Jim Daly, evangelist and president of Christian shout-group, Focus on the Family, has some thoughts about this whole marriage issue, as you can well imagine. But nothing surprised us more than hearing the words of Thomas Jefferson in relation to Jim’s thoughts on what should constitute marriage and family in this country. So we’ve rolled up our sleeves and said an incantation or two and dragged old Thomas out of the crypt so he can respond in kind.
Daly blathers on in the introduction about his disappointment in the president for his landmark comments yesterday about same-sex marriage, and then really gets into the meat of his commentary — commending North Carolina for standing up for the “protection of traditional marriage.” He’s proud of the outcome.
“Every time the issue of protecting traditional marriage (31 times via constitutional amendment) has been put before the men and women those constitutions were created to serve, it has passed.”
He touts that “conservative” states like Mississippi, Utah and the Dakotas have fallen in line, and even the more “liberal” states of California and Hawaii, known for their wanton gay sex explosions and the harboring of Kenyan Muslim Usurpers, respectively, have followed suit. But, duh-duh-duhhhh, something horrible could be looming, and it takes place in the court system. Oh, that evil court system. That place is unpredictable and sometimes marriage protection loses out to the will of marriage warlords and wicked marriage smashing hobgoblins.
“Unfortunately, that unanimous will has not been respected in some jurisdictions by a court system Thomas Jefferson once warned us views a foundational document like a constitution as “a mere thing of wax … which they may twist and shape into any form they may please.”
Okay. Time to take comments from Zombie Thomas Jefferson.
“Well, I did have six children out of wedlock…so I’m not sure I can really be an appropriate moral compass for your causes…”
No matter! Protecting marriage is all about the children, you see? Well, that’s what Jim Daly really wants you to believe wholeheartedly.
“The social science confirms that the most stabilizing and enriching environment a child can grow up in is a home headed by his or her married mother and father. And since the health of any society depends on the health of those who comprise it, it is the responsibility of government to enact laws that offer the best chance for health to be passed from one generation to the next.”
So, what you’re really saying there, Jim, is that children who grow up in households of married same-sex couples won’t be healthy? Is that it, then? They’ll be little bedbug ridden, pox afflicted, wretched garden gnomes which will spread their same-sex loving diseases all over future generations, yes?
“Traditional marriage is that best chance of creating a building block for a thriving society, says Jim.”
Well, that sounds patently ridiculous. Like some of the most ill informed, ludicrous rambling that ever did disguise itself as researched factual information.
Thomas what do you think?
“Well, I never publicly acknowledged six of my children and I kept their mother as my slave and concubine for over twenty years, so, uh, I’m not sure what to say…”
Thanks, Thomas. You’re doing great.
Regardless, Jim has a firm hope that North Carolina’s decisions won’t be overturned, because North Carolina understands the “truth.” The truth that having an opinion about what one does in their private, romantic life should be fodder for legislation. Marriage in any iteration should be something that’s scrutinized and voted on, eh? Okay then. I’m sure every North Carolinian would gladly invite legislators into their marital bed to vote on, well, everything from sex positions to, well, we don’t know, underwear choice? Yes, Jim?
“Let’s hope their [North Carolina] decision is allowed to stand and not rendered moot by a court superseding the duties enumerated to it by the U.S. Constitution. If not, we’ll see another disturbing example of what Jefferson, who helped envision and write that Constitution, recognized as uniquely dangerous to our way of government and way of life.”
“The opinion,” he wrote in 1804, “which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional, and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action, but for the legislature and executive also, in their spheres, would make the judiciary a despotic branch.”
Thomas?
“Oh, the constitutionality of laws? Well, I have lots of opinions on those, but this is largely a social issue, and I probably shouldn’t say anything more because while I freed my children, I never actually freed their mother, so I’m probably not a good source.”
Well, it’s a wonder why anyone would actually use you to bolster their social issues debate about marriage and family.
Thomas Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemings’s children: Beverly and Harriet were allowed to leave Monticello in 1822; Madison and Eston were released in Jefferson’s 1826 will. Jefferson gave freedom to no other nuclear slave family. Thomas Jefferson did not free Sally Hemings. She was permitted to leave Monticello by his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph not long after Jefferson’s death in 1826, and went to live with her sons Madison and Eston in Charlottesville.
Hmm, so it makes total sense to evoke the name and words of Thomas Jefferson, who in his profession “represented” all that was good about liberty and the rights of the common man, and the ability of the courts to make fair and just decisions about what is constitutional for the people, but in real life practice, kept those close to him as less than second-class citizens, chattel. He remained the embodiment of taking away liberty, despite those flowery words written in the Constitution. Well, isn’t that something.
Thanks, Thomas. You and Jim have been helpful.
*Thomas Jefferson’s commentary in this post is fictional. However, the historical facts of the Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings relationship are linked above.
