Come To Massachusetts - Get Your History Straight and Your Nightlife Gay

Actually, that's from Philadelphia, but I thought, "Why not - it's all up there somewhere in the turkey-neck of America, right?"

Today I learned that Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court decided that the state constitution guarantees gay couples the right to marry. It was a 4-3 decision - pretty close. According to the Defense of Marriage Act (which President Clinton signed), as I understand it, no other states will be obliged to recognize such a union (having said that, of course, there are already a number of states which have same-sex union equivalents, but I understand that this is the first to label it as "marriage"). I'm fairly certain the lobbies which made this legislation-from-the-bench possible will find a way to crusade against the DOMA. Troubling. The group which calls itself Human Rights Campaign (a pansexual lobbyist group - do you like that term? Just heard it recently...) claims on its website that the DOMA is against the Constitution's Faith and Credit Clause. Yet their claim that "the...bill creates a federal definition of "marriage" and "spouse" for the first time ever in our country's history," while being a point I may be willing to concede to them, seems to overlook the obvious: we've never needed a definition before. It's always been assumed that these would be the traditional heterosexual (dare I say "Biblical"?) definitions. One needs only read Washington and Jefferson's views on homosexual acts to get an idea of this. Something else I read from AP News was this:

"Vermont's high court issued a similar decision in 1999 but told the Legislature that it could allow gay couples to marry or create a similar institution that confers all the rights and benefits of marriage. Lawmakers chose the second route, leading to the approval of civil unions in that state. The Massachusetts decision makes no mention of such an alternative, and instead points to a recent decision in Canada that changed the common-law definition of marriage to include same-sex couples and led to marriage licenses being issued there."

Um, why are we pointing at another country's lawmaking as justification? I seem to remember a similar situation a while ago in which lawmakers were quoted as examining the laws of European nations to aid in making their decision. I don't recall the specifics of that incident, only some of the complaints circling it. I echo those complaints now: While I can see cause for examining the effects of a given law in another country, I don't know how helpful such examinations will be, since you're looking at a different culture than ours. In any case, what difference does it make to our lawmaking if Luxembourg or whomever decides to make such-and-such a law? I'd argue that it shouldn't influence us at all. They're not bound to our Constitution, they're not peopled with our citizens, and vice versa.

"America's Bible Belt is Judaism's Safety Belt"

I heard a great phrase today: "secular fundamentalist." Rabbi Daniel Lapin was interviewed on one of the radio shows I've been listening to at work, and he was talking about Mel Gibson's new movie "The Passion of Christ" (which is supposed to come out on Ash Wednesday, February 2004) and how the Anti-Defamation League are indifferent to conservative/religious Jews, instead focused on advancing a leftist secular agenda. He used the term "secular fundamentalists" to refer to them and to groups like them - social organizations and lobby groups who seem to want nothing more than to force any suggestion of religious belief out of government organizations and public forums.

My favorite quote from Rabbi Labin tonight was "America's Bible Belt is Judaism's safety belt." A story regarding the Judge Roy Moore/Ten Commandments monument in the Atlanta Jewish Times, reprinted on his website, said: "[Samuel] Silver [Toward Tradition’s chairman] says that working with Christians on issues such as the Ten Commandments will help ensure religious freedom for America’s more than 5 million Jews. 'If you take away the religious underpinnings of this country and the respect for that, and arrogantly slap Christians in the face, we’ll have no protection,' he said."

[On a side note, I find the cover of the book advertised on Rabbi Lapin's website, "Thou Shall Prosper," a little worrying. Oh, well...judging books by their covers and all that]

More Churchy Concerns

Here's something I'm a bit worried about. It seems as though over the last two weeks, I keep hearing Certain Names popping up in connection with heresies and worrying practices. These Certain Names are connected with the Word of Faith movement, Pentecostalism, and so on. The claims of heresy are coming from Todd Friel and Hank Hanegraaff ("The Bible Answer Man", president of the Christian Research Institute). Today, Todd was talking about E.W. Kenyon , who was (according to Todd) the inspiration for a number of people in the Word of Faith movement (he specifically named Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland; Marilyn and I are doing a Bible study on the Holy Spirit written by Hagin - I haven't read anything shocking yet). The problem with Kenyon was that he supposedly taught the concept of Jesus's spirit "suffering in Hell, mastered by Satan" after His earthly death on the cross. Todd said that Kenyon basically believed in the seperation of Jesus's divine nature from His human nature...which, when you run it out to its logical conclusion (as Todd did on the show) denies the Trinity, and is exactly what the Nestorian Heresy back in the Fifth Century espoused. A caller on the show claimed that Kenyon himself had been influenced by Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Scientists.

So I'm concerned. As I said, thus far I haven't heard anything contrary to the Bible in the church services I've attended. Nonetheless, I'm wary of trusting any material written by someone who has embraced heretical beliefs...