Eleven years before Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the case in which the Supreme Court sanctioned same-sex marriage, my students at Miami University reached the exact conclusions it took the U.S. Senate another seven years after Obergfell to adopt.

In 2004, I taught a summer session of my “Imagination and Entrepreneurship” course which included the following exercise based on the false concept “there are two sides to every story.” There are always more than two sides. To prove this, I asked the students to explore a controversial topic and identify the extreme positions, i.e., the two sides. Their choice? Same-sex marriage which was viewed on one extreme as an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, and on the other, an unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness delineated in the Declaration of Independence. I then told them they should not seek a compromise on that continuum. Instead, they should look for answers ‘outside the line.’

If you think all universities are bastions of liberal dogma, you do not know Miami University. The student population is 72 percent white and they come from households with an average annual income of over $200,000. Sixty-two percent of the students are Ohio residents, a state we know from the recent mid-terms is ruby red. Not surprisingly for a school with these demographics, College Values Online ranks Miami as the 11th most conservative university in the United States.

In that environment, I feared our discussion of marriage equality would be a dogfight. Not even close. As is so often the case, the critical point came when a student asked an important question. What is the purpose of a marriage license? A not unexpected response came from class members I knew to be actively engaged in religion-based student organizations. They viewed government sanction of a marriage secondary to that of God’s. Which led to the suggestion it was not about the license but the fee to obtain the license. In other words, this was just one more way for local governments to raise revenue by taxing the formation of a household.

Yet, they pointed out lots of non-married couples form households. College students live together in off-campus rental housing. Co-workers form households to share the cost of shelter in cities where the sale price or rental fees are beyond the reach of many who work there. Why shouldn’t they be taxed as well? Which brings me to the title of this post. The tax was only applied to those household occupants the government assumed were having intercourse. Without stating the obvious, you can see where this is going. Government regulation of relationships makes no sense.

And that is EXACTLY what the Senate compromise on an amendment to the Respect for Marriage Act proposes, an amendment that garnered the bipartisan support of 62 senators including 12 Republicans. An amendment based on the same conclusion reached by my students 18 years earlier. The First Amendment prohibits Congress from mandating that any sectarian institution which opposes marriage other than that between a man and a woman must conduct a union for a same-sex couple. But those who had their marriage ratified by either a civil or religious authority must be honored nationwide. The government should keep it nose out of the marital business.

I know some may be offended by the fact the revised bill codifies the right to religious discrimination. But that has always been the case. Most orthodox rabbis will not officiate in an interfaith marriage. Catholic priests will not bless a second marriage unless the first has been annulled. And somehow there are still interfaith unions and second Catholic weddings. In other words, “forum shopping” is not reserved for those in search of a sympathic judge to hear their case.

My wife occasionally reminds me how often, as an agnostic, I cite scripture to make my point. And I am sure she will remind me again when I point out, the Senate amendment to the Respect for Marriage Act is just one more example of the Biblical underpinning in Matthew 22:21 that justifies the separation of church and state. “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Perhaps, the spouses of the 27 GOP senators who voted against the amendment need to remind them to open both their Bibles and the pocket-sized copies of the U.S. Constitution they always carry with them.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Amnesia runs deep in the Democratic Party. Especially when it comes to compromise with Republicans. In 2009, Democrats watered down the Affordable Care Act to secure bi-partisan support. Yet not one GOP senator voted for the final bill. In 2015, they accepted Mitch McConnell’s justification for blocking consideration of Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court and took him at his word he would feel the same way if the president were from his own party. Can you say, “Justice Amy Coney Barrett?”

Which is why I do not share the enthusiasm of those who believe the compromise on gun legislation reached by the Murphy/Cronyn working group represents “progress.” I’ve not heard one Republican say, “This is a good start.” If not, what is it? Look at the trade-offs to secure 10 GOP votes. It looks more like “the end.”

Consider this one example. In lieu of raising the age from 18 to 21 for purchase of a semi-automatic assault weapon, the drafters agreed to “enhanced background checks” for purchasers under 21. This morning Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy who put the working group together explained how this provision might have stopped the shooter in Uvalde. When he walked into a gun store to purchase the two AR-15s, the dealer would have been required to contact local police to see if the shooter had ever had a run-in with law enforcement.

Senator, I know you mean well. You have been the leading advocate of gun safety laws since Sandy Hook. But this provision, WITHOUT background checks at gun shows and on-line sales, ensures weapons of war will continue to fall into the hands of young men who will use them on victims in such a brutal way the corpses are beyond recognition. What good is an ENHANCED background check if there are still pathways to acquire these weapons where the seller is not required to follow the same procedures as the owner of a licensed gun store.

You may not understand what is going on here, but I can assure you Mitch McConnell does. The proposed legislation has more loopholes than the tax code. Which means there WILL be another Sandy Hook, Parkland or Uvalde. And McConnell will come out of his shell and declare, “We restricted gun sales and that did not stop these travesties. That proves it was NEVER about access to guns. So let’s stop pretending it does. We have enough laws on the books. Let’s enforce those before we consider new ones.” [After which, McConnell holds a fund-raising conference call with the NRA and gun manufacturers and reminds them how he predicted passing the 2022 bill would shut down any possibility of REAL gun legislation.”]

This morning Joe Scarborough quoted Abraham Lincoln to justify this incremental approach to sensible gun legislation. “I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.” Joe, if memory serves me correctly, Abraham Lincoln was the victim of gun violence. So was Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, “The arc of history is long but it always bends toward justice.”

Sadly, these and other “slow walkers” took their last steps way before their time. And in the cases of Lincoln and King, we still have not realized their respective visions of a reunited America or racial equality. Instead, we should be listening to Albert Einstein. “To do the same thing over and over and expect a different result is the definition of insanity.” Approaching gun safety the same way America dealt with reconstruction and civil rights suggests, 100 years from now, we will be engaged in the same discussion we have following every mass shooting.

No, we will not have taken a step backwards. Instead, we will have been stopped dead in our tracks.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

For me, one of the most enlightening moments in the aftermath of the tragic events in Buffalo on Saturday came when a number of journalists and pundits were chastised for referring to the shooter as a “lone gunman.” What were the critics of this reporting trying to tell us? While one person pulled the triggered, he had a host of accomplices who created the environment in which he believed his actions were acceptable, if not justified.

In the course of drafting the historical novel which has taken me away from this blog for the past several months, the research took me to Tallahatchie County, Mississippi in 1956. This was the time and location of the infamous torture and murder of Emmett Till, only one of several similar violent responses to the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. What was it about northeast Mississippi that made it the epicenter of mid-20th century racial conflict?

One possible answer was provided by then aspiring journalist David J. Halberstam.  Seventeen years before this Pulitzer Prize winning author published The Best and the Brightest, Halberstam penned an article for The Reporter titled, “Tallahatchie County Acquits a Peckerwood.”  Following the acquittal of Elmer Kimbell after the murder of Clinton Melton, an African-American gas station attendant, he wrote:

A friend of mine divides the white population of Mississippi into two categories. The first and largest contains the good people of Mississippi, as they are affectionately called by editorial writers, politi­cians, and themselves. The other group is a smaller but in many ways more conspicuous faction called the peckerwoods.

The good people will generally agree that the peckerwoods are trou­blemakers, and indeed several good people have told me they joined the Citizens Councils because otherwise the peckerwoods would take over the situation entirely.  But while the good peo­ple would not act with the rashness of and are not governed by the hatred of the peckerwood, they are reluctant to apply society’s normal remedies to the peckerwood. Thus it is the peckerwoods who kill Negroes and the good people who acquit the peckerwoods

David Halberstam, “Tallahatchie County Acquits a Peckerwood,” The Reporter, April 19, 1956.

Sound familiar? From his own manifesto, we know the Buffalo assailant is an anti-Semitic, white supremacist. But he is someone who Halberstam, if covering the weekend events, would also call a “neo-peckerwood.” But the phrase in Halberstam’s article that haunts me is, “…several good people have told me they joined the Citizens Councils (the organization created to fight school integration) because otherwise the peckerwoods would take over the situation entirely. “

How is that any different from Mark Esper, John Bolton, Bill Barr, Kellyanne Conway and every other former member of the previous administration who claimed they were protecting us or “the peckerwoods would take over the situation entirely?” No, they did not protect us. They silently endorsed the behavior.

And how are Tucker Carlson, Elyse Stefanik and a host of MAGA-inspired candidates for office in 2022 distinguishable from the “good people” of Tallahatchie County who believed their silence in the face of bigotry and hate made them better than the peckerwoods. Stefanik, the third highest ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives believes she is absolved of her complicity by Tweeting, “Our nation is heartbroken about the tragic news of horrific loss of life in Buffalo.” Just days after calling those across the aisle pedophiles and grifters who were promoting illegal immigration, a dog whistle for “replacement theory.”

Is there no one in the Republican leadership who will recognize how they contribute to the bile that has poisoned the body politic and the nation? Rather than banish the Liz Cheneys who dare call them out, is there not one member of the current party elite who will emulate Prince Escalus in Act V of Romeo and Juliet when he chastises the lovers’ parents for creating the conditions which led to a tragic end. “See what a scourge is laid upon your hate.” Instead of ending his screed with “All are punished,” a modern day Prince would declare, “All are peckerwoods.”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP