Barry, as you know, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney attracted a wide variety of supporters in his run for the Republican Presidential nomination. And, as you correctly point out, I supported Governor Romney in my individual capacity. I believe that his domestic and foreign policy views, along with his proven track record of success in the private sector, would have served this nation well – especially during these challenging economic times.
I do not believe his Mormon faith played a major role in his candidacy. And that’s the way it should be. As you know, Barry, the Founding Fathers went to great lengths to ensure that there’s no religious litmus test when it comes to presidential candidates. Article VI, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution is very clear:
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Focus on the Family is a private organization. It’s decision to post or not to post an interview with Glenn Beck is its editorial decision. Yes, there are obviously differences between the Evangelical theology and Mormon theology. But I do not know what was behind the decision to remove the interview from the website.
Even with those theological differences, though, there’s plenty of examples of Evangelicals and Mormons working together for a common cause. You don’t have to look any further than November’s vote in California – where a diverse group of Californians – including Evangelicals and Mormons – approved Proposition 8 – a validly enacted amendment that upholds the historical definition that marriage is an institution between one man, one woman.
The California measure, as we discussed in the past, is now before the California Supreme Court. We’re filing a brief this week asking the state’s high court to uphold the amendment to the California constitution.
Our brief contends that Proposition 8 “does not create far reaching, sweeping, or profound changes in the state’s constitutional scheme.” “Rather,” the brief asserts, “it merely confirms the historically recognized scope of a single right recognized in the California Constitution – the right to marry – as encompassing only those unions ‘between a man and a woman’” . . .
The fact is that Prop. 8 supporters have been singled out and harassed by those who opposed the marriage amendment. People of faith - Evangelicals and Mormons alike – targeted for simply exercising their democratic rights.
posted January 15, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I still don’t get it. First we had to listen to Bush and Rumsfeld and their revisionist history nonsense accounts of the last eight years, now we have to listen to Sekulow pretending that before the Mormons of Utah applied to join the Union it wasn’t perfectly legal to have as many wives, concubines, and cohabitants as one could afford? And to pretend that the Biblical restriction of having only one wife extends to more than Deacons and Bishops? Sekulow knows full-well that the one-man-one-woman marriage definition has no such “historically recognized scope” beyond recent attempts to cram sectarian religious beliefs into our strictly secular constitutional democracy…
posted January 15, 2009 at 12:24 pm
There are eight types of marriages mentioned in the Bible:
1. The standard nuclear family: Genesis 2:24 describes how a man leaves his family of origin, joins with a woman, consummates the marriage and lives as a couple. There were quite a few differences between the customs and laws of contemporary North Americans and of ancient Israelites. In ancient Israel:
* Inter-faith marriages were theoretically forbidden. However, they were sometimes formed.
* Children of inter-faith marriages were considered illegitimate.
* Marriages were generally arranged by family or friends; they did not result from a gradually evolving, loving relationship that developed during a period of courtship.
* A bride who had been presented as a virgin and who could not be proven to be one was stoned to death by the men of her village. (Deuteronomy 22:13-21) There appears to have been no similar penalty for men who engaged in consensual pre-marital sexual activity.
2. Polygynous marriage: A man would leave his family of origin and join with his first wife. Then, as finances allowed, he would marry as many additional women as he desired. The new wives would join the man and his other wives in an already established household. Polygyny was practiced by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, until the practice was suspended, a least temporarily, in the late 19th century. It is still practiced by separated fundamentalist Mormon groups which have left and been excommunicated from the main church.
There are many references to polygynous marriages in the Bible:
* Lamech, in Genesis 4:19, became the first known polygynist. He had two wives.
* Subsequent men in polygynous relationships included:
o Esau with 3 wives;
o Jacob: 2;
o Ashur: 2;
o Gideon: many;
o Elkanah: 2;
o David: many;
o Solomon had 700 wives of royal birth;
o Rehaboam: 3;
o Abijah: 14.
o Jehoram, Joash, Ahab, Jeholachin and Belshazzar also had multiple wives.
* From the historical record, it is known that Herod the Great (73 to 4 BCE) had nine wives.
We have been unable to find references to polyandrous marriages in the Bible — unions involving one woman and more than one man. It is unlikely that many existed because of the distinctly inferior status given to women; they were often treated as property in the Hebrew Scriptures.
3. Levirate Marriage: The name of this type of marriage is derived from the Latin word “levir,” which means “brother-in-law.” This involved a woman who was widowed without having borne a son. She would be required to leave her home, marry her brother-in-law, live with him, and engage in sexual relations. If there were feelings of attraction and love between the woman and her new husband, this arrangement could be quite agreeable to both. Otherwise, the woman would have to endure what was essentially serial rapes with her former brother-in-law as perpetrator. Their first-born son was considered to be sired by the deceased husband. In Genesis 38:6-10, Tamar’s husband Er was killed by God for unspecified sinful behavior. Er’s brother, Onan, was then required by custom to marry Tamar. Not wanting to have a child who would not be considered his, he engaged in an elementary (and quite unreliable) method of birth control: coitus interruptus. God appears to have given a very high priority to the levirate marriage obligation. Being very displeased with Onan’s behavior, God killed him as well. Ruth 4 reveals that a man would be required to enter into a levirate marriage not only with his late brother’s widow, but with a widow to whom he was the closest living relative.
4. A man, a woman and her property — a female slave: As described in Genesis 16, Sarah and Abram were infertile. Sarah owned Hagar, a female slave who apparently had been purchased earlier in Egypt. Because Hagar was Sarah’s property, she could dispose of her as she wished. Sarah gave Hagar to Abram as a type of wife, so that Abram would have an heir. Presumably, the arrangement to marry and engage in sexual activity was done without the consent of Hagar, who had such a low status in the society of the day that she was required to submit to what she probably felt were serial rapes by Abram. Hagar conceived and bore a son, Ishmael. This type of marriage had some points of similarity to polygamous marriage, as described above. However, Hagar’s status as a human slave in a plural marriage with two free individuals makes it sufficiently different to warrant separate treatment here.
5. A man, one or more wives, and some concubines: A man could keep numerous concubines, in addition to one or more wives. These women held an even lower status than a wife. As implied in Genesis 21:10, a concubine could be dismissed when no longer wanted. According to Smith’s Bible Dictionary, “A concubine would generally be either (1) a Hebrew girl bought…[from] her father; (2) a Gentile captive taken in war; (3) a foreign slave bought; or (4) a Canaanitish woman, bond or free.” 1 They would probably be brought into an already-established household. Abraham had two concubines; Gideon: at least 1; Nahor: 1; Jacob: 1; Eliphaz: 1; Gideon: 1; Caleb: 2; Manassah: 1; Saul: 1; David: at least 10; Rehoboam: 60; Solomon: 300!; an unidentified Levite: 1; Belshazzar: more than 1.
6. A male soldier and a female prisoner of war: Numbers 31:1-18 describes how the army of the ancient Israelites killed every adult Midianite male in battle. Moses then ordered the slaughter in cold blood of most of the captives, including all of the male children who numbered about 32,000. Only the lives of 32,000 women – all virgins — were spared. Some of the latter were given to the priests as slaves. Most were taken by the Israeli soldiers as captives of war. Deuteronomy 21:11-14 describes how each captive woman would shave her head, pare her nails, be left alone to mourn the loss of her families, friends, and freedom. After a full month had passed, they would be required to submit to their owners sexually, as a wife. It is conceivable that in a few cases, a love bond might have formed between the soldier and his captive(s). However, in most cases we can assume that the woman had to submit sexually against her will; that is, she was raped.
7. A male rapist and his victim: Deuteronomy 22:28-29 requires that a female virgin who is not engaged to be married and who has been raped must marry her attacker, no matter what her feelings were towards the rapist. A man could become married by simply sexually attacking a woman that appealed to him, and paying his father-in-law 50 shekels of silver. There is one disadvantage of this approach: he was not allowed to subsequently divorce her.
8. A male and female slave: Exodus 21:4 indicates that a slave owner could assign one of his female slaves to one of his male slaves as a wife. There is no indication that women were consulted during this type of transaction. The arrangement would probably involve rape in most cases. In the times of the Hebrew Scriptures, Israelite women who were sold into slavery by their fathers were slaves forever. Men, and women who became slaves by another route, were limited to serving as slaves for seven years. When a male slave left his owner, the marriage would normally be terminated; his wife would stay behind, with any children that she had. He could elect to stay a slave if he wished.
Obviously Christian who claim that the Bible demands marriage between just one man and one woman are full of their own nonsense.
posted January 15, 2009 at 3:41 pm
It is official … my irony gland has gone kaput … Mr Sekulow i find it so galling that you quote the constitution in regards to “no religious test”, but don’t admit that nearly all if not all candidates for public office have to face a de facto religious test when they run for elected office. Try having an outspoken atheist run for some national office or even for dogcatcher and they will more than likely be defeated by anyone else of nearly any faith. Maybe the only way an open and ouspoken atheist could win an open election in this country is if they were running against a Satanist. Look at our last election for president when both candidates were pandering to the religious voters left and right, but officially ther is “no religious test”.
posted January 15, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Thank you, Mr. Sekulow.
posted January 15, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Please be referred to Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, a scripture belonging to the Mormon faith.
This scripture contains information on marriage.
posted January 16, 2009 at 7:16 pm
RE: Prayer at the Inauguration
Do opponents of prayer at the presidential inauguration really
believe that eliminating references to God will “prove” that He
doesn’t exist? Or do they truly believe God doesn’t exist? If so,
why not allow those of us who trust in God to invoke His name and be
happy? If we’re wrong, we’ll find out soon enough after death.
posted March 30, 2009 at 9:37 am
Late to the ‘discussion’, but …
“Proposition 8 – a validly enacted amendment”
Mr. Sekulow, isn’t bearing false witness a sin in your religion?
In order to change (not ‘amend’ – which implies making better) the Constitution, it takes a 2/3 majority of the Legislature, note a mere majority of however many people vote in a plebiscite.
Good grief, what’s next? Voting to take away rights from, oh I dunno, “Christians”? Jews? Blacks? Mormons?
posted March 30, 2009 at 10:31 pm
==”Proposition 8 – a validly enacted amendment”
Mr. Sekulow, isn’t bearing false witness a sin in your religion?==
He isn’t bearing false witness.
==In order to change (not ‘amend’ – which implies making better) the Constitution, it takes a 2/3 majority of the Legislature, note a mere majority of however many people vote in a plebiscite.==
The Constitution of the Great State of California says that the People of the Great State of California get to vote on whether to accept a ruling by the Supreme Court of the Great State of California. They did.
posted October 19, 2009 at 8:12 pm
It has been said that marriage is a fundamental right, but the definition of marriage by the Supreme Court thus far has been a marriage between a man and a woman. Once must look at the original, historical intent in order to clarify that this right excludes that of same-sex marriages, at least on a national basis.