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TechnoratiAmerica's founders and greatest leaders have largely understood and often spoken of the necessity of religious sentiment. In an article titled "Religion and the Founders," Christopher Levenick and Michael Novak have written:
"The Founders saw the cultivation of religious sentiment as the ultimate safeguard of American liberty. They knew that liberty could only prosper among moral citizens, whose practice of self-government in their private lives was a necessary prerequisite for its exercise in public. They believed that even if it were possible for certain individuals to behave morally without believing in God, on the whole an entire citizenry could not long keep its moral bearings without the guidance of religious faith....Such thinking runs throughout the whole of American political life, from Washington to Lincoln to Roosevelt to Reagan, and up to the present day." [5]
So it is in this sense that religion provides a dual service for what is an immutable, unchangeable human need. By contrast, homosexuality is neither immutable nor a necessity to life. At best, it is a negative drive with serious complications for both the individual and the culture.
To make "sexual orientation" a "suspect class" is to corrupt the fine bread of civil rights protections with a dangerous mold. Legally, it creates an unavoidable clash between religion and homosexuality. Religion opposed to the behavior is eventually unable by law to contend the practice is immoral and thereby exercise forms of justified discrimination commensurate with its teachings. Moreover, because "sexual orientation" essentially shares nothing in common with the other enumerations, other than the experience of various forms of maltreatment, it produces inefficiencies and demoralization of the concept of greater judicial scrutiny.
In the end, after such hammering away at the system, Americans will hold it up to view with disgust, claiming it amounts to nothing more than a legal fizzle.
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Resources:
[1] As told by Clarence E. Macartney in Sourcebook for Speakers, Eleanor Doan, 1968, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan [2] California Supreme Court Marriage Decision, Case No. S147999, pp. 97-98 (CA S. Ct., May 15, 2008). [3] Fayetteville Observer, Letters to the Observer, Ian McGehee, Reverend's Rules Also Apply to Religion, August 1, 2008 [4] Sermons and Addresses, John A. Broadus, Hodder and Stoughton, 1886 [5] Religion and the Founders, Christopher Levenick & Michael Novak, National Review Online, March 7, 2005
The Rev. Mark H. Creech is the Executive Director of Christian Action League of North Carolina.
Daniel Paul »
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