HOT SPRINGS MAYOR, A TEA PARTIER, SAYS MARRIAGE LAWS "REDUNDANT" AND "UN-BIBLICAL", NEWSPAPER DECLINES TO PRINT CITIZEN REBUKE.

The Mayor of Hot Springs Arkansas advocates that we don’t need secular law to address issues, such as marriage, dealt with in the Bible.  My Friend Cliff Jackson wrote a letter of dismay to the Hot Springs paper which refused to print it.  

It is difficult to know whether to be more shocked by the paper’s actions or the mayor’s mentality but both reflect the growing empowerment of the ignorance demographic in America.  

The following is Clift's letter and his comments on the paper’s action.  

If you are a glutton on the subject, links follow to my own related thoughts.

BILL CLINTON'S HOMETOWN MAYOR, A TEA PARTIER, SAYS MARRIAGE LAWS "REDUNDANT" AND "UN-BIBLICAL"

by Cliff Jackson on Saturday, February 5, 2011 at 10:52am

Dinosaurs and Humans in Eden

 NOTE: The local paper declined to print this letter perhaps because of the new politically correct pseudo-civility after the Giffords' shooting or, perhaps, because the paper strongly identifies with the business interests of Hot Springs, Arkansas---a national park that depends on tourism dollars---and my letter might tarnish the image of our fair city. Regardless, when the Mayor of Bill Clinton's hometown publicly expresses such views, such is worthy of facetious and sarcastic commentary, is it not? To the uninformed, David Barton is the guru of a "Christian America" and the speaker at a First Nazarene Church event for all newly-elected Tea Partiers (Republicans won all but two contested city and county offices).

Dear Editor,

I am goggle-eyed and aghast at the remarks of Mayor Ruth Carney as quoted in a recent Sentinel-Record article. Quite clearly, she endorses David Barton’s idiotic view that where the Bible speaks on a matter, as interpreted by the literalists, there is no reason for secular laws.

As an example, the Mayor mentioned marriage laws, which presumably would also include divorce, child custody, and other family matters. Here is her quote:

“Marriage was from the Bible, so when man takes it and re-creates the marriage statute, then it’s against what was Biblical-based. That was just one little example (that David Barton gave) of making laws to define something that has already been defined.”

How else is any sane person to understand these comments except that our Mayor, who may indeed be a fine Christian lady, supports the creation of a Christian theocracy in America based not on the Constitution and our separation of church and state but on literalists’ interpretation (which, quite literally, they deny “interpreting” literally) of the Bible?

This is an appalling development in Bill Clinton's hometown where, according to the Mayor, we apparently simply need to repeal redundant marriage laws and follow the Bible. Which Biblical verses would she have us follow? Polygamy? Women as chattel? Divorce only for adultery? Gays an "abomination"? Verses where God approves concubines? Women being silent and submissive to men? Having sex with one’s daughters? Stoning of women (but not men) caught in adultery or children for sassing their parents?

Yes, each of the above is from the Bible that all Christians, including myself, deem as “holy” and “inspired” by God. However, I don’t read the Bible “literally and infallibly” as do the denizens of the Religious Right who seek to impose their Stone Age literalism on this secular and pluralistic nation.

May I ask Mayor Carney this: Is her husband Ken Carney (pastor at First Nazarene) gonna preside over ecclesiastical courts for all the marriages and divorces and concubinage dissolutions in this new theocratic regime? Will he apply the verses about stoning sassing children---even though he and the Mayor might just have (as do we all) a child who from time to time speaks his or her mind in a disrespectful manner?

Maybe if Hot Springs acts quickly and extends a tax break, we can beat Kentucky, which just approved tax benefits for the building of Noah’s Ark at the Creation Science Museum in Petersburg,Kentucky. Here is how its website describes itself:

“state-of-the-art 70,000 square foot museum (that) brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings. Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers.”

In fact, Hot Springs could go one better: Let’s make the Arkansas School of Math, Science, and the Arts into the nation’s leading high school teaching “creation science”. Just add “Creation”” before “Science” in the name, and the school will be inundated with youngsters from everywhere eagerly wanting to learn how humans survived the man-eating dinosaurs who lived 5,000 years ago. 

Jesus saves, so I believe, and my sincere prayer is that He will save us from those who invoke His name to promote an exclusivist, intolerant, literalist, and dogmatic religious/political agenda.

If the Mayor's above-quoted comments are echoed in similar public pronouncements, Hot Springs is gonna become the laughing-stock of the nation. She is, of course, entitled to free speech and, as of now anyway, to freedom of religion. What she believes religiously is her own business, but she needs to realize now that, as Mayor, everything she says reflects upon Hot Springs and Arkansas.

We already are viewed by the nation as a passel of rubes and yokels, and we don’t need people like David Barton cementing this image by telling our newly-elected Republican officials to apply Biblical laws instead of our Constitution and secular statutes.

That’s bad publicity enough. Even worse, the Mayor agrees with him.

Cliff Jackson 

P.S.

That Jackson’s letter may not have been printed on grounds that it would violate a post Gifford shooting civility standard for public discourse is particularly disturbing.  One could see this Judo maneuver coming from the extreme right, the instant the connection was made between the shooting and the demagoguery of certain media/political personalities.  

Cutting argument advanced in pursuit of sound policy and truth must not be confused with fraudulent exaggerations purposely calculated to incite hysteria and potentially violent emotional reactions in extremist segments of society for purposes of personal political or material gain.  Demagoguery is not legitimate argument and Legitimate argument is not demagoguery.  To confuse the two is to unilaterally disarm reason and leave the demagogues with an even freer hand to manipulate the ignorance demographic. 

On marriage, the state and religion you might enjoy:

http://jamesbrucemcmath.blogspot.com/2009/03/gay-marriage.html

If you like sarcasm:
http://jamesbrucemcmath.blogspot.com/2010/03/redneckus-giganticus-americanus.html