Is Same-Sex Marriage a Civil Right?/Program 3

Introduction

Ankerberg: Welcome to our program. We’re talking about, is same-sex marriage a civil right? And my guest is Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr. He is the pastor of the thriving 3,000-member church, Hope Christian Church, in Washington, DC. Harry graduated from Harvard Business School with his Masters in Business Administration. And this man has brains. He has the ability to make big dollars, and God called him to the ministry. And, Harry, I’m glad that God did, and I’m very glad that you had the courage to follow God’s leading. He is involved, folks, in so many social issues, and taking so many stands, and you have probably seen him on all the network shows and will continue to see him in the days ahead. I want you to get to know him personally on this show, and let him be able to say his piece. A lot of times they cut him off; they won’t let him have a chance to answer the questions; and so I’m going to ask him the tough ones.

And, folks, these are tough questions. These are the ones that we’re going to be facing as we talk about the proposals to change traditional marriage and institute same-sex marriage into the Constitution. And one of the things that folks say, Harry, is that same-sex marriage is an individual right that’s guaranteed by the Constitution, which the majority has no right to overrule when the judiciary is there protecting our rights.

And the way they say this is that, look, you remember when interracial marriage was against the law. And they’ll come especially at you on this one, Harry, and they’ll say, look, if you took polls of the American people, 70-80% were against interracial marriage, or were against the fact of allowing interracial marriage. And the thing is that what they needed back there, and what we got, was we got a judiciary that stepped in and rectified a wrong. And we agree it was a wrong. And the fact is, but now they’re comparing that situation to the situation in terms of same-sex. And they’re saying, “Look, it doesn’t matter that 60-70-80% of the population would be for traditional marriage and against legalizing same-sex marriage. But look at these folks that are gays and lesbians; they love each other, so why shouldn’t they be able to choose who they marry? And that’s their civil right, and that is the reason we need a judiciary to step in and overturn this one and make it a Constitutional right.” How do you address that issue?

Jackson: Well, John, that’s a very powerful question. By the way, thank you for having us on the show again. I address it this way: it’s apples and oranges, in that we believe, especially as Christians, that we have truth on our side; not only the truth of the Bible, but the truth of the Constitution. And historically in America, there’s really never been an individual right to marry. Way back in the early days where the colonies were getting together, there were laws and there were statements that people signed off on that said we believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. We as a nation did not want polygamy or other varieties of marital unions or arrangements, because we felt that that would hinder the progress of this great Union of ours. And therefore I reject that. But also, I want to go back just for a moment, if your audience could just bear with me…

Ankerberg: Sure.

Jackson: …and trace a little history. There’s a book that’s been written called The Root and Branch, by a guy named Ron James. And he goes back and he traces the legal roots of the Civil Rights Movement. But more importantly, he looks at the interplay, John, between the public, what they were feeling, how what happened in court impacted folks. And it’s clear to me that the radical gay movement has followed a little bit of the Civil Rights Movement history. But they haven’t caught the right spirit; because at the very root of what they did in the Civil Rights Movement originally, there was a desire to win the hearts of the people by bringing a persuasive case.

Walter Fauntroy, who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said it this way: “We did all of the public demonstrations believing that the Holy Spirit would bring conviction upon the heart of America that what was happening to us was unrighteous; and that because of that they’d do the right thing.” So this book, Root and Branch, starts in the late 1930s. And there are cases that are tried, of rape and other things, that had African Americans involved, and they simply won the right to stand as free men in the court. And they acquit themselves very well.

There’s a man named Charles Hamilton Houston who was the mentor of a man that everyone knows, Thurgood Marshall. And Houston took over the Law School at Howard and raised it up. And his first major protégé was Thurgood Marshall. Suffice it to say, in a nutshell, what they did was won case after strategic case, and they then appealed to the public. And in their appeals, it was not the case that a small minority was absolutely forcing their will on the public. I’m sure they wished they could have accelerated it. But about the time that we finally got all the Civil Rights laws passed in the 1960s, there had been a transformation of the awareness of the nation so that many people were saying, yeah, it’s the right thing to do, even though they made a resistance.

Ankerberg: Alright, Harry, the gay and lesbian community comes back and says, we’re exactly like the civil rights for African Americans because we can’t change who we are and therefore we require freedom to marry who we want. And we’ve got to get that from the judiciary; we’re not going to get it anyplace else.

Jackson: John, I know as a fact as a Black man I cannot change who I am. But gays, that’s a little bit different story. I have people in my church who have gone from being gay to being happily married. And they can change. I think what we’re looking at is an attempt by this group simply to see the ability to get married as the highest level of equality that they’re stretching for. And it concerns me, because I don’t think they’ll even be satisfied with that. In Washington, DC, right now, there is an agenda that the gay and lesbians have put together in terms of outreach—the GLAAD organization. They want to legalize prostitution in DC. And they’re going to start the process this year.

Now, wait a minute before you get upset, and the audience gets all nervous; they base it on the same issue with their gay lifestyle. They believe young gay teenagers who “come out” and tell who they are will be pushed out of their houses. Many of them will be forced to survive by selling their bodies. Because they are going to sell their bodies and they are in danger of having HIV/AIDS, then there should be some kind of unionization of the sex trades, regulation, and thereby protect all of us? That kind of twisted logic is how you begin to move from one issue to another issue to another issue. I don’t think you could find in the Constitution the right to be a sex worker, either.

So we’re at this impasse based on what ultimate authority and truth is being looked at from a legal perspective. Is the guy who is legislating from the bench looking at our Constitution as an objective guideline, or is he looking at international laws, changing things? Some of our major issues that the church is facing today—religious liberty, and involvement in politics—really, these things bleed together. And we’re going to have to stand up and say, “No, no, no, no; Judeo-Christian law is where we began as a nation and our heart is to compassionately engage every segment of society, not to persecute anyone, but to hold fast what is best for the nation.

Ankerberg: Alright. Harry, let’s turn the coin on this question that legalizing same-sex marriage, proponents of same-sex marriage are saying it won’t hurt your traditional marriages; it won’t hurt your families; won’t hurt your freedom of speech; it won’t hurt your freedom of religion. We believe that it will actually transform everything that we believe about marriage in this country. And I’d like to quote one of the leading voices in the homosexual community that actually bragged about this in Out Magazine, Michelangelo Signorile, who has written quite a few books. But in Out Magazine, this is what he said, which is the goal, he says, of legalizing same-sex marriage. He said, “The trick is gay leaders and pundits must stop watering the issues down—that this is simply about equality for gay couples—and offer same-sex marriage for what it is, an opportunity to reconstruct a traditionally homophobic institution by bringing it into our more equitable queer value system. It’s a chance to fully transform the definition of ‘family’ in American culture. Our gay leaders must acknowledge that gay marriage is just as radical and transformative as the religious right contends it to be.”

Now, writing back to this, Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe put it this way in response. He said, “The adoption of same-sex marriage,” he believes, “would topple a long-standing system of shared values. They would change assumptions and expectations by which society has long operated; that men and women are interchangeable and that the central reason for marriage is to provide children with mothers and fathers in a safe and loving environment.” He went on to say, “My foreboding is that a generation after same-sex marriage is legalized, families will be even less stable than they are today, the divorce rate will be even higher, children will be even less safe. To express such a dire warning is to be labeled an alarmist, a reactionary, a bigot, and worse.” All of those have been said about you on TV. I’ve heard it, Harry. “But it is not bigotry to learn from history or to point out that some institutions have stood the test of time because they are the only ones that can stand the test of time.”

So, my question is, is there good reason to believe that, if we legalize same-sex marriage in this country, do you think, Harry, that it’s going to transform everything that we think about marriage?

Jackson: I think it will transform everything we think about marriage. Jacoby was right. Gays can live any way they want to, but they don’t have the right to change this entire institution. And that’s what we’re debating about—their enforcing their will as really some kind of a badge of honor that they’ve changed the culture and they are accepted. It’s wrong and we must stand against it.

Ankerberg: Alright, Harry, when we come back we’re going to talk about another issue. Is same-sex marriage not a religious issue; because we have a separation of church and state in this country; that people like you and me, we should stay out of this debate? And what we think really doesn’t matter, because this is really about the rights of gays to do what they want to do. Alright, folks, we’re going to answer that question when we come right back. Stick with us.

Ankerberg: Alright, we’re back. We’re talking with Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., and we’re talking about, is the same-sex marriage proposal really something about civil rights? And one of the questions, Harry, that comes up is that same-sex marriage is not a religious issue anyway, because the separation of church and state forbids religious institutions from telling the government how they must govern and rule. And so what they’re saying is, all of you preachers, all of you Christians, you might have that belief and that’s fine and dandy for you, but you can’t jam that down the throats of the rest of us. You can’t impose it on the rest of us. What do you say to that?

Jackson: Well, John, I say that the Constitution begins with “We, the people.” And for Christians who believe the Bible, we are in a time where we need to pray and we need to act. And if we don’t act, we have no one to blame for the changes in our world but ourselves. I believe we are set as “watchmen on the wall” in America, and that the Lord wants to use not just the big-name preachers with television shows, like yourself, but he also wants to use everyday people who stand up and speak out. Now, the other side wants nothing more than for us to be intimidated into silence, and to have a sense of what I will call illegitimacy—that our ideas don’t matter, they’re passé; and that there is an idea of inevitability. That’s what they want; that’s what we have to resist.

Ankerberg: I want to ask a question of this fellow that graduated with a Business Administration Masters from Harvard University, okay. And here’s my question. Harry, can we legislate morality?

Jackson: I believe we have no choice but to legislate morality. When you think about it, every law is an expression of someone’s morality. You’re saying stealing is wrong on these terms, whatever the situation is—wrong or right—based on law. So we’ve got a right to influence the law-making process. And that’s where many Christians get confused, concerned. They listen to what I’m going to call just the “misinformation” of the kingdom of darkness and they don’t let their light shine by speaking out, engaging, and then putting people into place who will vote the right way.

Ankerberg: Yeah. I mean, just think of it. If we do legalize same-sex marriage, we will have implemented somebody’s moral ideas in that law.

Jackson: Yes.

Ankerberg: Okay. So one way or the other, somebody’s moral laws, ideas, are going to be put into that law. That is just the function of law. And for people to think otherwise is just naïve; it’s going to happen. Now the question is, what is the most beneficial for our society? And here we’ve got what God says; and every time God says, “This is true,” I believe the social sciences will back that up. What do the social sciences show about the benefits of the traditional marriage for the family?

Jackson: Well, the social sciences are very clear. The longitudinal studies that are out—meaning over a long period of time—clearly show that boys and girls do best when they are raised by a mom and a dad. It’s clear. If you’ll use the Black community, not as a whipping post, but as an example of what marital breakdown does to a culture, then I would say—and I want to ask my Black friends to forgive me for saying this—that it’s a model of what happens when you leave the application of the Word. My community preaches the Bible and is more religious in its adherence to attendance and various other religious codes than any other segment of our culture. But, since we don’t often, in this area, live out, act out and obey what the Scripture absolutely says in this realm of marriage and family life, we are reaping a devastating whirlwind to our disobedience. And that is the problem in America.

Ankerberg: Harry, you’re involved in so many social issues and in helping people in Washington, DC, and other places. I mean, it’s hard to make a list of all the things that you are doing or president of or on this committee of; I mean it’s just amazing. But you’re concerned about children and helping children in the Black community, the White community. And the fact is, when we get into this area of adoption, when proponents of same-sex marriage say this is not going to hurt or impinge upon your freedom of speech or your freedom of worship or your actions at the job, the thing is, in adoption we’re already seeing problems. You might use the illustration of what’s happening with the Catholic Charities in Boston.

Jackson: And it’s happened with the Catholic Charities in Washington, DC.

Ankerberg: Explain what happened.

Jackson: Well, what happened is that as the laws changed, John, which were allowing same-sex marriage, the Roman Catholic Church said, “Look, we don’t want to have to pay benefits to same-sex couples. And since we know the city is in transition, if we do any adoptions, we will be forced to put children into the wrong parents’ hands.” God knows that the Roman Catholic Church understands that pedophilia is a huge problem, from which they have repented themselves. And they cannot, in good conscience, promote the spread of such a thing. And I think that that’s going to have a major effect.

Let me slip in a real quick personal story. My wife comes from three generations of broken homes. She was sexually abused at the age of seven. It’s almost bringing tears to my eyes. And every man that has been in their family has come and gone, divorced if they were married, and left. And so when we got involved together—my wife and I decided to get married—we decided to be soldiers in this area of marriage and promotion of marriage and family. And she’s done a marvelous job with our kids.

These so-called “unintended consequences, these so-called “ancillary side issues,” for us— Michele and I—they are the central issue. And if we don’t deal with those things, I don’t want to have to answer to God for having been around and not spoken up. These are things that make me weep when I think about the fact that you could place a child in a home, intentionally, in which that child will be abused or in some way mishandled.

Ankerberg: Harry, give us some hope here; because anybody that seems to oppose this in a rational, logical way, bringing in biblical information and even the social sciences—I have heard you do this rationally on CNN and Fox and NBC and ABC and some of these other stations—and, I mean, it’s like a minute and 30 seconds after the thing gets going, the word “racist bigot” comes up.

Jackson: Um-hmm.

Ankerberg: Okay, how do you advise all of the Christians that are listening right now, here and across the world, that say, “Man, if I get into this, Harry, I’m going to be called racist, a bigot. I’m not any of those, but what do you say? What do you do? How do you react?”

Jackson: I preach to pastors all the time, and I tell them that there’s five steps to being a prophetic voice in your culture. And I look at the Old Testament prophets. I won’t go into great detail. They are:

You’ve got to live right. If we’re going to talk about marriage to them, we have to have a value of marriage in here, in my house, in our church, on the grass-roots level.

Second, we have to do right. We’re going to have to minister in our community to help marriages. My wife leads something called “Bliss.” It’s a secularized program through which she has gotten people saved, rededicate their life to Christ. She simply offers marriage enrichment.

Third, we’ve got to move right, which means to me, we adjust our tone, our PR statements, so that people see the winsome side of our message.

Fourth, we’ve got to pray right. With what we’ve been through—death threats, other things; your audience is going to be resisted and opposed—we have got to let the forgiveness of Christ overarch and overshadow everything we do.

And then finally, we must speak right. And what I mean by that is, speak to this issue while we’re on it. Don’t get off onto a whole lot of other things. Stay focused.

And if we’ll do those five steps, I’ve found that God can give you a voice, if you will, in an entire city. I believe if you do those things, and when they come back and try to find out how you’re being hypocritical and they see I’ve been with that same Black woman for 35 years—she’s acted like seven different personalities, but the same woman—they’ll know that there’s nothing out of order here, and it lends credibility and authority to the message we give and to the Lord we serve.

Ankerberg: Next week, Harry, I’m going to come back. Harvard grad, pastor of 3,000 members, in Washington, DC; if a person comes—you’ve got 22 different nationalities coming—if they come to you and say, “Pastor, I have desires, inclinations, attractions for people of the same sex. What do I do? I feel different. I don’t know what to do. Help me.” What do you say? I’m going to ask you that question so you can tell our audience, what do you tell them? Next week. I hope you’ll join us.