In his commentary entitled "Homosexuals Lose Out" (The University News, Nov. 11, 2004), Marshall Johnson gave a nod to our "forefathers," who "…kept church and state separate for a reason: They were smart." I concur with Johnson on this point; however, it seems that his praise of the founding fathers of the United States was ill-used in making an argument against the constitutional amendments banning gay marriage that passed in 11 states two weeks ago.
The First Amendment to the constitution was not written to protect the secular from the religious, an ahistorical transmutation of our founding fathers' intentions. The distinction between church and state was drawn to sustain and nurture religion in American society, effectively securing liberty for the religious. Our founding fathers purported to prevent the state from supporting any one religion over the others: They were more concerned with religion than with the state and establishment. If one religion is favored over others in governmental policies, then free exercise is threatened; but if religion is allowed to play a role in governmental policies, the First Amendment has served its purpose.
An amendment that protects marriage and its sanctity allows the religious to inject their opinions into the political sphere, which is the right of any American. Although one could argue that amendments banning gay marriage unfairly curb the right of homosexuals to marry because of someone else's religious beliefs, people of other religions or who hold divergent beliefs are and should be free to disagree with and set forth their own legislation, and the First Amendment protects their right to do so.
It is disheartening when people with legitimate opinions and arguments are written off as feeble-minded if their assertions are religious in nature. That whole "sanctity of marriage" thing that Johnson so easily dismisses in his commentary is worth fighting for–no less worthwhile than the fight for the legalization of homosexual marriage. Just because the institution of marriage is flawed doesn't mean that working to preserve its sanctity would be in vain.
Furthermore, opposition to gay marriage is not just a Catholic argument: The "social norms" of our society that Johnson references are rooted in the morality of the natural law, which forms the basis not only for the doctrine of the Catholic Church but also our very own Constitution and Bill of Rights. According to St. Thomas Aquinas and the natural law, which Aquinas says that all humans know through reason, homosexuality stands in the way of propagating the human race and creating new human life–two of the basic goods that one should never intentionally hinder or destroy.
It's not just a matter of gay marriage being "unholy and wrong," as Johnson wrote. The natural law brings us to morality through reason, not faith; and legalizing gay marriage is, in effect, institutionalizing something that reason tells humans to be immoral. One could argue that homosexuals should be allowed to marry, in a legal sense, independently of the Church–and one could still argue that, based on the fundament of our nation, homosexuals should not be allowed to marry in a legal context, either. Thus, identifying the opposition to homosexual marriage as Christian isn't necessarily accurate.
So, when Johnson said that "America should consider its legitimizing whatever's popular in the interests of what is right," I couldn't agree more: Just because something is new and different doesn't mean that a religious person should compromise his or her morals and beliefs to accommodate it.
Annie Boken is a junior studying English and communication.
