Category: Government

Legislating Sex

.Reading time 4 minutes.
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Arizona artists win suit over same-sex wedding invitations – Associated Press 9/17

Faith and sexuality cannot remain in conflict in the United States.  Faith and sexuality exist in different orbits of what it means to be human; even if they do cross paths they have no reason to collide.  Belief by its very nature is primarily subjective.  As belief is based on perception of the world and perception of existence, it lives with the individual and it must be subjective.  Although heavily influenced by facts of our embodied existence (ability, race, gender…and yes, sexuality) the way one person experiences that reality cannot be the same as any other being.

Although we are accustomed to thinking of sexuality as being subjective, it is different.  Sexuality is a fact.  Even though the expression of that sexuality (between humans) may be completely subjective, the fact of human sexuality is part of what defines the human creature.  We are in part defined from other beings through our capacity to experience sexuality as intentional communication with each other and not simply hormonal or instinctive impulse. What is more, one expression of that sexuality is not more valid or more natural than another, barring explicit protections for those who are vulnerable to exploitation or oppression through that expression.

Ask any atheist and they will tell you that religion is not an absolute part of how we are defined as beings.  What is part of what defines us as human is our higher brain function that allows us to experience religion as foundational to life and organized community.  The exercise of this brain function can be a beautiful part of the human experience; and it can be the cause for war.  In fact, it is our higher brain function ironically that creates the war between the subjective elements in question here: our expression of belief as religion and our expression of sexuality.

Government in the United States has always ultimately failed at legislating our basic humanity.  Slavery, Indian removal, disenfranchisement of women, legal sterilization of those perceived as “inferior”, preventing interracial marriage…these are all eventual legislative failures because they attempt to treat as subjective what is and will always be objective in the human being: embodiment. Today, we are gearing up for what will surely be a Supreme Court decision on the full embodied humanity of LGBTQ people.  But LGBTQ people will win because our existence and the fact of human sexuality which defines us has always included a wide spectrum of manifestations and should never have been questioned to begin with.

Insulting though this entire exercise of having to prove our right to exist in our bodies may be, we LGBTQ people must continue to remind communities of “faith” who would deny us wedding invitations, marriage licenses, work and housing that no law can invalidate the basic right to human sexuality.  We must stop legislating humanity.  There is no “sincerely held belief” that is more valid than your or my DNA.

I promise, if you keep your God out of my bedroom, I will not to have sex on your altar.

-ALD

RESOURCES:

“Religious Liberty” advocate site (conservative/Christian):

The Gospel Coalition on the advance of Religious Liberty bills

 

Liberal pro LGBTQ voices:

Center For American Progress on Religious Liberty

American Civil Liberties Union legislation impacting LGBTQ people

Southern Poverty Law Center on anti-LGBTQ initiatives

 

Non-Partisan:

Desert News on Religious Liberty Bills

Bill of Rights Institute history of Religious Liberty Bills

Repeal and Replace

.Reading time 4 minutes.
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Too often the power of the US Constitution has not come from what it actually says but rather from the underlying perspectives and assumptions that were made by its 18th Century authors:

  • White men are superior to all other beings.
  • Women are invisible and subject to the whim of (free white) men.
  • Blacks are not fully human.
  • Indians are savage and only marginally redeemable.
  • Human sexuality is Biblical before it is biological.
  • Poverty is a failure of human will.

Assumptions like this come from the perspectives of “founding fathers” who wished to enshrine in government their priorities and goals based on their specific world view.  Any investigation of the United States Constitution offers a great deal to question and interrogate.  Part of that interrogation must also acknowledge that the Constitution is not entirely hopeless.  In it, we have an instrument of government that has a built-in capacity for the “do-over.”  We have the tools to fix things and do things right. 13th & 14th Amendments, 19th Amendment, 21st Amendment, etc.  It is essential that we now take advantage of this feature and move to repeal and replace…the 2nd Amendment.

We are currently living in a world where it takes only 30 seconds to kill 8 people.  When the 2nd Amendment was ratified in 1791, a standard rifle such as the Brown Bess could only fire six rounds in a minute when fired by a professional.  The first standing army was established that same year (to quell Indian revolts) and only white men could legally possess arms.  The 2nd Amendment secured access to the lethal power of guns in the 18th Century as a “right” for a specific purpose, time and a limited population.  But today it has become the foundation for extreme ideology that is toxic and publicly lethal on a mass scale.

With the incredible advances in weaponry both for hunting and for warfare, any rational being can recognize the necessity to revisit the laws governing the ability to carry and use deadly force. Outside of the contentious question about whether there should be deadly force in the hands of civilians in the first place, what if we were able to have an amendment that used language such as this:

All people within the United States, have the right to personal defense by means of reasonable force so as to limit the threat to personal injury.  Equal are the rights of all persons to exist without the threat of lethal force to their personal death or injury, either by accident, exposure to circumstances or perceived threat to others.

A modern 2nd Amendment will recognize that weaponry for hunting and survival (though I may personally disagree with it) is a way of sustainable life for many people in this nation.  It will also acknowledge the right one has to defend themselves if they are properly trained and vetted to respond to threat.  But it will also recognize that easy access to military grade weapons has created a national health and public safety crisis that is fueled by ideological perversions that leave all of us unsafe.

Legislators and language in our government that defend death by suicide, mass shootings, domestic violence and race hatred creates an environment where these tragedies are not just tolerated but expected.  This is counter to everything the US Constitution stands for.  We must rethink the 2nd Amendment…repeal and replace.  We deserve to be much more than the land of the feared and the home of the dead.