I was listening to the Thom Hartmann show this morning as Hartmann interviewed human exemplar Randall Terry about the murder of Dr. George Tiller. At a couple of points in the conversation when Hartmann was trying to pin Terry down regarding his views about Tiller’s murder, Terry said that he wished Tiller would have been tried before a jury of his peers and justice rendered via execution. (He evidently made a similar statement in a video he put out.)
Unfortunately, Hartmann let this comment go by each time Terry made it. I was so frustrated I wanted to reach into the radio and shake Hartmann by the shoulders so that he would ask Terry the obvious next question: "Tried for murder? According to what law?"
That question if pursued is a rabbit hole down which no rational American wants to go. Of course "rational Americans " is a subset that does not include Randall Terry.
The obvious answer to that question is, "According to God's law."
And once one posits that God's law takes precedence over a nation's laws, it's game over.
Which God? The "God" of the Bible? Which part of the Bible? All of it? Why not Allah’s law? Or Shiva’s? Who gets to decide? The inescapable logical conclusion of any such position is theocracy – and the United States of America is explicitly not a theocracy.
I had an opportunity the other day to chat with an acquaintance, a Superior Court judge, a Republican appointed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. We have our differences on a number of issues, but I was surprised to hear him talk about the threat that the passage of Proposition 8 represents.
The danger posed by Prop 8 was obvious to him: once any group starts issuing laws that discriminate against any other group based on characteristics, what is to say that the next constitutional amendment in California won't ban blue-eyed people? Or left-handed people? Or people over six feet tall?
Yet if you ask those who support Proposition 8, they will tell you that it comports with "God's law."
Regardless of what your religious beliefs may or may not be, the fact of the matter is that the laws that govern this country and that are enforced by this country and all of the jurisdictions within it are not written by God; they are written by humans. We need to confront head-on those who would submit that abortion violates God's law by asking them whether they believe the United States should be run according to God's law, and if so, exactly what that law includes.
Jesus himself recognized the folly of such a position when he reminded his followers to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. In fact, for any human to presume that they can enforce God's law is blasphemy. It's also inherently un-American - check the First Amendment.
And to advocate that the laws of the United States should be overthrown is, well, sedition.