The Battle Over Same-Sex Marriages

Nature's God and Thomas Jefferson Discuss a Peaceful Settlement

Written by Raymond Fontaine, PhD - February 2004

Last evening, while surfing the Internet, I learned that the office of San Francisco's Mayor, Gavin Newsom, had issued 3000 marriage licenses to gay couples. The Mayor did this despite California's law enacted in the year 2000. According to Mr. Newsom, this four-years-old law violates California's Constitution that forbids discrimination against its citizens. Over the weekend of Valentine's Day, a moral earthquake of mixed celebration and indignation shook San Francisco and the entire country.

   With this news rumbling in my mind, I retired and, after tossing about for sometime, I fell asleep. But my subconscious projected a timely dream. On center stage, God was discussing this latest San Francisco quake with Thomas Jefferson.

   "Good morning, Thomas," said God. "I assume that you are feeling the tremors rattling California. Mayor Newsom's declaration favoring same-sex marriages is causing quite a stir, but nothing like the shock waves that you originated in 1776 with your Declaration of Independence."

   "The quake that I caused," said Jefferson, "reached as far as Great Britain and fueled a revolution."

   "As I see it," said God, "your Declaration of Independence could help the warring parties in today's strife over same-sex marriages. It could diffuse their differences and restore peace."

   "How is that possible?" asked Jefferson.       

    "In the opening paragraph of your document," said God, "you established the solid basis for a settlement - me, the Creator of Nature. The opponents of same-sex marriages quote the Bible, especially the tall story about my fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah."

   "I hate that tale," said Jefferson; "it portrays you as a monster. Nature, on the other hand, reveals you as you are - the beneficent Creator of a world that first exploded into space and then developed continuously and is still evolving in a billion various ways. One such variation is the sexual orientation of gay people."

   "You're right," said God. "Homosexuality is not a perversion but just another version of nature."

   "The legislature of Illinois," said Jefferson, "recognized that fact in 1962 and decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults. Then in 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders. And in 1982 Wisconsin became the first state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. To top this, in 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that anti-sodomy laws in the U.S. are unconstitutional."

   "Enlightened by this development," said God, "a growing number of persons are sloughing off the hateful  prejudices engendered by the writers and the preachers of the Bible."

   "My Lord, after calling you Nature's God," said Jefferson, "I declared that humans, not only some of them but all without exception, are created equal - whether white or black, female or male, heterosexual or homosexual. You, my Lord, do not discriminate against any of your creatures."

    "Being different," said God, "does not make others better or superior. In my eyes, so to speak, all are equally creatures totally dependent on me for their existence and subsistence and development in multitudinous ways."

    "I went on to say," added Jefferson, "that all are endowed by you with certain unalienable rights, meaning that they cannot be taken away. Among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."

    "For good reason," said God, "you did not single out any particular right among thousands. For instance, you did not declare that humans are free to choose their lifelong partners and marry them." 

    "That's right," said Jefferson. "In my Declaration, I stated that governments are instituted to clarify and protect those rights for every single citizen. I repeat: governments must ensure those rights - not take them away."

    "After you passed away," God said, "some myopic government officials tried to deprive whole groups of people from becoming citizens and from voting. In time, however, those rights were explicitly guaranteed by amendments of the Constitution."

    "For example," said Jefferson, "women were denied the right to vote for 144 years. Then in 1920, amendment 19 acknowledged and guaranteed the voting right of women."

    "That's right," said God. "At this moment, the U.S. Constitution does not state that U.S. citizens may marry only mates of the opposite sex. Realizing this, homosexual couples are seeking marriage licenses wherever they are available, for example in San Francisco."

    "To prevent an epidemic of same-sex marriages," Jefferson said, "President Bush has endorsed a Constitution Amendment to reserve marriage for mates of the opposite sex. Same-sex marriages will be illegal and void everywhere in the U.S."

    "The President," said God, "seems to have forgotten that constitutional amendments are meant to protect the rights of underprivileged citizens. If the President desires an amendment, it should be positive. For example, it should grant the status and privileges of marriage to the legal union of homosexuals. America stands for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Why should some American citizens be deprived of these God-given rights? An exclusive amendment barring homosexuals from marriage is not the American way. America opens its door to those who have been deprived of the freedom to choose, as their lifelong partners, the persons they love."

    When my dream ended, I awoke and faced the somber reality. For a moment, I wished that Nature's God would temporarily remove President Bush from the Oval Office. Pushed by religious preachers and political pollsters, our Methodist President was hurrying the amendment process. He wanted to ban same-sex marriages in the entire United States. 

    Nature's God could replace President Bush with a Deist similar to Thomas Jefferson. Like God, this provisional President would not discriminate against homosexuals and prevent them from marrying their loving partners. Respecting Nature's God's policy of not interfering in human affairs and letting humans resolve their own problems, Deists must try to prevent this looming miscarriage of justice and abrogation of liberty. With Nature's God surely on our side, we will prevail.  For the index of my Dialogues, click here