9 Ways to Halt the Right Wing Culture Wars and Bring Sanity to Sexual Policy

By David Rosen, CounterPunch. Posted December 3, 2008.

Proposal #3: Remove Religion from the Classroom

U.S. District Judge John Jones ruled in December 2005 that the board of Dover, PA, school district had violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by requiring biology teachers to include “intelligent design” in their curriculum. In a trial recalling the legendary 1925 Scopes monkey trial, the judge found that such intellectual hokum was nothing more than a disguised form of creationism smuggled into the classroom under a different name.

For the last half-century, Americans have attempted to restrict religious practice in public life, especially prayer in school. In 1962, Engel v. Vitale ended state-mandated, teacher-led prayer; the following years, Abington Township v. Schemmp extended Engel. The 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman called for the strict separation of church and state. And the 1985 Wallace v. Jaffree decision ended the moment of prayer in the classroom. While believes of all stripes need to have their First Amedment rights protected, even in voluntary group meeting in schools, religion needs to removed from the classroom.

The tyranny of religion is the ignorance it fosters. As evident in the Dover decision and other battles over evolution, this ignoce has found expression and public-policy legitimacy in the many false Bush-administration claims like those that linked abortion to breast cancer and advised that condoms do not prevent conception or transmission of sexual diseases. The administration of lies must be thoroughly repudiated and replaced.

Proposal #4: Accept Civil Unions & Marriage among Same-Sex Couples

President-elect Obama has come out in favor of civil unions and in opposition to marriage among same-sex couples. The recent electoral decisions banning gay marriage in Arizona, California and Florida reflect a deep fear among many Americas about the meaning of marriage, personal intimacy, in a rapidly changing world.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, twenty-six additional states that have constitutionally restricted marriage to one man and one woman. These states are: Alabama (2006), Alaska (1998), Arkansas (2004), Colorado, Georgia (2004), Kansas (2005), Idaho (2006), Kentucky (2004), Louisiana (2004), Michigan (2004), Mississippi (2004), Missouri (2004), Montana (2004), Nebraska (2000), Nevada (2002), North Dakota (2004), Ohio 2004), Oklahoma (2004), Oregon (2004), South Carolina (2006), South Dakota (2006), Tennessee (2006), Texas (2005), Utah (2004), Virginia (2006) and Wisconsin (2006).

In addition, fifteen states have passed laws, but not constitutional amendments, restricting marriage to one man and one woman. These include Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.

However, the question that haunts these popular initiatives is simple: Are they Constitutional? Since America was first settled by English colonists nearly four centuries ago, there has been a persistent battle between civil and religious authorities over who had the power to legitimize a marriage agreement. Is marriage a legal contract between consenting adults involving property relations or a sacred relation involving a holy union mediated by god? In practice, civil society has won the battle and determines formal marital agreements. However, religious organizations persist in laying claim to a role in sanctifying these relations. This confusion must finally be put to rest.

Gay marriage is legal in two states, Connecticut and Massachusetts. A peculiarly historic irony informs the gay-marriage issue as Obama assumes the presidency. When Obama’s parents married in 1960, twenty-two states had laws prohibiting interracial marriage. These states ranged from traditional hard-core racist strongholds like Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana to otherwise moderate Delaware and Maryland. The Supreme Court’s now-celebrated Loving decision of 1967 voided "racial hygiene" laws, finding that state “anti-miscegenation” law violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. A similar Court decision could well apply to marriage among gay men and women and, thus, finally bring full bourgeois rights to a discriminated minority.

Proposal #5: End “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell”

President-elect Obama earlier this year announced his intention to end the "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" [DADT] policy banning gay people from military service. "There's increasing recognition within the armed forces that this is a counterproductive strategy,” he said, “ya know, we're spending large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or lesbians out of our military, some of whom possess specialties like Arab-language capabilities that we desperately need. That doesn't make us more safe". [NY Daily News, April 11, 2008]

Congress should pass and the new president should sign the Military Readiness Enhancement Act [MREA]. MREA ends the discriminatory and unworkable policies inherent to DADT. It was introduced in the 109th Congress by Rep. Martin Meehan (D-MA) and has 122 bipartisan co-sponsors.

See more stories tagged with: obama, religious right, bush era, sexual agenda

David Rosen is the author of the forthcoming, "America's Grand Sex Scandals: From Pochontas to George W. Bush" (Key, 2009), and can be reached at drosen@ix.netcom.com.

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