4A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, November 15, 2004 OPINION I + +71 U 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, Ml 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 JORDAN SCHRADER Editor in Chief JASON Z. PESICK Editorial Page Editor Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE They were disheartening to a lot of different people." - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R- Tenn.), responding to comments made by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) suggesting that pro-life Supreme Court nominees would have a difficult time being confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, as reported yesterday by the Associated Press. Ic e I SAM BUTLER THE Scvx An open letter to moral detractors D.C. LEE Bh.i k'.K ['N : AND N)PEARLS ii wo weeks ago on Nov. 2, 11 states amended their constitutions and denied marriage rights to same- sex couples. That same day, Americans cited moral values as the most important election issue and re-elected a presi- dent who says Jesus Christ has been the most influential figure in his life. If ever there were any doubt, let it be resolved now that there is none: morality and politics have officially mixed, and most Americans don't have a problem with it. Others, though, are troubled by the fusion of moral values and politics. Lib- eral commentators across the country are bemoaning morality's place in American politics. Their argument is that moral- ity has no place in politics because of its intrinsic basis in religion. Our founding fathers, these commentators continue, made this explicit with the separation of church and state. If you read slate.com, watch CNN, or lis- ten to National Public Radio, you've prob- ably heard something along these lines before. Unfortunately, for all its zip as a sound bite, it lacks substance. The First Amendment provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... " But if you didn't actually read the text of the First Amend- ment, and instead relied on liberal com- mentators for your constitutional analysis, you'd think the First Amendment explicitly limits the state's use of moral values to shape legislation. And, of course, you'd be wrong. The Establishment Clause ("respecting an establishment of religion") prevents the government from endorsing or support- ing religion. The Free Exercise Clause ("prohibiting the free exercise thereof") prevents the government from outlawing or substantially burdening the exercise of religious practices. The "separation of church and state," which is nowhere to be found in the Constitution, and which was first used in a letter by Thomas Jefferson to assuage Baptist fears that Congregation- alism would become the national religion, does not explicitly address the issue of morality in politics. If anything, Jeffer- son's letter reinforces the notion that the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses specifically address religion's place in the American political landscape, not moral- ity's. Of course, it would be naive to suggest that there is no connection between moral- ity and religion. As the liberal commenta- tors note, morality has an intrinsic basis in religion. But to suggest that all morality is based on religion and should therefore be struck from political discourse (morality has no place in politics) is to distort reality. The overlap between moral values and reli- gion, despite assertions to the contrary, is not complete. The reality is probably more like a Venn diagram than a complete over- lay. Some moral values are deeply rooted in religion, while others are not. To suggest, as these commentators appear to do, that morality has no place in politics is to accept the false premise that all moral values are religious. But, even if we assume that the liberal commentators are right - that moral- ity has no place in politics - are we to believe they favor the unqualified disman- tling of government assistance programs? You'd be hard pressed to find someone who would argue that welfare is not based at least in part on our moral conviction that the state should help those in need. Similarly, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who failed to see the correlation between the values underlying govern- ment assistance programs and the Judeo- Christian value of charity. Thus, because there is no real separa- tion of church and state issue, and because it is unlikely that moral detractors would favor the dismantling of government assis- tance programs, there must be some way of explaining these detractors' dissent. The most obvious, and likely, answer is not that they really have a problem with moral val- ues in politics; rather, they have a problem with my moral values in politics. That my moral values happen to be correlated with the church's thus makes the church an easy scapegoat. The church, however, is not the prob- lem. The real problem is the detractors' unwillingness to believe that what gets bandied about in New York and Holly- wood doesn't pass for moral values in fly- over America - where the election was ultimately decided. Lee can be reached at leedc@umich.edu. 4 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letter writer proposes new group to protect the sanctity of marriage TO THE DAILY: I am writing to expand on Jordan Genso's letter ('Marriage' is a heterosexual tradition that should be preserved for heterosexuals, 11/12/04). I think it's great that the word "marriage" has special significance for Genso; it means a lot to me too. In fact, I am so pro-marriage that I would like to announce the formation of the American Marriage Is Sacred Committee. The platform of AMIS will be to pursue the protection of marriage on several levels. First and foremost, we would like to constitution- ally ban divorce. Divorce is the number one marriage destroyer in this country and must be stopped. Secondly, we would like to penalize those who get married but do not have chil- dren. Getting married is about starting a fam- ily - if there are no kids, what is the point? Why should the government reward these people, it is a loophole that must be closed. Therefore we propose an amendment whereby those marriages that produce no children after a reasonable amount of time will be dissolved by the government. We at AMIS also believe in the traditional family structure with a man earning a living while the woman tends to the home and children, so we would also like to relegate women to the home with passage of an amendment that bans women from the work- place. I'm sure that anyone who believes in tra- ditional family values will have no problems supporting these measures. After all, a non- traditional marriage is no marriage at all. As a bonus for Genso, for being so eloquent in his defense of Proposal 2, we here at AMIS will also pursue a constitutional amendment to ban white people from using the word "nig- ger." We are AMIS! Arthur Feldman Rackham Comparison of gay marriage to use of 'N- word' inappropriate to the quest of whites to use the "N" word, I would argue as follows. In striking down state bans on interracial marriage, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 1967 that "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happi- ness by free men." I will concede that giving gays the right to marry will in fact change the institution of marriage in the minds of many, in the same way that giving interracial couples those same rights did. Sixteen states banned inter- racial marriage throughout the 20th century. Alabama's constitutional ban on interracial marriage was not repealed until the 2000 election, with 40 percent of voters voting to keep the ban in place. I guess they too felt that changing the institution of marriage would be, as Genso writes, "disrespecting their community". This is discrimination. This is hate, regardless of intent. People need to stop comparing gays look- ing for the right to marry to whites' use of the "N" word and high-income families' desire for a flat tax (Gay marriage opponents made reason- able choice, 11/09/04) and start comparing it to interracial couples looking for the right to marry or women looking for the right to vote. Redefining an institution to include a minor- ity group does not hurt or threaten that institu- tion. Finally, in response to Genso's feeling that he had to vote for Proposal 2 in order to make sure that marriage didn't change, despite his endorsement of civil unions, I would like to point out that Proposal 2 was written by and placed on the ballot by groups opposing civil unions for gays. This is why civil unions were explicitly grouped with marriage in a single ballot proposal - so that more progressive people like Genso, who might support civil unions, would not only vote to ban marriage, but vote to ban civil unions as well. The grouping was not an effect of "the homosexu- al community trying to take your word." You were duped, and others will continue to suffer because of it. Adam Herscher LSA senior .I *fn 1T. ,. . obstacle to a just solution, and would only lead to negotiations over the creation of a Palestinian state on a mere 40 percent of the West Bank and not the full West Bank. The recent appointment of Mahmoud Abbas as chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, seen as a "pragmatist" by many Israeli and American officials for his willingness to engage the Road Map, will not be capable of maintaining legitimacy in the face of the grim crumbs of autonomy that the Road Map grants the Palestinians. It is important at this stage in their strug- gle for national freedom that the Palestin- ian leadership maintain a unified front of resistance to the occupation and reject the tired notion that it is really terrorism that is the fundamental obstacle to peace and not Israel's occupation of Palestinian land, because it is the latter that is the direct cause of the former. The message should be clear: If you want to end terrorism, you must end the occupation. Furthermore, it is important that the activist community at the University's rally around the issue of the University's divestment with compa- nies like Caterpillar, which sells Israel the very bulldozers it uses to raze Palestinian homes and uproot their agriculture, and as such only contribute to the deterioration of the possibilities for a just solution to the Palestinian-Israeli crisis. Tarek Dika LSA senior The letter writer is a vice chair of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality LETTERS POLICY The Michigan Daily welcomes letters from all of its readers. Letters from University students, faculty, staff and administrators will be given priority over others. Letters should include the writer's name, college and school year or other University affiliation. The Daily will not print any letter containing statements that cannot be verified. Letters should be kept to approxi- mately 300 words. The Michigan Daily reserves the right to edit for length, clar- }fu. e> cu. i u u 'Vt ry ~'tt&* '.J A. V~tfl.4tAA~A1~J.