Minnesota currently faces a proposed change to its Constitution that would prohibit the legalization or recognition of marriage for same-sex couples. The foundation for the support for this amendment comes from various religious groups in spite of the fact that many who oppose the amendment are also people of faith. The disconnect between these two groups and the use of the Constitution as the battle ground illustrates why religion has no place in politics.
In the United States, the foundation of our political lives are our federal and state Constitutions. No federal or state law may violate the United States Constitution, and no state law may violate the state Constitution of that state. The proposed amendment would add the following:
Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota.
Like all language, the language of the Constitution is subject to interpretation and may be interpreted differently by different individuals. The above language may seem crystal clear, but it leaves open a number of questions, including:
- Can the state eliminate marriage in MN and create a new kind of union available to all?
- What is it to “recognize” a marriage?
- Is it illegal for my business to recognize the marriage of a same-sex couple married in a state where it’s legal?
I’m not trying to launch an argument about the meaning of this amendment, but instead to illustrate how any such arguments might be resolved. One of the beauties of the United States system is that we have an entity to serve as the arbiter of what the language in our Constitutions and laws means. It’s the judicial branch with the Supreme Courts serving as the ultimate authority. When we disagree about what the Constitution means on any subject, we bring it to the courts and they tell us. Once it gets to the Supreme Court, that decision is final unless we amend the Constitution to change the meaning.
Religion, on the other hand, has no such unquestioned universal authority. When people disagree about the Bible as they do with the issue of same-sex marriage, who is the interpreter?
The idea that the Bible is the “word of God” is often the foundation of this problem. The reality is that the Bible was written in human language by human beings and translated many times over many centuries by many humans. Many of these humans held very human, very political agendas when perform their translations. Compare any two Bibles, and their words in English are often materially different. Humans are imperfect. Human language is imperfect. Any attempt by humans to communicate the word of God will be inherently imperfect. In fact, any attempt by humans to understand the word of God will be inherently imperfect.
So who interprets the Bible for society? The United States Constitution was born of a world waging constant wars in Europe over different interpretations of the Bible. There can be no interpreter of the Bible or any other religious document for society, only for members of that religion. The Pope is the final authority of the Bible for Catholics. Non-Catholics would be very, very wary of accepting Papal authority of interpreting the Bible. Similarly, most people of Western faiths would be wary of a secular state interpreting the Bible as the Communist Party does in China.
The Bible can have no single authority to which we can appeal for interpretation and, as a result, cannot form the basis of our Constitution and our laws. It has no place in our politics.
