I promised to compare and contrast homosexual rights to slavery in this post, and I will below. The following is too pertinent to pass up, and it is relevant to all we have been blogging about.
As all readers know, the Supreme Court is now deciding the constitutionality of ObamaCare, the most current and glaring example of Congress legislating morality, something our Founders clearly believed, and said in the Constitution, it should never do. If you think that the current politicians—at least liberals—think the Constitution limits the legislative power of Congress, you are dreaming. They don’t! They think the Constitution is no longer relevant to their job. When asked over the past couple of years whether ObamaCare just might be unconstitutional, here is a sampling of their responses:
"[T]he federal government can do most anything in this country." - Rep. Pete Stark (CA)"There's nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do. How about [you] show me where in the Constitution it prohibits the federal government from doing this?" - Rep. James Clyburn (SC)"I don't worry about the Constitution on this, to be honest. ... It doesn't matter to me." - Rep. Phil Hare (IL)"Are you serious? Are you serious?" - then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA) acted simply incredulous that there could even be any question raised!
"Why is a big gift from the federal government a matter of coercion? In other words, the federal government is here saying, we are giving you a boatload of money. There are no, there's no matching funds requirement, there are no extraneous conditions attached to it, it's just a boatload of federal money for you to take and spend on poor people's health care. It doesn't sound coercive to me, I have to tell you." - SCOTUS Justice Elena Kagan, cheerleading ObamaCare from her rather conspicuous seat on the bench
This sort of politician has no comprehension of the central issue I have been blogging about, that is, that the Founders of this nation enshrined in our Constitution the principle that morality—how we treat one another—should never be legislated by the Federal government, and that such matters, if to be legislated at all, were reserved for local and state governments. ObamaCare is clearly an attempt to legislate morality: how individuals must interact with others.
OK, moving on as promised. How might one compare the treatment of homosexuality to the issue of slavery? My critic would suggest that despite the constitutional limitation on the Federal government in favor of states’ rights, the Federal government essentially rode into southern towns and overruled them on this issue. You might argue, and I would actually agree, that it was probably the right thing to do, to over-ride states' rights on the issue of slavery. So why not on gay rights, too?
Restricting homosexual behavior is nothing like slavery. Let’s compare and contrast the two topics.
The essential wrong in slavery was denial of access to the democratic process. Even though in some areas blacks out-numbered whites, the rules for all people were made by the minority. That minority—whites who had made the rules—held the power structure of the communities and denied an entire group of people—blacks—any say in those rules. The 14th Amendment redefined the rules in this way: every state in the union must acknowledge that all people are citizens and must be given a voice in the law-making process. They must be given a seat at the table of democracy.
By contrast, those who want to engage in homosexual behavior have full access to the democratic process. They happen to be a very small minority of the population by any measurement I know of, and therefore through the democratic process have generally been unable to enact policies favoring their behavior. If this small minority is able to turn the laws to favor their ‘lifestyle’ and burden the rest of the people with all the consequences thereof, it would actually be closer to imposing slavery than to abolishing slavery.
In sections of our nation, slavery was lawful. In other areas of the country it was not. So if you were a free person, you could move to the part of the country that shared your moral values, i.e., presumably (since today we all see the evil of slavery!) where slavery was against the law. But the very nature of slavery kept some humans from being able to choose where they would live! Slavery prevented slaves leaving a community that infringed upon their liberty and moving to one that shared their values. Because a whole segment of society was being forced to remain where they had to work for nothing, even though in other parts of the country those same humans could enjoy freedom, the federal government (a higher authority than the states) had to intervene in order to free people to choose where they want to live.
By contrast, those who want to engage in homosexual behavior have full freedom of movement, freedom to travel, and freedom to associate with others who shared their views. If they do not like the values of the community in which they live—say they are in a state or county that still criminalizes their desired behavior—they can move. That is (was) the beauty of Federalism: the federal government was to stay out of these issues and let ‘birds of a feather flock together’ so they could regulate interpersonal behavior for their own community.
Admittedly, until 1962, sodomy was a felony in every state in the union. I would suggest that this was a result of just how universal was the understanding that homosexual behavior was detrimental. Still, unlike slaves who were physically restrained from leaving, anyone who wants to engage in homosexual behavior is completely free to find another place of abode where community standards agree that it is acceptable. They are also free to petition their government for change, speak their views, and associate with people of their choice. As a result, they have created places like San Francisco. Slaves had no such freedom to relocate to a community where they could be free.
Slavery was permitted in some states, but enough people within the democratic process had seen the evil thereof and outlawed it in many states. Still, there was no universal, nationwide consensus in favor of nor against slavery. By contrast, when the democratic process was permitted to work, homosexual behavior was criminalized everywhere. Everywhere. No exceptions. So do you think that 100% of the country was comprised of unreasonable people on this issue?
Slavery was a total dehumanization of a group of people based on what Colin Powell (before he wimped out and bowed to political correctness in more recent years) referred to as a “benign” characteristic: the color of your skin. The color of your skin has no affect on other people, is not a determinate of IQ, does not make you better or worse at specific things. A person can be a great homemaker, statesmen, doctor, engineer, orator, leader, tradesman, truck-driver, astronaut, soldier, pilot or whatever else they choose to be, and their skin color is irrelevant. Benign. Of no effect.
Homosexual behavior is, on the other hand, action. Specifically, interaction with other people. It does affect other people. It does affect you. It does limit you. It exposes you to risks that those not engaging in such behavior are free from.
Before I start working on answering the, ‘Oh yeah, how?’ to all of those, let’s dispense with a red herring. We could get into a whole debate here about whether a person is ‘born gay’ or chooses that lifestyle. For this post that does not matter. No one can or should be sent to jail for their feelings or inclinations. I don’t think anyone ever has been in this country, and if so it was a terrible injustice. I have friends who seem, for men, rather effeminate. Some remain unmarried. But even if this is a characteristic with which they were born, they still choose whether to embrace the idea of homosexuality and act upon it; they choose whether to engage in homosexual sex. Just like I, as a heterosexual male, had to choose whether to remain a virgin until marriage…and have to choose to maintain mastery of those desires even within marriage.
Everyone is born with natural forces on our bodies that must be resisted. The Apostle Paul wrote at length about the forces of the ‘flesh’—the physical body—and how we all face them, but yet have the choice whether to follow them or resist. If we do not resist, we become enslaved by those forces, literally becoming mere animals. It can be the natural desire to eat, play video-games, thrill-seek, watch TV, surf the web, or just sleep in late. It can also be the natural sexual desire. These are natural forces that, but for a vigilant resistance, will enslave us.
Out of writing time for this week. We’ll pick up here next time!
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