Issues and Answers

Circa April 2006

Over these past few years, I have been asked if I would consider running for public office. I've also been asked not to run for office. I have also been asked about my stance on the issues of the day:

Gay Marriage: Marriage is a religious sacrament of specific religious institutions. This is true of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Wicca (though it is referred to as Handfasting),[1] Hinduism, and many of the world’s religious expressions. It is not specifically an institution of the state. It is recognized by the state for various reasons, but it is not specific to a given state. The issue of gay marriage is complicated. Since we are not a Christian nation, but rather a secular nation of laws, we need to approach this issue with care for all involved. The establishment of a Civil Union[2] is the current concession to this minority’s need.[3] It is a suitable one within the parameters of our era. It separates the ecumenical from the secular, but allows for the recognition by the individual states of both types of partnership unions. If anything, the laws governing Civil Unions need to be examined to make sure that the minority, which needs such protection and recognition, have parity and equity with those who have the option of the ecumenical recognition and sanction. Gay Civil Unions are no threat to the Sacrament of Marriage.

If a given religious institution should not wish to recognize Civil Unions due to its own sacred dogma, then that is between the institution and their God. No one should dictate what a given religious expression should do. However, the United States of America is not a religious institution; it is not a Christian theocracy. The well-being of all of its citizens needs to be accommodated. The gay community's rights need to be upheld and protected, the same as any other minority group.

School Prayer: Any child who attends public school should be allowed a time of prayer if they wish it.[4] As our schools have become a political battleground, it is indeed needed. Since not every teacher in every classroom is devoutly religious in any institutional expression, how would we expect them to pray? Are those of a specific religious expression expected to pray in that tradition? It would be an abomination to the ethos of our nation to insist that a Hindu, or Wiccan, or Jew, pray a watered-down version of The Lord’s Prayer.

Religious Education in Public Schools: It is definitely not the job of the U.S. government to promote any specific religion or creed. The public school is not the public platform for evangelical outreach. If there is to be any religious education, it would serve the nation best to teach the academic understanding of all the nation's religions; this includes, but is not limited to:

·      Christianity

·      Buddhism

·      Hindu

·      Muslim

·      Native American

·      Wicca

If a person feels that a specific religious education is necessary, they have at their disposal such instructional Para-church organizations as AWANA,[5] Shipmates, and Sunday School classes. Should they not be able to get their children to attend such religious institutional outlets, it is not the federal government’s responsibility to make sure such is done for them. In all honesty, with the way that this nation switches trends, would it be wise, over the course of a lifetime, to expect the nation to focus on any one religion’s teachings? It boggles the imagination that parents would want this kind of education in the hands of the secular school system. Secular schools have enough to cope with at their present level of obligation.

Marital Fidelity: That which is invoked between two people before their own God is, by default, between them and their God. The public, the media, the church (to which they may or may not belong), or some self-appointed, televised, religious popes have the right to interfere with the marital relations of a couple. As the scriptures say, “what God has brought together let no man tear asunder.” This injunction is also addressing the religious zealot who is in positions of earthly authority and feels they are greater than God.

When confronted with the woman caught in adultery (and the story truly begs the question: where was the man who was equally as guilty – it is not an act done singularly?), Jesus said, “go your way and sin no more.”[6] King David, from whose line Jesus was born, committed adultery and still reigned over Israel as God’s chosen King. There is no condemnation for those who honor God or love their neighbor. Where such condemnation exists, it is from ignorance and darkness and does not come from the love of Jesus Christ, nor an adherence to his teachings, the boisterous belligerence of the neo-conservative Right not withstanding.

Capital Punishment: Jefferson said that it is not the job of the government to destroy its citizens. It is fairly established that we are a Christian nation, only in as much as special interests prefer to define their Christianity in a very narrow parameter and never to accept the reprimand of the scriptures for themselves. The sentence of life without parole, for even the most detestable crimes, is more than sufficient.

Abortion: At one time in my youth, I was inclined to be pro-choice. Now, as age creeps in and life becomes more precarious, I lean towards the pro-life position. As I do have six children, I would say that makes me a card-carrying member of the pro-life contingent. However, I will also add two things:

1.    At no point in the past 20 years have I felt an acceptance, even within the Christian community, for having a large family. It has been quite the opposite; I have often been ostracized by the Christian community for having six children. This is just part of the blatant hypocrisy at large even in the South. Let me state this in clear terms: the Church has never been supportive of large families. This whole pro-life stance of the neo-conservative Right is a farce. They should be ashamed of themselves for provoking the murders of physicians in their drive to make woman submissive to their will.

2.    Abortion was made legal in the United States without debate by the Supreme Court.[7] As such, it has stuck in the craw of many for years. Abortion is, however, a legal procedure which is sanctioned in the U.S.

It is interesting to note that the Jewish community from whom the Christians inherited the scriptures does not seem inclined to abolish abortion.[8] Just for the record, anyone who thinks I pressured my wife into having six children doesn’t know my dear, Jewish wife.

Gun Control: I have always wondered what part of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” do the urban liberals not understand? It is legal nonsense to misconstrue that clause to mean anything other than that the people (the average Joe or Jane Citizen). We’ve seen far too much abuse in this nation by politicians concerning this issue on both sides. Ownership is not a God-given right; it is a right wisely granted by Thomas Jefferson (a Deist) when he wrote the Bill of Rights.

The Military: Coming of age in 1977 precluded me from joining the military. Due to the fiasco of Vietnam, all Armed Forces in 1977 were in disarray when I finished high school. Some may wish to argue this point, but that was my opinion at the time. I support a strong military for the defense of this nation. As radical as this sounds, in the ideal (and I emphasize ideal is not necessarily pragmatic), all able-bodied citizens (men and women) of the United States of America should be required to serve six years in the National Guard. The standing military, as we now know it, should be reduced in size to the professional Officer Corps. This would reduce the cost of our military while retaining its strength to repel attackers. This is, just for the record, more reflective of our nation prior to World War II. By the way, my eldest son ships out for Great Lakes RTC in June of 2006.

The United Nations: The U.N. is an archaic diplomatic institution born out of the dismay over the carnage of World War II. It floats in effectiveness somewhere between being harmless to being incompetent. At points during the last 53 years, it has served as a primary contact point for diplomatic dialogue. To the people of the U.S., it is of little importance; to the citizens of the world, it is a parliamentary body used for resolution of global issues. It exists because the majority of its operations are paid for by the U.S.

Immigration: The Unites States made a contract with its people during the Reagan era: If we agreed to the intrusion of the I-9, the government would crack down on employers who hired undocumented immigrants, secure the southern borders, and establish a Guest Worker program that would allow the needed seasonal labor to come across the border. None of this has happened. We now have 11 million undocumented guests in the nation. The solution is to enforce the laws as prescribed some 20 years ago.

Taxation: As little as possible and as much as necessary to get the job done. The debt we are now running is an indication of serious trouble in the very near future.

Social Programs in General: It is incumbent upon every citizen to honor the Constitutional Republic that binds us together as “One nation [under God] indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” There is a heavy emphasis on the word all.

FCC: The Federal Communications Commission has become the lap dog of the Corporate Media industry. It is unfortunate that it has been allowed to degrade into such. The airways are public property and should be managed as such. I am a strong supporter of the Fairness Doctrine and the Public Service Guidelines that we once had in the United States.

·      The Fairness Doctrine made sure that both sides of a political debate were aired. This idea insured that people such as Mike Savage and Rush Limbaugh would not grow rich through right-wing propaganda. Having worked at KLIF in Dallas, I can assure you that right-wing Talk Radio is infotainment. When the nation swings to a more progressive footing, they will find people who will voice such opinions. Talk Radio is entertainment and the talkers are actors giving the public what they feel the public wants.

·      Public Service Guidelines were in place to make sure that every station licensed by the FCC dedicated a certain amount of time to local issues. It decreed that each station had a local staff to make sure that important breaking events were covered and that the people in the region had access to information they needed.

·      There are rural broadcasting stations in the U.S. that are unmanned and receive programming from satellite feeds from the east or west coast. In the event of a local emergency, there is no source for local information. In an era where any community can come under attack, this situation is ill advised.

Oil: The current giants in the fuel industry have to be trained to rethink their position. They must be give incentives to develop alternatives to our dependency on fossil oil. They are in the fuel distribution industry and the predisposition toward rock oil is unwise in our current state of development. According to the research produced by Kevin Phillips, the U.S. hit peak oil in 1970. It would be wise, after 30 years of risk-taking, to use our creativity to find, develop, and distribute alternative resources. Ford’s Model T was designed to run on ethanol and the original diesel was designed to run on Peanut Oil. It would seem that over the past 100 years we might have learned to produce something better than gasoline as fuel. The only issue preventing a giant leap forward is the fear of change; change is, however, inevitable.

Alternative Energy in General: We are at a cusp in our national development. We need to address our energy consumption. It is not as much an issue of limiting our consumption, and thus limiting our, now stunted, industrial growth. We were once a nation of inventors, we can be so again. We rose to the technological challenge of going to the moon so we could prove to the Soviet Union our national superiority. It is time we take that same drive and creativity and apply it to the survival of this nation. We are creative, we can create, and we need to create. It is past time to build for the future.

Health Care: Those who are providers of healthcare in the United States need to be mandated to create a viable healthcare system that protects the health and secure the wellness of the citizens as a whole. The AMA needs to be pressed to initiate a solution to the precarious and dismal situation that exists today. They know healthcare; they should be able to come to a mutually agreed plan as to how it will work.

Education Reform: Much the same as the issue of healthcare, the teachers of our children who are in public school need to be brought together via technology to devise a plan that will address the overall concerns of the parents. Right now, it is left to the professional educators, the teacher unions, and the politicians, with the rank and file teachers left out of the loop. That is an unacceptable situation.

Second Coming of Jesus Christ: I am only including this as it has become an issue in the current political discussions. The current euphoria, or hysteria, over the imminent return of Jesus Christ as king over all the earth is a 150-year-old doctrinal error. Prior to that time, the teaching of the Christian Churches (including the Baptist Church) was that the Second Coming was a metaphor within the framework of the establishment of a spiritual kingdom. Even at the hands of the Roman persecutors, Jesus insisted that his kingdom was spiritual. The spiritual kingdom of Jesus Christ began with his ascension to heaven in approximately 33 A.D. and is abiding quite nicely without the intervention and interference of the bombastic, boisterous neo-conservative Right. It would be a good idea if you did some research on Preterism[9]. There is a quote from the third century Sayings of Jesus, which says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is in you.” So why look elsewhere?

Conclusion

While I admit that these are simple approaches to complex social issues, I have included them to provoke thought and discussion.

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[1] Wikipedia: Handfasting, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handfasting

[2] Wikipedia: Civil union, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_union

[3] I seem to be at a loss at finding the statistical data concerning the number of Gay/Lesbian people in the United States. Therefore I am presuming that it is a small minority of the total population of the United States.

[4] Wikipedia: School prayer, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_Prayer

[5] AWANA Clubs International, http://www.awana.org/

[6] John 8:1-11

[7] Wikipedia: Roe v. Wade, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

[8] Wikipedia: Religion and abortion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_abortion#Judaism

[9] Preterism.Info, http://www.preterism.info/