Mind Your Own Business

Judy Resnik was my favorite astronaut.

She was the fourth woman, the second American woman and the first Jewish woman of any nationality to fly in space, first on Space Shuttle Mission STS-41-D, when she logged 145 hours in orbit. She was the sixteenth woman in United States history to attain a perfect score on the SAT exam. Like me, she was a graduate engineer and licensed pilot. Like my youngest daughter, whom she slightly resembles, especially by her beautiful dark hair, she was a beautiful and talented PhD. We were both at the flight readiness review for Space Shuttle Mission STS-51-L in January, 1986. She autographed the photo above for me in the upper left corner, "Best wishes to John - Judy Resnik."

Judy was killed on that mission, along with "Teacher in Space" Christa McAuliffe and five other astronauts, when Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. The cause of the disaster was a decision by NASA officials to launch in weather that was at least 12 degrees below the absolute minimum launch commit criteria. This decision met with strenuous objection by the safety engineers whose business it was, like mine, to warn NASA of potential flight hazards. NASA decided to ignore the engineers and bet the lives of seven astronauts and the future of the Space Shuttle program on the assertion that nobody had actually proved that the Shuttle would malfunction in the cold weather that the designers were told never even to consider.

NASA public servants directly caused this catastrophe because they didn't mind their own business and heed the warning they had paid me and the other safety people whose business it was to provide! The seven astronauts, not the bureaucrats, died because the bureaucrats were wrong, thus proving the unwisdom of allowing people to make life and death decisions by which they, themselves, are unaffected. The fact is, the decision to launch in extreme conditions was the crew's business, and only the STS-51-L astronaut crew should have been allowed to make it!

Another public servant, this time of the People of God, who didn't mind his own business was a young visiting priest in our parish. Instead of preaching a sermon or homily on the Scriptural theme of the day, he chose instead to use the pulpit as his own personal platform to castigate Dr. Jack Kevorkian for his support of physician-assisted suicide. I think what the young cleric meant to oppose was Dr. Kevorkian's belief, with which the Catholic Church vehemently disagrees. He certainly did not support the right of every person, including physicians and their patients, to act according to their own consciences. In the case of Dr. Kevorkian, that it was his duty as a physician to relieve the suffering of his terminally ill patients who had themselves made the decision that they no longer wanted to live. What the preacher said, however, was "Doctor Kevorkian is an evil, evil man!" Instead of preaching on the need for compassion for suffering people or presenting compelling arguments against euthanasia, this young man decided to mind the business of Almighty God and attack the man, by judging the righteousness of another human being. He might have needed guidance that his ordained mission was to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not make up his own. He wasn't very good at it, and the position of Judge of other human beings has already been taken!

Of course, clergy need to follow their own consciences just as much as everybody else, but they also need to mind their own business and preach only what their church teaches when they act as its spokesman. An egregious example of failure to do this was demonstrated by another Catholic priest of my acquaintance who asserted from the pulpit back in 2016, "The question is, can a Catholic vote for someone who is 'pro-choice?' The answer is 'No!'" At that time, of course, the upcoming Presidential election was between an experienced and superbly qualified acknowledged "pro-choice" candidate and a notorious liar, bully and reputed "pro-life" candidate with no government experience at all! Given that both the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Internal Revenue Service prohibit endorsement of political candidates by tax-exempt religious organizations, this skates pretty close to the edge. I think what the reverend gentleman meant to say was "Can a true Catholic support abortion, which is not the same thing at all. The Pope supports people who are "pro-choice," including, significantly, President Joe Biden, although admittedly not for that reason. Last I heard, the Pope was Catholic. Of course, I agree that he doesn't vote in the United States, no matter who might have claimed otherwise!

In my experience, the term "pro-choice" usually refers to support of civil law that permits the choice of a mother to purposely terminate her pregnancy, often referred to as "abortion," to which the Catholic Church is aggressively opposed. However, the freedom of choice to perform, or refrain from performing, an evil act, like life itself, is a natural right of the human person, in this case the mother, the sole natural guardian of the unborn. One would think that the business of clergy would be to encourage and support pregnant mothers, especially those with no one else to care for them, faithfully to carry out the awesome responsibility of this choice that was guaranteed by the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade.

My position on abortion is that it is morally wrong, in consequence of which I have never procured, advised or assisted in one. Where I have had the opportunity to assist a pregnant mother to decide not to have an abortion, I have done so, and I have made my position on the matter clear. That is the extent of my business in the matter. The decision, ultimately, is hers!

That decision was overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization with the enthusiastic support of Catholic and other clergy. Three of the concurring associate justices in Dobbs, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, were appointed by President Trump. They declared, during their confirmation hearings, that Roe v. Wade was settled law, and then promptly voted the other way. Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett are both Catholics, whose religion forbids taking an oath to "faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon them under the Constitution and laws of the United States," and then not doing that! Justice Gorsuch is a member of a "mainline Protestant denomination." I wonder what his religion says about swearing to do something and then intentionally not doing it!

No doubt, the number of abortions in the US will now decrease somewhat, along with an equivalent increase in the number of unwanted and cruelly abused children. Intimidation and threats of punishment against those who violate laws of the clergy was the objective of the Spanish Inquisition and modern Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran. Those who attempt to usurp the right to choose of the mother in this way assume the onus of the consequences. I have to wonder if United States Catholics will now be motivated to achieve other goals by lying, trickery and deceit! It is as hypocritical to justify doing evil so that good may come of it from Catholic teaching as it is to claim "respect for life" as a motivation for legislation that decides which unborn children, of what ages or states of prenatal health, as well as every single cryogenically stored embryo, can legally be put to death because they are not "human enough!" What does the Bible say about hypocrisy?

It will be interesting to see if, in the next few years, there is a per capita rise in the number of parents who get obscenely rich as the result of winning lawsuits against the police because they raised their children to think it's OK to carry guns and commit crimes and then mess with law enforcement! Which is better, to die before you are born or to lose a shoot-out with police because your parents didn't raise you right? Whose business is it to decide? Using my tax money to reward people for raising their children to be criminals is definitely my business, and I'm against it!

Arguments I have heard about abortion from my clergy, none of whom has ever been a woman, let alone an expectant mother, lead me to believe that, like the NASA managers responsible for the Challenger disaster, they are often confused about the actual matters at issue. I have yet to hear any member of any clergy agree with me, for example, that there are fates far worse than dying before one is born (which often happens naturally), and that growing up without love in a household in which one is an abused, neglected, unwanted child is one of them. One such clergyman, Bishop Joseph V. Brennan, claimed that getting vaccinated against Covid-19 somehow supported abortion. Another, the formerly reverend Frank Pavone, a well-known anti-abortion activist and advisor to President Trump, was recently removed from the priesthood by the Vatican. It probably would have been better if these two gentlemen had minded their own business and spent more time preaching the virtues of love, compassion and material and psychological support for people facing difficult moral choices.

Other recent cases of clergy not minding their own business, consist of public positions on what has become known as "same sex marriage." Their arguments have spilled over into controversy about social change and unconventional gender roles, recognition and definition.

Marriage is. among other things, the social expression of the natural, basic human activity of pair bonding and its attitudes and activities. We share many of these with other species, mostly birds. It is like dancing, another basic human (and avian) activity. Both take a variety of forms. There may be as many kinds of dances as there are forms of marriage, which are entered into for many different purposes and reasons. It is usually, but obviously not always, associated with the basic human activity of biological reproduction. In the United States, and in most, perhaps all, civilized countries, it is recognized, and to some extent controlled, by civil authority. Society thus provides for the establishment of the family, the stable social environment most suitable for raising children. You can get married in a lavish public ceremony in Westminster Abbey in England, or by jumping over a broom 2780 miles away in Jufureh, The Gambia. Catholics consider a marriage between two Christians of opposite gender, who pledge themselves to a common life and the acts specific to parenting children, to be an indissoluble union and one of the seven Sacraments of the Catholic religion.

Not all marriages are like that!

The first definition of marriage in Scripture is found in Genesis 2:24, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." It is essentially repeated in Mark 10:8-9 and Ephesians 5:31, so the Bible writers must have thought it was important! Given the context, the "man" appears to be a male human being old enough to leave home and the "wife" appears to be a female human being. One possible interpretation of the phrase "one flesh" is the child of such a union. Nothing in Genesis suggests that either cannot already be married to somebody else, or that the marriage is for any particular length of time. Many modern marriages do, in fact, constitute a temporary union or more than two partners at the same time, or both. Both options are permitted by the Old Testament.

The Torah provides a formal protocol for divorce that favors the husband, but requires that a husband must treat his wives equally, including that the inheritance of a first-born son belongs to the first son of the father (unlike that of Abraham), even if he hates the mother, and that the king shall not have too many wives. Jesus was not reported ever to have criticized anyone for having more than one wife, although Solomon had 700. Maybe the subject never came up, and he was just minding his own business, or perhaps the Evangelists didn't think to record his views on the matter. On the other hand, it is definitely recorded that, when asked, he condemned putting away a lawful spouse, (three times!) and subsequently marrying someone else to be equivalent to the sin of adultery, a capital crime, but most people I know don't agree with Jesus - about many things!

Most, but not all, self-acknowledged Christian religions regard a valid marriage as between one individual of each gender. at any given time. that can be dissolved by divorce. The New Testament "scriptural proofs" given in The Baptist Confession of Faith claim to support this definition, but they don't. Rather, they clearly specify the indissolubility of marriage, a Scriptural mandate that Catholics accept and Baptists do not. Baptists don't seem to find this confusing.

Nevertheless, all marriages are based on a relationship that is something more than just between casual friends. Civil law in the United States must accommodate all of these relationships, whatever they may be, between the people involved. Formally recognizing something that exists necessarily requires recognizing when and if it ceases to exist, which is why civil laws that recognize marriage also recognize divorce as terminating whatever bond constitutes the condition of "being married." It has nothing to do with religion; it has to do with social recognition of the particular relationship between the partners. It's their business what that is!

This leads to the curious situation that exists for Catholics, and members of some other religions, of civil authority recognizing a marriage that the Church does not, and vice versa. The official of the civil marriage represents the civil authority. The official of the religious ceremony represents the religion. Often, the same individual is deputized to conduct the ceremony for both the state and the religion, regardless of his own personal beliefs. What the marriage actually is, however, depends on the partners. They either are married, or they aren't. Catholics believe that if the marriage exists, God is its author, as He is of the rest of human nature, including the right to choose between right and wrong, as well. If the Catholic (or other) Church does not recognize the marriage (whether or not there actually is one), the marriage certificate and ceremony still establishes the existence of the civil union in civil law, regardless of what it is called, or by whom. The business of the Church may be different from that of the state.

In the United States, each of the states has its own laws about who can get married and to whom. This once led to the situation that was a subplot of Edna Ferber's novel, "Showboat," and the play and motion pictures based on it. People who were legally married in one state were, by that fact alone, felons subject to arrest and punishment in another by law enforcement people who are essentially minding other people's business. Prior to 1888, most states actually had laws prohibiting marriage of "white people" and "persons of color," All but 15 of them had repealed such laws when they became null and void by the Supreme Court decision that such laws were unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia in 1967. Alabama was the last to do so in 2000, but by then their law had been unconstitutional and void for 33 years.

Up until 2015, the United States recognized marriages either explicitly or implicitly as between one unmarried man and one unmarried woman. This restriction was declared contrary to the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution by the decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, in that it denied to each partner the right to be legally married to somebody else solely on the basis of gender, something the government does not have the authority to do in a civil union. The decision does not affect religious views of marriage, which vary from religion to religion, and over which the government has no authority at all. In Windsor v. United States, a decision that, among others, led to Obergefell, the United States Court of appeals for the Second Circuit put it this way: "But law (federal or state) is not concerned with holy matrimony. Government deals with marriage as a civil status--however fundamental... A state may enforce and dissolve a couple's marriage, but it cannot sanctify or bless it. For that, the pair must go next door."

This position resolves a growing problem regarding acknowledging gender identification. Regardless of whether two people consider themselves male, female, non-binary, or something else, if they want to marry each other in a civil ceremony, Obergefell says it's their own business!

So marriage is a basic and natural, not necessarily a religious, activity. There are many such. The Christian sacrament or ordnance of Baptism consists of ritual washing, but atheists take baths, too, and their bodies get no less clean than those of Christians. Government recognizes this activity by regulations concerning municipal water treatment, plumbing codes, the ingredients allowed in soap, and requirements for bathing attire in public. All humans eat and drink, but only Christians celebrate The Lord's Supper, which Catholics call the Eucharist. Society protects this activity by the operation of the Food and Drug Administration and the licensing and inspection of restaurants. Telling one's doctor an embarrassing secret does not constitute the Sacrament of Reconciliation any more than medical care is equivalent to Anointing of the Sick or the Last Sacrament, but applicable laws protect the rights of those involved in all three. Some marriages consist simply of the people concerned living together because they love each other and want to be each other's special partner, without documentation or ceremony. All of society benefits if it recognizes, responds to and defends the human right to all such unions, and the explicit commandment to love one another is the only one of the New Testament.

In spite of some Catholic (and other) clergy who have strong opposing views on the matter, the Catholic Church does not discourage love or civil unions. Pope Francis has endorsed same-sex civil unions because the partners "have the right to be in a family." The Catholic Church does not participate in or bless civil unions (at all) because they are, by their nature, civil, on the other side of the "wall of separation between church and state." The Church prefers to mind its own business, otherwise such participation might be confused with the sacrament of Matrimony, which has markedly different rules. On the other hand, Pope Francis has specifically endorsed the blessing of same sex couples because the people involved are God's children just as much as anybody else, and their natural desire to "love one another" is a holy and praiseworthy endeavor.

Incidentally, this position has nothing to do with homosexual acts, attitudes or behavior, which are nobody else's business, either. People in civil unions are no more required to engage in sexual activity, of any kind, than other married people are. Denying homosexuals the right to be in a family, for whatever reason, would surely be a form of discrimination deplored by the Catholic Church.

On December 13, 2022, the "lame duck" 117th Congress enacted the Respect for Marriage Act that, among other things, requires all states and federal territories to recognize the validity of civil marriages that are legal in any one of them. This act was passed as a hedge against a possible act by a politically corrupted Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell as suggested by Justice Clarence Thomas after the decision in Dobbs that overturned Roe.

So far, it doesn't seem to have much impact. This act appears to attempt to resolve a problem that led to the decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission that was ultimately revolved in favor of the claim that in this particular case, making a custom wedding cake for a same sex wedding reception violated the religious freedom of the cakeshop owners, whose religion apparently held that making a custom wedding cake for a same sex wedding reception is sinful. One has to wonder what their position is on making a custom wedding cake for a divorced person who is marrying another.

In the latest twist in this matter, Masterpiece Cakeshop refused to make a pink-and-blue birthday cake for Autumn Scardina, a transgender woman and Colorado lawyer. The argument this time was that the baker, James Phillips, had refused based on his Christian beliefs that a person does not get to choose his or her gender, and that filling Ms. Scardina's order would be a form of speech that he held a contrary opinion. Scardina brought two lawsuits against Phillips seeking more than $100,000 in damages, fines, and attorney's fees. On June 15, 2021, Denver District Judge A. Bruce Jones ruled that Phillips had violated Colorado's anti-discrimination law by refusing to avail Scardina of his advertised commercial services because of her gender identity and fined him $500. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the group representing Phillips, appealed the decision.

On October 2022, the Colorado Court of Appeals heard the case. It ruled on January 26, 2023, that a pink-and-blue birthday cake was just a pink-and-blue birthday cake, not a protected form of speech, and that the state nondiscrimination law required him to accommodate Scardina but did not violate the baker's freedom of religion. Philips has said he will appeal to the US Supreme Court. Watch this space!

Meanwhile, the United States Supreme Court was considering a suit bought by Lorie Smith, the owner and sole proprietor of 303 Creative LLC, a graphic design business. that creates websites that advertise, and thus endorse, weddings. Ms. Smith recognized that 2021 Colorado Code 24-34-601 prohibited discrimination against individuals of a protected class, (identified by disability, race, creed, color, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry). She reasonably inferred that, although she would gladly create custom graphics and websites for all client individuals and groups, she might run afoul of the law because she refused to "produce content that contradicts biblical truth, (regardless of who orders it)."

She therefore filed a lawsuit in district court seeking an injunction to prevent the State from forcing her to create websites (for anyone) that celebrated marriages that defy her belief that marriage should be reserved to unions between one man and one woman. It wasn't the customers against whom she discriminated, it was what they might want her to say. Essentially, she believe that the State of Colorado might compel her to say what she did not mean, or be prosecuted under the statute, solely because a particular customer (of any kind) wanted her to say it.

The district court ruled against her and so did the Tenth Circuit. That court held that Ms. Smith was not entitled to the injunction she sought. The court acknowledged that Ms. Smith's planned wedding websites qualify as "pure speech" protected by the First Amendment, but it could compel her to create "approved" speech, because it would serve a compelling governmental interest and that no less restrictive alternative exists to secure that interest.

The United States Supreme Court ruled in 303 Creative et. al. v Elenis et. al. on June 30, 2023, the last day of "Pride Month," that Ms. Smith's position was valid, The First Amendment protects an individual's right to speak her mind regardless of whether the government considers her speech sensible and well intentioned or deeply "misguided." It concluded that "Colorado intends to force Ms. Smith to convey a message she does not believe with the 'very purpose' of eliminating ideas" that differ from its own.

This decision was widely seen as a restriction on gay rights by people who seem to misunderstand the difference between a gay customer and a compulsory message. Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a voluminous, blistering (but minority) dissent. Basically, the decision has nothing to do with being gay or practicing religion. It simply says that people (regardless of psychological orientation) cannot compel others (ditto!) to express ideas with which those people don't agree, (irrespective of anybody's religious position on the matter). I would guess that this probably includes trying to impose a new standard on the English language by deciding what inoffensive nouns or pronouns others may use when referring to them. We'll see!

In spite of the fact that none of these laws and decisions has anything to do with religion, a substantial number of our citizens claim that their own civil rights are violated thereby because they allegedly protect the rights of other people to do things that the objectors (some of the Catholic clergy) consider sinful. Some states (all of which allow divorce, which Jesus condemned) have passed laws that supposedly resolve this apparent problem. In 2014, my own state of Mississippi passed the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act that purports to "restore" the "right of people to practice religion" that basically consists in hating LGBTQ people. It is sometimes called the "God Hates Fags Act." I find it 20% vague, 20% confusing, 20% contradictory, 20% obfuscatory, and 20% unconstitutional.

No doubt the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act will result in millions of dollars of taxpayers' taxes being spent on this type of minding other people's business because, you know, the poorest state per capita in the Union has nothing better to do with the money, even considering the tornado devastation in Moss Point and Silver City!!

Perhaps we might consider an addition to the Ten Commandments, which are themselves a condensation of the 613 Jewish commandments (mitzvot in Hebrew) of the Old Testament. It was suggested by comedian George Carlin, "Thou Shalt Keep Thy Religion To Thyself!!"

No doubt there will be people who will claim that I am minding other people's business by writing this, but I maintain that the Christian mandate to love each other, Matthew 5:43-46, 7:1 and following, Matthew 19:19 and 22:39; Mark 12:31-33; Luke 6:27, 32, 35 and 10:27; John 13:34-5 and 15:12, 17; Romans 12:9-10 and 13:8-10; Galatians 5:6 and 13-14; Ephesians 4:2 and 5:2; Philippians 1:9; 1 Thessalonians 3:12 and 5:8; Hebrews 10:24-25 and 13:1; James 2:8; I Peter 1:22 and 3:8; I John 3:11, 18, 23, 4:7-8, 11-12, 20 and II John 1:5 is everybody's business. I have always felt that it is the business of persons of good will to attempt to sow love where there is hatred, pardon where there is injury, hope where there is doubt, and joy where there is sorrow. I believe minding one's own business does that, and minding other peoples' business does not. I think clergy are at least as guilty of this as others, as noted above, and I wish they would just stop.

Two clergymen who did not appear to be minding their own business during the Vietnam War were Jesuit Daniel Berrigan and his Josephite brother Philip. They became famous for destroying government property and going to prison for it, at a critical time when there were not enough priest chaplains to minister to American soldier volunteers about to go into, and possibly die in, combat! One has to wonder what they thought the business of Catholic priests was!

Judy Resnik's photo now hangs in my dining room. The autograph markings aren't there anymore. Somebody in my office carefully and surreptitiously erased them. I believe I know who did it, but I can only speculate about why!

She certainly didn't mind her own business!

John Lindorfer