Obama Gays In Military.JPG

Lawmakers and supporters look on as President Barack Obama signs "don't ask, don't tell" repeal legislation that would allow gays to serve openly in the military at the Interior in Washington.

(AP)

Oklahoma, like Michigan, has a constitutional prohibition against same-sex marriages and disallows spousal benefits to same-sex married couples working for government. The U.S. Department of Defense allows spousal benefits for same-sex married couples and has ordered states not to discriminate against them. Oklahoma's Republican Gov. Mary Fallin has responded by refusing to process all spousal benefit applications - for gay or straight couples - at National Guard bases owned by the state.

Extraordinary Oklahomans who could be (and have been) shipped off to risk their lives for Gov. Fallin are free to seek out a federally controlled base that will accept their paperwork. But nothing says “family values” like giving military families the runaround.

Jesus didn’t score points with sword points. I’m not an ace Bible scholar, but even my basic childhood Sunday school classes were grounded in the notion of a "Prince of Peace" saving souls by moral example, rather than force.

All law must ultimately be backed up by legally-sanctioned violence. Continue speeding, and lose your license. Continue driving after that, and men with guns put you in jail. In everything from speed limits to homicide statutes, laws are needed to protect us from accidental and deliberate harm done by others. But there’s a big difference between protecting the individual, and laws - and state constitutions - mandating individual obedience to Biblically based conduct and marriages.

Oklahoma National Guard bureaucrats could insist on processing spousal benefits. A local government could even offer benefits to gay couples. But Oklahoma’s constitution allows its governor to force them all to stop, and use armed police - if necessary - to do it.

“Enforcing” a law ultimately means a resort to force if lawbreakers are determined. So a peaceful society seeks to limit what it outlaws.

It’s one thing to personally endorse scriptural pronouncements regarding homosexual marriage, drug abuse, and so forth. But it’s a telling omission that the omnipotent Son of God never asked Roman soldiers and politicians to bring about His teachings with their laws and swords. His was not a political doctrine: He expected his words and example to stand on their own moral power, for those individuals willing to listen and obey.

He neither needed nor wanted government force on his side.

So why do many today behave otherwise? Did Christ’s example become weaker and in need of political rescue, or did some of his disciples?

Gov. Fallin is enthusiastic about her mission, and says she’s sending a message to Washington D.C. that it cannot ignore “the will of the people.”

An alternative: She could encourage her state’s voters to change a constitution that is supposedly forcing her to treat soldiers and their families like shabby stray dogs barely entitled to first class citizenship.

So What Would Jesus Do?

Gov. Fallin’s persistence on this point isn’t unique.

In Michigan, Gary Glenn, the self-confessed co-author of Michigan's constitutional ban on same-sex marriages is also seeking public office. Hoping to secure a seat in the Michigan House next November, he too has doggedly defended the constitutional amendment's prohibition on same-sex partner benefits for married public employees.

There’s a difference between the religious and the spiritual. The spiritual mostly care deeply about God’s grace, and man’s personal connection with that. But the religious can get hung up with their personal understanding of God’s rules, and thus fixated on forcing everybody else to adhere to that standard.

Though the two are frequently confused, the distinction is huge. It matters which of these mindsets wins an election. The victors acquire the authority to decide where to point the business end of Caesar’s swords.

Ken Braun was a legislative aide for a Republican lawmaker in the Michigan House and worked for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. He has assisted in a start-up effort to encourage employers to provide economic education to employees, and is currently the director of policy for InformationStation.org. His employer is not responsible for what he says here ... or in Spartan Stadium on game days.