I heard both Bill Federer and Herb Titus speak today. Bill made
a good point about the U.S. Constitution (USC) mentioning that on
Sunday no work would be performed. This is directly linked to
the 4th Commandment in the judicially-tossed-out 10 Commandments
found in the Bible. Bill presented many other solid historical
facts which refute the secular nature of the United States
government during the colonial era. Unfortunately, the majority
of federal justices today don't claim this holds any legal
weight.

Herb Titus spoke on both the original U.S. Constitution as well
as the meaning of the 14th amendment. He gave much interesting
detail about the context of the USC such as it mentioning the
time between the USC adoption and the birth of our nation in
1776. This fact requires the USC be moored to the
obviously-religious Declaration of Independence. As a result Herb
holds to a view that the Declaration holds civil judicial clout
just as much as the USC. He agreed with Bill in that the
original USC was decidedly a Christian document.

I wish I could comment intelligently on Herb's 14th amendment
talk. About all I could understand from this presentation is
that *all* Supreme Court justices, including the most
conservative ones, held to a view of this amendment which was
different from Herb's. The only other tidbit I could understand
was that the "equal protection clause" only has meaning in a
religious sense. For if this is taken in a Darwinian sense then
there is no equality. It's back to the Greg Bahnsen
presupposition idea. If God's creation of man (which by the way
is all races since from one couple all races came) is rejected
then man is an evolved animal and by survival-of-the-fittest
definition *not* equal to other men. There have been court cases
to demonstrate this insanity. For example, a couple suing a
hospital because with pre-natal testing the couple could have
legally gotten rid of a pregnancy by abortion but now that they
have a permanently disabled infant/child they cannot legally kill
it.

Gary DeMar debated Tommy Ice on the Great Tribulation time frame
being past or future. I have two suggestions for Gary.
Supernatural vs natural judgments often follow one another. One
of the best examples is the supernatural destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah vs the natural (civil war) destruction of Gibeah as well
as all of Israel. There is text in Genesis and Judges which ties
these two judgment stories together. The other is a suggestion
to use Brian Godawa's point of imagery and storytelling. Gary
should have 'painted' a verbal picture of the Roman General
assigned to destroy the temple in 70 AD. Talk about this Roman
general strutting into the Holiest of Holies then doing some
abomination of desecration just before he orders his army to tear
it down. This would cripple Tommy Ice's ability to get any of
the audience to believe in pushing this event into the end times.

There were other great speakers. This conference has been a
great blessing. Thank you American Vision and Gary DeMar.

I am at the first maybe-annual Superworldview conference this
Memorial Day weekend. The debate last night between the humanist,
Ed Buchner, and Bill Federer was interesting to say the least.

These debaters didn't address each other's points. Ed Buchner
seemed to focus in on the secularism of the current U.S.
Constitution with all amendments and thus federal law today,
while Bill discussed mostly the development and original meaning
of the U.S. Constitution including only the bill of rights.

The idea of a constitutional republic vs democracy was avoided.
In fact, Ed used Bill's argument: that the democracy should
decide religious law; against him. Bill should have made it
clearer that the democratic majority only allowed the judicial
branch to protect certain minorities from being discriminated
against.

It is interesting that neither side brought up the 1964 Civil
Rights Act which protected religious minorities from
discrimination at all levels of government from federal right on
down to local public school or public library employee.

From the start of the debate Ed said that he believes civil law
as dictated by our current U.S. Constitution is religiously
neutral. I was surprised that Bill waited until very late in his
presentation to propose that not only is civil law inherently
religious but must be so by philosophical presuppositions. But
by the time in the debate he clearly presented this point it was
too late.


Tonight's debate was between an evolutionist, Dr. Mark Farmer,
and a creationist, Dr. Carl Wieland. In Mark's opening comments
he said "I do not believe in evolution". "Scientific theory
cannot prove anything; it can only disprove." "Evolution is one
of the most proven of theories and thus needs to be accepted as
fact." So, with these quotes in hand I decided I could safely go
get my wife a hot drink to help keep her warm in tonight's
debate. ;-)

Dobson and the Marriage Protection Amendment

Since a vote in the U.S. Senate is coming up soon for the
Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA) James Dobson's June, 2006,
'Citizen' magazine is almost entirely focused on this topic.

On page 21, Citizen attempts "Answering the skeptics". Argument
1 is: "Discriminates against gays. The amendment violates the
U.S. Constitution's guarantee that every American be treated
equally under the law."

The argument is improperly phrased because amendments do indeed
change the original. *If* it had been illegal to discriminate
against gays all this time and now is the time the 2/3 super
majority adds an amendment to make it legal to discriminate
against gays this is the way it's done. In a legal sense the
proponents of the MPA are admitting discrimination against gays
violates the U.S. Constitution in it's current form.

Another point is missing in the way Citizen defines the debate.
In Citizen's defense I believe this is a slight-of-hand from the
'gay' side which most liberals in general use. But the truth is
that the U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee that every American
be treated equally under the law. The right to liberty and
pursuit of happiness doesn't apply to the law breaker. That's
why we -supposedly- have prisons.

Citizen's answer skirts the entire issue. It avoids the
accusation by retelling the long history of cultural acceptable
heterosexual marriage. Citizen concludes by saying "marriage
predates ...the Bible itself". Although true I can't help but
think this is an attempt to distance this intentional
discrimination against gays for religious reasons. In summary,
by avoiding the argument altogether, all Citizen really said is
that there has been a long history of discrimination against
gays!

Turning the page I read this: "What's the number-one reason
America needs a marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution? Can
anyone say 'Lawrence'?". So, the real argument is now defined.
Is it legal to discriminate against gays via current marriage law
when gay behavior is law-abiding behavior? When America used to
have sodomy law there was no argument about "marriage" being
sanctioned by the state for adults of the same sex.
Discrimination was not the issue because consensual sex of same
sex partners was an illegal behavior and thus there was no
U.S. Constitutional "right" beyond that. Taking away
the illegal nature of homosexual sex is what exposes current
heterosexual marriage law as discriminatory against gays.

"Do Gays really Want 'marriage'?" Citizen answers this question
on pages 28 and 29. They present useful data in support of the
'average' answer - a resounding 'NO'. They also conclude
correctly about what it is all these gays really are fighting
for: an abolition of marriage.

Does Citizen really embrace the idea that civil law can be
religiously neutral? They close with truth everyone (including
gays) know. The gay's "deepest desire is that homosexual
behavior would no longer be sin." It is the Christian's duty to
"reflect God's heart on the matter and commit to fully engage
those in the public arena who seek to declare 'good' that which
God calls 'evil'."

Citizen is straddling the fence. On one side they embrace
secular humanism's tenent that civil law can and must be
religiously neutral but on the other they know the Bible
says otherwise. This is why their MPA argument is weak.