Better amendments

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Better amendments				March 13, 2004

An open letter to Representative Jo Ann Davis (R-1^st)

I noted with interest that your views coincide with those of the Virginia legislature in terms of support for President Bush’s proposed amendment to the Constitution banning gay marriage. Flying in the face of all those irritating scientific studies proving that homosexuality is found just as frequently amongst flora and fauna as it is among humans, you courageously came right out and said that it “defies natural law.” And I couldn’t agree more.

We obviously are both attuned to that now famous verse in Leviticus (20:13) which warns that “any man who lies with a male as with a woman is an abomination and should be put to death.” On the other hand, we can’t allow those nitpickers who claim that it’s impossible to lie with a male as with a woman to deter us. We all know you can’t take the Bible literally.

The Bush amendment, however, is atrociously precise. The idea that states will not be required to confer marital status on “unmarried couples or groups” certainly represents a sweeping reform. Not only will all gay or straight unmarried couples have to remain unhitched, but the inclusion of “groups” will put a stop to all those pesky marriage applications from the Daughters of the Confederacy, the League of Women Voters, the sleazily liberal Moose Lodge and Unitarians.

But what I really wanted to talk to you about is this. Since we seem to be in the mood to bring the Constitution in line with biblical statutes, shouldn’t we be considering some of the following as amendments to that august document?

In Leviticus 24:44, for instance, we’re told that it’s perfectly legal to own male and female slaves, but that we must buy them from nations “round about” us. With a new amendment, we in Williamsburg could re-establish our long-missed historic slave market and make a mint selling off Mexicans and Canadians to the highest bidders. This might necessitate preemptive slave strikes on Montreal or Tijuana, but there’s good precedent for that now.

And I don’t know how things are in York Co., but here in James City there are entirely too many blemished people pussy-footing their way into church these days. This is clearly contrary to God’s law, since in Leviticus 21:16-23 we are cautioned that people who are blind, lame, have poor eyesight, crushed testicles or are dwarfs profane the sanctuary of God. While I have no idea what crushed testicles are, I do know that some religious scofflaws are using stilts and contact lenses to hide their blemishes and canoodle their way into churches. We need either an amendment to correct this or at least an extension of the Patriot Act that would allow Attorney General Ashcroft to subpoena the records of woodworkers and optometrists.

Again, in Leviticus 20:2, we’re told that anyone who gives his child to Moloch should be put to death. As you know, Moloch was a cannibalistic fire god. Here, however, he obviously is being used as a metaphor for the public schools, and we all know what an abomination they’ve become. What we definitely need is an amendment granting vouchers to all who agree to attend preferably religious private schools. In fact, I suggest that parents who send their kids to public schools either be stoned or have their testicles crushed.

And we could certainly pare down some of the preposterous costs for Medicare and Medicaid if we followed the principles of Leviticus 19:32. There we’re told “not to rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of an old man.” The problem is that there are too many seniors living too long these days. Perhaps an amendment could be constructed whereby we reinstitute the time-honored practice of consigning people 65 and older to ice floes in the arctic. That would certainly solve the business of having to honor the faces of all the old geezers looking for government handouts. Or we could just send them all over to Moloch’s place.

Then too, and in conjunction with President Bush’s courageous decision to cut back on meat inspections, we might well have an amendment to ban the eating of shell fish and flesh containing blood (Leviticus 19:26). Dennis Kucinich would be a good one to bring on board relative to this.

And, like many parents, my buddy Homer Simpson over at the High Noon Saloon desperately wants to sell his rebellious teenagers into slavery. This is quite in harmony with God’s law (Exodus 21:7), but what we need is an amendment that will stipulate price ranges, since no one seems to know how many ephahs kids are going for these days.

Or, since we Republicans now seem to have the will and wherewithal to do away with all that messy equal rights business in the Constitution, perhaps we should just scrap the whole thing and go back to the good old days when people were stoned for just about everything from working on the sabbath to getting tattooed. It’s all so much easier when you can decide who’s in and who’s out on the basis of the laws for life in the Good Book.

Yours, Lew