Gregory Twiford (Friday) desperately needs some direction when he speaks about the Constitution. Our secular "Constitution of 1789 is largely a Lockean construction," writes right wing scholar Peter Lawler. It has "origins" in John Locke, not Jesus Christ. There is no "may have" to it.
Right-wing scholar Willmoore Kendall writes that "the framers of the Declaration of Independence carried their jugs to the well of John Locke to be filled."
Most of the framers were Christian, but they approved secular documents, which refused to even include the word"God" or to give Christianity any favored recognition as the Maryland delegation requested.
The origin of our Constitution is largely John Locke. One might argue that some Christian framers, based upon the fact that good works of unforeseeable kinds flow from faithfulness, unintentionally contributed their faith to the invention of the Constitution. But that's the strongest statement any scholar, whether from the right or left, can make about its derivation.
From the modern individualistic (Lockean) view, blacks and women - and other minorities - were degraded by American law for most of our history. But our Constitution surely created the framework by which all individuals would eventually be liberated from the unessential baggage of race, class and gender - and even religion. We are slowly but surely progressing.
The gay issues is more out in the open today than it was when I read Gore Vidal's "The City and the Pillar" 48 years ago, but attitudes today are just as dimwitted. They stem from monotheism which is totalitarian and full of absolute decrees and absolute deities - one God, one king, one Pope, one boss in the factory (located in Mexico, China or India. One master in the family, the father. Obviously, in a patriarchal society the woman exists to be impregnated by the head of the class, and any deviation from that is anabomination in the eyes of the Lord. Sexual attitudes come from that.
One thing is for certain: it isn't Jesus or Moses or Muhammad giving us orders from heaven, telling us we're not to have sex with the same sex. It's totalitarian society. It starts with politics on Earth and ends with politics in heaven. Fundamentalists turn it around and say "It's what God wants." They invent the religion that conforms best to the kind of society they want. When they say that what our nation does or should do is God's will, they are participating in domesticating God's will. That's sin.
Now we have come to a prime truth: God does not micromanage the universe for the advantage of particular believers. In fact, God is not on your side. Or mine. Let's hope that we're on his side.
What "draft" are you talking about. Mr. Twiford? A draft beer? Surely not a military draft.
B.J. Paschal
Professor Emeritus
Psychology
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