A former Ohio mayor indicted on rape charges reportedly confessed that he had sex with a child -- a young girl, who, the man claimed, was a willing participant.
Court records filed Monday describe conversations in which Richard Keenan -- who briefly served as the mayor of Hubbard -- talked to several people, including his wife and a pastor, about alleged assaults that occurred over the course of two years, beginning in 2013, when the girl was 4.
The 65-year-old Keenan, who once described himself as a man of faith, was indicted last month on eight counts of gross sexual imposition, eight counts of rape and four counts of attempted rape.
Remember this when someone claiming to be "a man of faith" starts holding forth on, say, the immorality of the death penalty. Faith is (in my personal opinion) a constructive and sometimes miraculous force, but it does not, in this country, have any additional weight in arguments about secular law.
Prof. Otis: "Faith is (in my personal opinion) ... does not, in this country, have any additional weight whatever in arguments about secular law."
1> Your personal opinion of admitting no "additional weight whatever" to "faith", depending on what you purport by "additional" and "faith", thereby favors
atheistic, pantheistic, and humanistic philosophies over the theistic
position, indulging their weight as they skate by your prohibition
as "secular".
Respecting American criminal law, this bias is ahistorical and naive.
1>a> English common law was dripping with Christian morality, and you could read 18th cent. W. Blackstone, though no fundamentalist was he, to understand that.
1>b> American jurisprudence was even more Puritanical than that and based every criminal code on a Biblical foundation, e.g., as my 11th gr grandfather Theophilus Eaton wrote in the 17th cent. "Blue Laws" of Connecticut:
"9. If any man shall forcibly, and without con-
sent, Ravish any maide, or woman that is lawfully
married or contracted, hee shall bee put to death.
— Deut. 22. 25."
Prof. Otis: "Remember this when someone claiming to be "a man of faith" starts holding forth on, say, the immorality of the death penalty."
2> One should remember this: it was Jesus himself who said circa 30 A.D. to "Beware of false prophets ... in sheep's clothing,
but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall
know them by their fruits."
So we know that God is no respecter of persons, in that no position in a church exempts one from godly behavior, in fact ministers are held to a higher
standard in I Tim 3!
2>a> The motivation of many Americans for the death penalty is entirely moral,
[on both sides]. "In 2011, 76% of white evangelicals and 53% of
black Protestants favored the death penalty" (www.prri.org)
Perhaps the highest support comes from the 'weightless' people of faith, indeed.
You and I are in agreement that the moral teachings of religion may, and in my opinion should, influence our views of secular law. Where we appear to differ is on the question whether specific religious doctrine should dictate the content of secular law.
There is also the quite significant problem, in a land of many religions like the United States, that the specific religious doctrines of one faith may not be congruent with those of another.
My personal view is that America's Judeo-Christian heritage is indispensable to the moral underpinnings of its law. But I view myself as obliged to make the argument for my views about law based on values held, in addition, by the broader culture.
I Consider the genesis of English common law:
Giles Jacob, A New Law Dictionary (New York: 1905), s.v. “Common Law:
The common law is grounded upon the general customs of the realm;
and includes in it the Law of Nature, the Law of God, and the Principles
and Maxims of the Law: It is founded upon Reasons;”
II Consider also Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, author of
Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Life & Letters...
vol 2, p. 8 (1851)
"One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that
Christianity is a part of the Common Law. .. There never has
been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize
Christianity as lying at its foundations."
Prof. Otis: "I view myself as obliged ... "
~ You have that luxury; nonetheless, I suggest that you do not
divorce your argument from the origin and history of American law.
Otherwise, your ground is shifting sand; as fluid as today's cultural view of gender.
Prof. Otis: "influence our views of secular law ... [not] dictate the content
of secular law."
~ So strict non-religious philosophy can dictate the content,
precise materialistic creeds can order it,
whereas "specific religious doctrine" may merely influence.
How sad.
Time to purge more of our laws.
Better start with Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. Constitution Art. I, Sec. 7 " ( Sundays excepted ) ".
This constitutional requirement forbade federal lawmaking on Sundays.
No other religion in the world honors Sunday except Christianity.
Is this "specific religious doctrine" in the "content of secular law"?
You might want to take a look at the Heritage Foundation link below, which (I say after only a quick glance) is similar to my views of the matter.
http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/2011/06/did-america-have-a-christian-founding