E.F. Sandlin

marriage and Marriage

2009-09-17T04:55:00.007-05:00

So, I'm going to continue my tradition of posting a few paragraphs that are likely to upset some folks. This is the beauty of living as a political/religious amphibian. You'll always find yourself at odds with most folks in some way or another. Here goes: In my opinion the religious institution of Marriage is distinct and entirely separable from the civil institution of marriage. The two tend to occur simultaneously for most people but they are not actually united. The upshot of this is that I find it not only feasible but quite desirable to support the civic right of folks to marry who do not fit the "one male to one female" ratio while at the same time absolutely oppose any Christian ceremony that purports to marry people that do not fit the description of "man and wife."
Now to some of you this will seem like utter hypocrisy. But I reemphasize the idea that these are two separate institutions that serve entirely different functions. Of course for most folks they overlap and so we think of them as being necessary to each other but I submit this is not the case. Let's examine the two institutions and see what we see.
Civil marriage is a kind of contract between two parties, legally defined and subject to certain pre-existing contracts such as a pre-nuptial agreement. When this contract is no longer is no longer desirable to one or both parties, they dissolve the contract, often with negotiations as to rights to mutual assets and custody of children. All of these procedures are conducted by the state and the church intervenes strictly in an advisory capacity, if at all. Being in this contract carries certain rights and privileges that our society grants. These have great practical and financial ramifications such as discounted insurance policies, rights as next of kin in emergencies, rights as inheritors in the event of one of the parties’ deaths, rights to support for raising children, and rights to certain assets in the event of divorce. The Church as nothing to do with any of these rights or privileges, they exist in a purely secular way. Now it may be that certain of these practices stemmed from earlier Christian practices, but they are certainly not mediated by or defined by the Church today.
Christian Marriage is a sacrament of the Church. Now it might be good to know a few things about sacraments at this point so if you need to look the word up I'll wait...
Oh, good you're back! Ok so what you just read should have included that sacraments are functions performed by the church that assure us of the working of God's Grace in a certain situation. So, sacraments are performed only by the Church and for the Church. They require an authorized person to perform, something said, something done, and the intention to perform the work of the Church. If these elements are not present, the sacrament cannot be said to occur, they define and give validity to the sacrament. In the sacrament of marriage, the ministers who perform the rite are not the priest or preacher but the couple getting married. If it is not the intention of the folks getting married to do the work of the Church, they are not performing a sacrament at all. It's invalid... null and void. Christian marriage is for Christians... if you aren't baptized and don't intend to go to church you have no business getting married in a church. Notice, this applies universally... all non-Christians are to be excluded here, not just folks that happen to be gay. Now God works all kinds of mysterious ways and I'm not here to tell you that He can't give grace to people living together without marriage, but sacraments are like promises from God. When we invoke the promise, we know that we are going to get the grace that He promised. This gives us objective certainty in situations where are feeble human perceptions can’t be sure of something. This objectivity requires a certain amount of constants in the ceremony. Variety can exist, but the core of the sacrament must remain the same for humans to be sure of the result. So, biblically Marriage is specifically defined as occurring between a man and a woman. This means the Christian church that claims adherence to the scriptures as the revealed word of God cannot include other permutations into its definition of the sacrament.
But what of folks that are not Christian or those who do not practice the faith of the church? Who are we to say that they cannot enjoy the same rights and privileges that the civic marriage has to offer? I agree with those who say that our faith must inform our decisions in the political arena, but at what point do we cross the line into the tyranny of the majority? If the country were majority Muslim, would we not rail against the passing of laws that forbade our cultural practices as Christians? The framers of the Constitution did have a predominantly Christian America in mind but even among their own ranks there were “free thinkers” and Deists. Not allowing a subset of the population enjoy the same privileges as another creates second-class citizens, a notion that the US has rejected time and again.

Beirut

2009-09-16T16:55:00.002-05:00

Ok, Beirut is led by singer/songwriter Zach Condon. Condon is a young man, I think about 25, and is a prodigy. His style is probably best described as world-folk troubadour and incorporates the talents of several musicians playing a wide variety of instruments. Beirut's music is possesed of a romaticism and evocative quality that will floor you. Here's the band's website:

www.beirutband.com

I recommend looking them up on iTunes and playing a few samples... but have your credit card ready because you will want all of their albums. Unfortunately, the band doesn't tour very much and I'm not sure if they will ever come to Texas. But I've loved them from afar for a couple years now and I think you will too.

Abortion Abshmortion

2009-09-14T03:34:00.003-05:00

OK, so I can't think of a more hot button topic than abortion. I want to put my thoughts into words and see if they make sense when expressed. I consider myself pro-life. I think that the battle to make abortion illegal is a losing one. Say in the next presidential election, a republican wins and then a Supreme Court justice from the left steps down (I think these are mutually exclusive propositions). Then, maybe, there is a slim chance that Roe v. Wade could be overturned or altered in some way. Basically, I think there is a greater chance of a constitutional amendment being passed to render abortion illegal. And that really is not going to happen. So maybe we should set that strategy aside. Maybe what we need to do, instead of railing on and on about the injustice of the justice system and accusing teenagers of murder and assuming that everyone with a slightly different opinion should be cast into Hell... is go about making abortion a non-issue. What if we lived in a world where women just didn't seek to have abortions, not out of shame or fear of legal retribution but because it just didn't make sense to them to do it.

Even if you think this is a wimpy strategy, that it would still allow babies to be put to death, I gotta ask: Could it be worse than what we have now? I think we can really make a difference in peoples lives... that pro-lifers can change the whole ballgame. And I think that the strategies to help this process are things we should be doing anyway.

We should expand the ability of women to receive medical treatment, even when they can't afford it. If you prevent life threatening conditions associated with pregnancy and childbirth, there goes a huge pillar in the pro-choice argument. You can't fix everything, but I'd bet a large percentage of abortions would go down if mothers who really want to have their babies are not faced with the choice of putting their own lives at risk.

OK this next one is gonna rub some of you the wrong way but remind yourself what's at stake here. Increase the social perception of the value of women. That may sound like feminist propaganda, but in some cultures gender selection plays a big roll in abortions. Girl fetuses are more likely to be aborted because girls are valued less in these cultures. So, we do what we can to promote the women folk as being valuable in their own right and not just as objects of sexual attraction and boom: fewer abortions because BOTH genders are good! As a side bonus to this, maybe if we teach boys to respect women we get fewer unwanted pregnancies because all of a sudden women are people and not just a way to feel good sexually. Oh, and the newly empowered females become more sure of themselves and their place in society and feel they can handle having a baby or at least just the childbirth part, because their lives aren't automatically stigmatized as promiscuous by a male dominated culture.

Finally, and this is really pretty much a given, let's educate the ladies on the prevention of birth defects. It's pretty clear that prenatal vitamins, especially folic acid, leads to a dramatic decline in birth defects such as spina bifida. Birth defects such as these are a reason for pregnant women choosing to terminate a pregnancy in the interests of the child's quality of life. I know a lot of you are saying "some life is better than none anyway!" but that's just not how this thought process works a lot of the time. So let's just remove that factor from the equation as best as we can.

I'm sure there are a million more things we can do to improve the situation. Adoption reform, improved abstinence/safe sex education, social programs to alleviate financial strain on expectant mothers, family support oriented programs, all spring to mind. The one thing we can't do is make abortion illegal. Maybe that will change in a decade or so but for now, let's focus on saving the lives of the unborn by doing things we SHOULD be doing anyway. If demand for abortions decreases enough, maybe then it could be made illegal. Think of that as along term goal if you are so inclined but maybe we won't even have to take that step. Maybe in the future we'll look back on this time and think "Why did they want to make it illegal? It's not like anyone wants to do it anyway."

Healthcare Reformation

2009-09-14T03:32:00.002-05:00

There's an estimated 48 million Americans right now without health insurance. If you are self employed or un-employed (which is another growing number) as an American it is very likely that you have no insurance or pay a ridiculous amount of money every year (like $20,000 that my parents were paying before moving to Costa Rica) to have a crappy insurance plan that basically only covers big expenses like car accidents. Un-insured don't get regular check-ups and only go to the doctor, or more likely the emergency room ,when something gets so bad the patient can't function. This clogs up ERs that are supposed to be treating patients with injuries, heart attacks and strokes. By the time the patient seeks medical care, diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease have progressed to the point that treatments are more expensive and less likely to be effective. The patient can't pay this out of pocket so they a) go broke trying to save their life or b) wind up costing the taxpayers a lot more money than if they had just been able to go to the doctor in the first place. The cost of fixing this situation in the form of a public option insurance plan might be high, but I think the benefits are worth spending the money. I am a capitalist but this is a situation where the free market is distorted by insurance companies universally using tactics to increase profits that directly harm the well being of American citizens. A public option insurance plan is actually the “capitalism friendly” solution, fostering competition rather than arbitrarily taking direct control over the whole system. It is the government's responsibility to protect its most vulnerable citizens, the unemployed and the poor, from this abuse.
I believe that if quality healthcare is available, it is the right of all people who draw breath in a nation's borders. This is found in the Declaration of Independence. Humans have the right of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. If the framers of the Constitution had had the healthcare science we have today, congress would have been tasked with its oversight just like interstate commerce. Charitable organizations are not able to accomplish this task on their own. We already have state funded healthcare programs so the argument that healthcare falls out of the prevue of the government doesn’t make much sense to me.
Sins can be sins of omission. It is not too great a stretch to say that the parable of the Good Samaritan was about healthcare. The people who passed by the injured man in the parable all had good reasons for doing so but that is not the standard to which we are held. If we are to love our neighbor than we are to tend to his wounds and not count the cost. I’m not saying we should ignore all practical concerns, but this needs to be a priority for our nation. What gets me is that the most of the opposition to this reform is from the same folks who emphasis Biblical morality all the time. Why is this different? If we could spend a trillion dollars and make abortion illegal, wouldn’t the same people be falling all over themselves to do that? I’m pro-life but I don’t see the distinction between protecting the lives of the unborn and the lives of those who have been born. It may be true that the public option plan includes the use of taxpayer money to pay for abortions but this is essentially an insurance plan and most insurance plans cover abortions already. If it is a legal procedure, it is only consistent that this plan would cover it as well. I would support removing abortions from the list of covered procedures, as it stands it is still unclear what the future holds for abortion coverage and the new plan. Previous laws prohibit the use of federal money for abortion procedures and the current draft of the bill does not specifically mention abortion one way or the other. I republicans in congress wished to actually include themselves in the debate, perhaps language could be added that expressly forbids these funds being used for abortions.