What Your Child Needs to Know About Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act

Something of great historical significance is occurring right now.  No, I’m not referring to my Miami Heat’s consecutive game winning streak which sadly ended at 27 games last night.  Please say no more about last night’s game, I’m still having a difficult time knowing that the “Streak” is finally over.  If you listen closely, you can probably hear the Heat Nation and me still sobbing.

Prop. 8 and DOMA

Seriously, the matter of real historical significance being decided right now is perhaps the most important issue that has been debated by the Supreme Court in years – California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act.  Unless you have been hiding under a rock or traveling with the Miami Heat for the last several months, you know that California’s Proposition 8 is an overturned proposition which states “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is a United States federal law that restricts federal marriage benefits and required inter-state marriage recognition to only heterosexual marriages. Knowing that the Supreme Court is hearing arguments about Proposition 8 and the DOMA is only part of what is important.  In addition to knowing and understanding what is going on in your country there is another rather critical issue – making sure that our children, the future leaders and decision makers, know and understand what is going on in the country about this hotly contested and contentious question before the highest Court in the land.

Gays and Lesbians

The results of a 2011 Gallup Poll indicate that Americans believe 25% of the population is gay or lesbian.  In contrast the same poll indicates that only 3.5 % of American adults self-identify as gay or lesbian.  What do these statistics tell us about the issue before the Court?  Are heterosexual Americans overestimating the numbers of gays and lesbians?  Are gays and lesbians choosing not to self-identify? Should we tell children that marriage is an institution reserved exclusively for heterosexuals and procreation?

Should we tell our children that some Constitutional and Civil Rights are reserved exclusively for a select group of Americans?  Should we tell our children that America is Christian Nation?  Should we tell our children that as Americans we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? I can’t nor will I try to answer these questions for you but I would like to give you some food for thought.

America the Christian Nation

As a child, I was taught in school that the First Amendment to The U.S. Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof“.  Moreover, I learned that this Amendment not only guaranteed freedom of thought but also assured that no single religion would be given advantages over others. Simply put – the Government cannot tell you what you must believe in, how you must exercise those beliefs or that you must believe in anything at all.

Thomas Jefferson – a Founding Father, President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence – confirmed that if you pray, when you pray, to whom you pray and if you choose not pray is up to you and not the Government.  In 1802, Mr. Jefferson wrote a letter to a Baptist association in Danbury, Connecticut expressing the necessity and requirement that the United States always maintain a separation between the Church and State.

The letter read in part “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State … ”

The Bible Tells Me So

As a child, I was taught a song that went Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so… Implied in that song and my early theological teachings was that “all scripture (Biblical) is inspired of God” (2 Timothy 3:16-3:17) and that the Bible is infallible and incapable of error. However, as a descendant of slaves, I also learned that the Bible and Christianity were used to sanction, legalize and sustain slavery.  Genesis 9:25 “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers“.

In this scripture Noah (of Noah’s Ark fame) condemns Ham – one of his three sons – and Ham’s descendants to eternal slavery.  This scripture was used as the primary justification for America’s enslavement of Africans. Ham was depicted as Black.  Consequently, one part of the Human race – my ancestors – were sentenced to live a life of everlasting servitude to those who happened to be born non-Black.  Christian missionaries, clergy and slave owners alike had little problem robbing Africa of its most prized possessions.

The early American “Believers” and religious leaders went a step further to justify the institution of slavery when they declared that Africans did not have souls.  Sadly for Africans, not only were we cursed with blackness but we were also depicted as being without souls.  This wretched combination of skin color and otherworldly existence worked out to be the perfect justification to continue the inhumane institution of slavery; affording only a segment of America to realize thetruths that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Ten Commandments

As a child, I was taught The Ten Commandments – the biblical laws prescribing the way Humans are to live and worship.  Like the theory of the United States being a Christian nation and the Bible prescribing that Africans were born slaves and should always remain slaves, I also began to ask questions and seek a deeper understanding about the Ten Commandments. As such, I contemplated the meaning and the application of the Commandments.  Here are but a few of the things I pondered:

• Thou shalt not kill.  The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the total number of U.S. homicides was 16,259 which equals 5.3 per 100,000 Americans dying from murder.
• Thou shalt not commit adultery.  There are more than 2 million marriages each year in the United States.  According to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology, 50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce.  Matthew 19:9 states “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”
• Thou shalt not steal.  FBI, Uniform Crime Reports states that in 2011 there were 2,188,005 burglaries, 6,159,795 Larceny thefts and 715,373 vehicle thefts.
• Thou shalt not covet… FBI, Uniform Crime Reports states that in 2011 there were 83,425 incidents of forcible rape or in Ten Commandment terms moving well beyond coveting that which is not to be desired.

In closing, I don’t know how you feel about Proposition 8 or the DOMA but one thing is certain, your thoughts and feelings are likely to be influential in the beliefs and principles that govern your child’s life. I cannot stress enough the importance that the political decisions you make and the beliefs you share are always well thought out, factually based and consistent with what we profess to believe as a Nation.

History has shown, when we do anything less, a segment of our society, those who like all other humans who sweat, cry and bleed can find themselves being considered something less than human, some percentage less than a full person. To do otherwise not only deprives our brothers and sisters of their God-given human rights but it makes a mockery of our Precepts and Principles, it makes us a nation of hypocrites and it completely contradicts our Nations truths “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”.