislature would do well to take a look at history. The right wing of the legislature would even better to take a less biased look at history and see that the
framers of our Constitution sought to avoid religions involvement in Government.
With their actions on same-sex marriage, legislators who support this amendment are allowing religion to directly influence their decision. Every time the debate over
right for same-sex couples is rekindled it is done so by those who use their religion to justify writing discriminatory language into a document which was penned by men who sought freedom from that very discrimination. Each time amendments
like this are proposed they seek to threaten a separation that was vigorously sought for. I do not think any less of someone whose religious views would have them believe that homosexuality is a choice and that marriage between same-sex
couples is sinful. I disagree with each of those assertions strongly, but could never think any less of their opinion. Those arguments, however, belong
within the walls of the church from which they are spawned. I take issue when that discrimination is brought outside the religious institutions in the form of
discrimination and lack of open mindedness written into the constitution. I recall constitutions being for all people, not just the religious right wing. All of this begs the question of why when government involves itself with issues that conservatives disagree, their involvement its labeled as socialism, but when they need government to interfere on issues which may compromise the sanctity of their religion, its necessary.
Somewhere along the line the double standard needs to be resolved. The only right resolution is to keep matters of church and faith inside the church and
keep matters of government contained within our legislatures. While our forefathers are spinning in their graves at the foundation of separation of church and state being violated we are continuing down a dangerous path. It is a path of straight and narrow mindedness that the men who formed our government took great steps to
avoid. It is a path that we do not have to follow if those who are ready to fight for the equal rights of North Carolinians and Americans will stand up and fight. North Carolina may be the heart of the Bible belt and the fertile crescent of the religious right, but there is room at the table for everyone; its time those who have been denied a seat for so long got theirs – even if wedding cake isn’t on
the menu.
The real marriage we should be concerned about is the marriage of church and state; a union of strange bedfellows
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