Gay Marriage Debate, Part 1

Private and Public Discrimination

But one thing is not your personal choice. That's politeness. Whether you are here as a supporter of me, which is great, whether you're here as a supporter of both Professor White and Pastor White, because I asked him what is his proper address, and he said, well, you can call me Professor White because he teaches, and Pastor White because he's an ordained Baptist minister, so you've got two there.

Either way, both of us, as human beings, and more important, the nature of the debate demands your politeness, respect for all ideas, and that includes your own, because during the Q &A between us and the discussion with the students, you should show respect for other students, too.

How many of you agree with that? Let's see hands in the air. All right, thank you very much. One more thing I want to say before I start my prepared remarks, and that is Professor White and also Pastor White and I have something in common, which I'm not quite sure he knows.

I have an advantage over him in the sense that he has a website, etc., etc. I don't really, so I know more about him than he does. But fair enough, I want to say something because I think it's appropriate to say.

I am, of course, a faculty member at a public state university. As such, a public statement, profession of faith, religious faith, is a little bit out of place. You might mention just plain inappropriate.

Well, given the fact that among the various issues here today, and given the fact of Reverend White, Pastor White, Professor White's background, which is largely religious in many ways, I think it's appropriate to kind of frame a little bit of a debate before I begin and to say, let me ask you a very silly question, if I may, Pastor White, because we already know the answer.

May I ask you, Pastor White, do you love the Lord? Yes. Of course you do. So do I. And I hope you'll forgive me for wearing my cross on the outside. I used to wear it on the inside seven days a week. That's not appropriate to wear on the outside.

But I'd like to greet you, Pastor Femme, in the love of God, with Jesus. We both share a commitment to trying to walk a Christian path. We may see that path in different ways, but I think Reverend White, Pastor White, Professor White, you'll see that we have far more in common than we have necessarily.

Okay. So I'll draw a roll. There is something about Pastor White's, Professor White's, Christian walk that I respect immensely. Number one, the fact that he's chosen to walk a Christian walk. I think that's wonderful.

So have I. But there's something about his walk that I think he might be very surprised that I agree with him. Agree indirectly. I agree with his right to do it. And it's something you might find kind of surprising.

I mean, you might say, do you agree with me on this? In a sense, yes. He is the head of an organization called the Alpha and Omega Ministries. And among other things, he's also a leader in an organization called the Evangelical Theological Society.

And he does essays and blogs on his website. As I say, I have an advantage of having read a little bit of that. At a meeting last year of the Evangelical Theological Society, one of the persons attending asked the question, why does their mission statement read the way it does, et cetera, and said the details are not important.

But one of the leaders, a man named Roger Nicole, got up, and this is in Reverend White's own essay, said, we have framed our mission statement the way we have because we didn't want any Roman Catholics in the group.

Here's the thing that Reverend White might not realize. I respect that totally. Why? Because we have the First Amendment to the Constitution. That's why. He has every right in the world to form his religious organizations, his religious ministries any way he wants to.

That's it. And if he wants to say, if his people want to say, we don't want any Roman Catholics in the group, I respect that. How could I not respect that? We have the great joy to be citizens in one of the most extraordinary countries in the world where freedom of religion is one of the key touchstones of our society.

You bet. Now, the Roman Catholics might very well say, well, we have organized our religion in such a way that we don't want any people from the evangelical theological society in our group. Fair enough.

Because that, after all, is precisely the point. Religious freedom. I'd like to read you something that is very precious. And if it's not precious, it darn well ought to be. Amendment 1 to the Constitution.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble to petition their government for redress of grievances.

To my mind, the most beautiful sentence ever written in the world. Congress shall make no law. How can you get stronger than that? Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

I totally respect Professor White's right in the ETS organization to say, we don't want Roman Catholics around here. That's totally his right to do that. Absolutely. My Christian walk is a bit different.

That's all right. We have that right also. And to take that thought where it's going, I'd like, because I am a sociology professor, to take that thought and see where it takes us. What it takes us to is the distinction between the right to discriminate in a private sense and the demand that we not discriminate in a public sense.

That is key to our society and thank God for it. Private discrimination and public discrimination are two totally different things. Private discrimination includes such things that you've got to have a dinner party at your house.

Do you have to make sure that you have a black person, an Asian person, a gay person, a short person? No, no, no, of course not. It's your dinner party. It's your business. You can include, exclude whoever you want.

You want to start a religious organization, lead a religious organization, you can have in it whoever you want or exclude whoever you don't want. You have that right. That falls under the jurisdiction of private discrimination.

That is protected by the Constitution and it darn well should be. But if, for example, the Alpha and Omega ministries were to get into, say, social service work, which is very common. We've known for the last 25 years, under the Reagan administration it began, that it was very, very common for the best social service deliveries to be made by faith-based organizations.

They got a little bit of motivation. Yeah. But if the Alpha and Omega ministries were to go into a public service thing, like, say, food, offering food to the poor, food to the hungry, like the Salvation Army does and other groups, loaves and fishes and my group that we often are a part of, right, now you're in the public arena.

Would they have a right to exclude blacks? Certainly not. Would they have a right to exclude, oh, I don't know, Jews? Certainly not. Would they have a right to exclude gay people? Absolutely not. Because now we have moved from the private arena to the public arena.

And in the public arena, that type of discrimination or any type of discrimination is forbidden. That's the point. Private discrimination? No problem. Public discrimination? That's different. And hence, the question of gay marriage falls under the area of public discrimination.

Now, we have seen in American history the expansion of those people who are protected in terms of their rights. We can go back to the Declaration of Independence. Right. We hold these truths to be self-evident.

They're all men are created equal. And they are endowed by their creator, etc., etc., etc. Nice words, nice words. Slavery still existed. Even though, to be fair, Thomas Jefferson, in his first edition, his first drafts of the Declaration of Independence included in there the abolition of slavery.

But the time was not yet right. And he was voted down and said, nope, we are not going to abolish slavery just yet. Was that an element of hypocrisy? Maybe so. But I would see it as a sociologist and say, society evolves.

We are an ever-changing thing. Yes. There were people there in 1776 who wanted to abolish slavery once and for all right then and there. The southern states said, you want to do this thing called the American Revolution?

You want to do this thing called creating America? You better not talk about abolishing slavery because then we are out of the game. Thomas Jefferson himself said.