Dueling Deace: The Iowa Marriage Amendment

I tuned in to Des Moines, Iowa's 50,000-watt AM powerhouse, WHO, to catch the “Deace in the Afternoon” program on Monday, Feb. 25 (podcast here, look for the show entitled “Iowa Marriage Amendment Update”). For any readers unfamiliar with him, Steve Deace is a self-proclaimed “Jesus freak” who hosts a conservative talk radio program on WHO Radio, AM 1040, afternoons from 4 – 7.

As suggested by the show’s title, the program was dedicated to discussion and advocacy of the Iowa Marriage Amendment (IMA). Deace’s guest for the afternoon was Chuck Hurley of the Iowa Family Policy Center. The program began with Hurley exhorting people to encourage the Iowa Legislature to move on the IMA before the March 6 funnel date, in order to get a vote on the issue before the 2008 session concludes. Then Deace took calls, beginning with mine.

I have only recently, within the past 3 or 4 months, begun listening to his program. Sometimes I agree with him; other times not so much. Usually it’s the not-so-much that motivates me to call. While I’m waiting on hold, I attempt to organize my thoughts and prepare what I’m going to say. No matter, once Deace takes the call and I’m on the air, it’s his domain. Oh, I can express my initial thought clearly enough, but this is his career, his focus, he’s more prepared for the argument than I, and I can’t immediately research and verify his assertions.

I began, “The number of times I’ve heard you speak on the Defense of Marriage amendment, and the possibility that Iowa could become a gateway state for gay marriage, I’ve yet to hear somebody articulate what the tangible, credible, practical harm is if gays are allowed to marry. I mean, will you and your wife divorce? Will your children become delinquent? What’s the issue?”

Deace spoke at length, citing specific examples on which I’ll elaborate in a moment. To summarize, he said there were three tangible harms, and that he’d articulated them on a number of occasions. He claims:

1. It limits religious freedom.

2. It harms children.

3. It tells people living in destructive ways that it’s okay.

Today I’ll respond to just the first of his claims, and will deal with the others individually in subsequent posts. In regard to religious freedom, Deace argued:

“The next step, if you look at what has happened in every single nation on this planet that has ratified homosexual marriage, the next step that those states have gone to is to limit religious freedom. For instance, tomorrow we’re going to have someone on the air who lives in Canada, and she has to be very, very reserved in what she has to say on this issue, because she could be charged according to Canada’s hate crimes laws. The next thing the Canadian legislature did, right after ratifying gay marriage, is they openly went after religious freedom. Because if we are going to say that these relationships are on par with the traditional family, then we’re just simply not going to allow folks to say, for instance that people who commit homosexual acts don’t inherit the kingdom of heaven, as Paul says in Corinthians. That to lie down as a man with a man as you would with a woman is an abomination as it is said in... that Moses says in Leviticus. Those things become hate speech. So the infringement upon religious freedom is the first very tangible impact, and I know that’s what a lot of the clergy were concerned about.”

Note that Deace doesn’t suggest homosexual marriage itself limits religious freedom; that apparently requires a “next step,” presumably the hate speech legislation to which he alludes. One could presumably sanction the first, for which Deace identified no direct harm, and actively oppose the second. Indeed, this seems to be the historical example in the United States. Slavery was abolished, and eventually the Constitution was amended to address the injustices of segregation and the Jim Crow laws, but the KKK and other similar organizations continue to exist, and they continue to avail themselves of their first amendment freedoms.

I don’t live in Canada, and am not much concerned what they do there. That’s the magic of sovereignty. Canada has never been as staunch an advocate of individual liberty as the United States; no other nation has been. Neither is Canada a reliable predictor of what might happen here.

Deace (and his friends at letusvoteiowa.org) would have you believe, however, that it is happening here. Deace explained:

“In Massachusetts, the one state that does have gay marriage on demand, Catholic Charities, the Catholic archdiocese there was forced to shut down their adoption agency because they weren’t willing to go along with the state and do adoptions to homosexuals. There’s a… there’s a practical American example of the infringement on religious freedom.”

Here are the facts: Catholic Charities was not “forced” to shut down their adoptions, they did so voluntarily, which is their right. Catholic Charities had been quietly processing a small number of gay adoptions, despite Vatican statements condemning the practice. Agency officials said they had been permitting gay adoptions to comply with the state's antidiscrimination laws. But after the story was published, the state's four bishops announced they would appoint a panel to examine whether the practice should continue. So, contrary to Deace’s claim, they were willing to go along with the state. They just weren’t willing for it to be publicized. In fact, Catholic Charities agencies in other states have also processed a handful of adoptions to same-sex couples, despite there being no legal mandate that they do so.

In December 2005, the Catholic Charities board in Mass., which is dominated by lay people, voted unanimously to continue gay adoptions. But, on Feb. 28, the four bishops announced a plan to seek an exemption from the antidiscrimination laws. Eight of the 42 board members quit in protest, saying the agency should welcome gays as adoptive parents…. So the church ignored the decision of its board members, who uniformly believed they should accommodate same-sex couples.

It should be noted that Catholic Charities didn’t avail themselves of the opportunity to address their concerns in court, and possibly win an exemption based on the doctrine of religious freedom, which is precisely the remedy our system provides.

Same-sex marriage is only one of many catalysts that might conceivably introduce restraints on liberty. I’m 100% in favor of protecting free speech, but Deace seems to argue for restricting one freedom in order to protect another, which is ethically and logically inconsistent. It’s like outlawing banks to prevent bank robberies. One of the videos on the letusvoteiowa.org site highlights the tribulations of a Wisconsin man who ran afoul of overzealous hate crime prosecution in 1996, long before a cohesive movement for legalizing same-sex marriage was even mobilized. Same-sex marriage didn’t arrive in Massachusetts until 2004. Clearly it’s not the precipitating force behind hate speech legislation. How, then, is preventing same-sex marriage going to prevent a similar incident? You may change the law, but you’re not going to change the sensibilities of the growing numbers of people who accept and condone monogamous, committed homosexual relationships. The only logically tenable position is to focus efforts on preventing arbitrary restrictions on First Amendment freedoms, no matter what the inspiration.

The record of the United States in defending our Constitutional rights is remarkably consistent. From the landmark 1969 decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, to the Wisconsin v. Yoder decision in 1971, to the many, many instances in which the courts struck down collegiate speech codes in the 1980s, to the Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia decision in 1995, The United States has virulently defended it’s First Amendment guarantees. Will there be instances of overzealous prosecution? Without doubt, but due to the sensibilities of specific, over-zealous individuals, not to a pervasive culture of hostility to religious liberty. Such instances ought to be addressed immediately and energetically… and on a case by case basis. With the current composition of the Supreme Court, it’s difficult to envision such encroachments enjoying any success.

As with most advances in civil rights, institutional prejudice seeks to justify perpetuating a favored injustice. For example, review the writings of Benjamin Morgan Palmer, a Presbyterian and a prominent New Orleans clergyman, educator, and a celebrated orator. Noah and his progeny played prominent roles in his Biblical imagination, and he invoked them often to explain the "natural" separation of the races and subordination of blacks. Perhaps Deace feels that the liberation of slaves shouldn’t have prevented Palmer from exercising his religious liberty to own a couple. Don’t delude yourself that this is a unique example; a great many white American Christians justified the oppression of African-Americans by invoking Noah's curse, and other Biblical justifications:

"There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral." Rev. Alexander Campbell

"The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example." Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina

"The doom of Ham has been branded on the form and features of his African descendants. The hand of fate has united his color and destiny. Man cannot separate what God hath joined." United States Senator James Henry Hammond

"[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts." Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America

Not all Christians share Deace’s concerns, of course, so it’s certainly not a question of uniform moral outrage or a universal fear of diminished liberty in the Christian community. The implication is, of course, that Deace is more “right” a Christian than they, that his Biblical interpretation is more meaningful, and that his particular brand of Christianity deserves special protection and preservation. Perhaps the reactionary wing of the Christian faith needs to be dragged into the 21^st century.

Next… The alleged “harm to children.”