Transcript
Several things. First of all, produce more. Produce more of what? A very serious question has to be answered. Because what the American society has done is built an economy that depends on producing more and more stuff that nobody needs. Please, Christmas is coming. Your biggest problem at Christmas is not where am I going to get money to buy stuff for my family. Quite the opposite. Your problem is going to be what am I going to buy
for people that already have everything? And my answer to that question as to what to buy for people who have everything is nothing. Now, that's one in fact we're not ready to accept. Instead we have a whole medium out there that is out to manipulate us into buying a lot of stuff that we don't need. And we are consuming the limited resources of this world. When you say, the pie can only be this big, that's exactly
my guarded opinion. The pie can only be that big. There is only so much oil in this world. There's almost only so much coal in this world. There's almost so much of anything in this world. When I in fact look at the consumption habits of Americans, I realize that a major cause of starvation in the third world is the fact that we drink coffee, use sugar, smoke cigarettes, and drink beer. I hated to bring up the
beer thing at Princeton, but, you know, I mean, you've got to run a whole gamut. But the fact is that if we took the land that was used to grow sugar and used it to grow food, if we took the land that is used to grow coffee and use it to grow food, if we took the land that is being used to grow tobacco and use it to grow food, if we took the land that was
used to grow beer hops and use it to grow food, According to my calculations, we could in fact cut back the starvation level in this world according to my calculations, 70%. Now I say that it's about time that we say if that's what it means for the rest of the world to survive, then we had better do it. I contend strongly that we are being led by certain conservative value structures into consumption patterns that in fact
this world cannot endure, just cannot endure. Anybody who is studying these things demographically, who is studying the resources of this world, know that it just cannot go on. And the greatest threat to peace, the greatest threat to peace is the increasing differential between the have nations and the have nots. Please, last week I was sitting, I want to drop a name, with the Vice President of General Motors in Detroit. We were sitting there and we were
talking about a project that I'm developing in the and he said, the truth of the matter is, we've been trying to help the third world but it's getting worse and worse and worse and then he added quickly, it's because of what we're doing. Now that's scary when a guy like that says it. I expect somebody else to say it. Secondly, when you say you're not concerned about the poor, you're concerned about the poor, I agree with
you. You are concerned about the poor. But once again, it's this belief that our resources are limited that causes me to say we've got a choice to make. We can in fact attack the needy problems of this world. The problems of starvation, of sickness, of health. We cannot attack the problems of the poor when we're spending vast amounts of money on military arms. You cannot have it both ways. Please understand, I am a conservative in many
respects more than you. I want to slash government spending. I want to slash it at the XM missile. I want to slash it at the B-1 bomber. I want to in fact spend vast amounts of money on the poor. I know what you're going to say, we're not going to be safe. There is no way we can be safe. Do you realize that every night 20 airplanes at least fly into this country from Latin America
undetected loaded with marijuana? Now if we can't stop 20 airplanes coming out of Latin America, I mean who are we going to stop the Russians? I was the moderator, right? I was the moderator of a debate at the University of Pennsylvania. They thought it was going to be a tense debate. It was back in the anti-ballistic missile times. And they thought, you know, bring in Camp Polo, he's got some good jokes, he'll lighten up the
thing. So they brought in these two political scientists, both experts in the field, both advisors to the president, and they were arguing. And finally, to kind of lighten the thing, I said, look, I want to ask you a simple question. I just went to see the movie Goldfinger, and in the movie, do you remember what happened? The Chinese commies sneaked in all the components of an atom bomb into Fort Knox, and we're going to destroy our
gold supply. Remember that? I said to these guys, I said, yeah, they remembered it, they didn't know much else, but they knew Goldfinger. I said, well, what's to keep the Russians from smuggling all the components of a hydrogen bomb into downtown New York, into downtown Washington, into downtown Chicago, and just blowing up the whole show if we got nasty? And for that matter, why couldn't we do the same thing to Moscow, Leningrad, and all the other
cities over there? And they looked at each other. These were the experts. And they said, well, nothing could stop that from happening. And I'm saying, are you telling me we're spending $400 billion to deliver it by air? Thank you very much. My father was in the Air Force, I'll have to tell him about that one. At this point in the program, we're going to begin our question and answer period. And the format will be a question
for Mr. Dingman, followed by a question for Mr. Campallo. They don't have to be the same question or on the same subject. But since we've begun thus far with Mr. Dingman, I'd like to have the opportunity to ask a question, and then we'll go to the audience for a question from Mr. Campallo, and then perhaps come back to the stage so that both Arch and Rick have an opportunity to ask questions. And again, out of respect
to this side of the auditorium, would you please approach the podium in answering the questions? And my question for you is, what's the proper role for the federal government in the resolution of cases involving truly irresponsible punishment of children? You mentioned earlier the case of responsible punishment. I'd like you to address irresponsible punishment. Essentially, I feel it is not, there is no role for the federal government. There is a very heavy role for state and local
governments. We have civil laws in all of our states to protect against crime or to try and react to crime. Certainly, I do not, and as you well stated, do not support child abuse. Now, my children might disagree with that statement, but the fact remains that publicly I say I'm opposed to child abuse. Certainly, if there is evidence that a child or a spouse, either man or wife, has been abused, there are civil laws that should
come into play, but they should be at the state and local level. I greatly fear the federal government getting into the role of domestic relations. Every time we see the federal government usurping a function of state and local government, we see, first of all, a standardization that sometimes destroys the effectiveness of programs because in many areas there are unique aspects to a locality. I do not feel that the federal government should be the catalyst. I don't
want them getting into the domestic relations area at all. I don't want the federal government deciding whether or not a child should remain in a home or deciding which parent should get the child or deciding any number of things that deal with domestic relations, and that is one of the problems I have with ERA because it moves the whole matter of discrimination to federal jurisdiction. So it's not just the matter of the distinction between the sexes,
but the fact that it gives the power of enforcement to the federal government. So I'm opposed to child abuse, but it should be handled at the state and local level. Would someone like to ask a question to Mr. Campallo? The gentleman to the rear. You, may I ask this? We structure our judicial system in such a way that if we're going to err in the area of trying a criminal or an accused criminal, that there are
two ways we can err. We can err either on the side of letting a guilty man go free or incarcerating an innocent man. And our judicial system is set up in such a way that if we're going to err, we want to make it so that we're more likely to let guilty people go free than to incarcerate innocent people. Wouldn't a similar concept be helpful in the area of abortion that given the fact, as you said,
that all matters seem to be equal in deciding whether or not the fetus is a human being, that wouldn't we be better to set up our system so that we would err on the side of allowing more babies to be born rather than aborting those, you know, others? I'm not going to get up on that one. I think you've got a point. I really do. Certainly. If I may comment on that, also one other point that
I think ought to be made is that those who favor abortion label themselves as pro-choice. The only problem in my thinking is that the person who does not have the choice is that baby. I do have to say just a word in response to that. I do worry about the fact that the mother is not taken into consideration in all of this. And her rights and her dignity as a human being. And, you know, I
worry about that too. I think that the only problem with the answer that I hear coming is that we have a very complicated issue that is almost a no-win issue. It scares the daylights out of me. Because if I go in your direction and save the child, you know, and that's safe for the child, on the other hand, it may be very unsafe, and I'm not talking about physically. I'm talking about psychologically, emotionally, and socially.
It may be very unsafe for the mother. So I'm torn either way. And I can't make a decision that makes everybody happy. That's the problem. If I could, I would. I think when you hit me, you hit me at a very vulnerable point. And I'm quite willing to say, hey, ouch, at that point. But the question of whether or not the fetus is human is not resolved, number one. Number two is if you're going to error,
probably ought to error safely. Number three is I worry about the woman whose emotional and psychological well-being is being compromised in order to serve the purposes of certain people's convictions. Thank you for your applaud. A question for Mr. Dingman, from this side of the room. Mr. Dingman, you commented that homosexuality was a sin, and I would agree with you. However, other sins are mentioned within the Bible, fornication, licentiousness, greed. Would you also then say that
these people are committed to hell? And also, another question is, isn't this setting up some form of works righteousness? And also, would you then say that they should stay out of our public school systems, those people who are fornicators, adulterers, et cetera? My comment regarding being condemned to hell was that any unrepentant sinner is condemned to hell. It would apply no matter what the sin. As far as keeping them out of our schools is concerned, I
think that certainly those in the gay community have a right and a need to have a place to live, have a job. I think that the problem crops up, and I don't necessarily speak for the moral majority as a group on this. In fact, I don't speak for them at all. The problem that crops up is that, especially if you have, say, the ERA amendment passes, that you may not discriminate on the basis of sex. And
the logical extension of this is that you cannot discriminate at all. And if a Christian school, for instance, wants to say, we are not going to hire you because of your gay lifestyle, I think they should have the right to do that, just like they should have the right to say, we are not going to hire you because of some other obvious aspect of your lifestyle that is sinful and is not in keeping with the principles
of this organization. So, sure, I have no problem with them holding down jobs in the public sector, but I think that as an employer, a Christian school, or as the case in San Francisco where they had a church organist who then admitted that he was a gay and began to flaunt it, they then tried to fire him as the high-paid $10-a-week organist, and he tried to invoke the gay rights ordinance of San Francisco,
and he lost. This is part of the problem. Certainly, if I found that a schoolteacher, and I'm quite sure, we have, and certainly as a conservative, and having the record in the house that we've had in the last few weeks, I can't say that all the conservatives are the good guys and the liberals are the bad guys, because that just isn't true. Man is man, and man is prone to sin. But nonetheless, in the Congress, we
have people that I have reason to believe are homosexual. I'm not saying they shouldn't have the right to serve in the Congress. There's a gentleman from New York that was re-elected after he had a public record of this. We had one in Maryland that was just not re-elected for the same thing. So I'm not saying they should not have any right in the public sector at all. I'm just saying that if one of my
son's teachers or my daughter's teachers flaunts this lifestyle and attempts to coerce, and I would say the same thing about heterosexual, if a male teacher began to say or make improper comments to my daughter, I'd have that person's head one way or another. I would see to it that either my child was out of the class or that teacher was out of the class. And the same would be true with the homosexual. A question for Mr.
Campala. Yes, sir. Mr. Campala, a question I had concerning some of your statements about gay rights was several years ago I was at a meeting at Princeton Theological Seminary where an ordained United Presbyterian pastor who was a homosexual, an affirming, active homosexual, spoke to a group of seminary students. At that time, I think that some of the claims and aims of gay rights from a larger perspective came home to me. He was clearly advocating not simple
acceptance for the existence of homosexuals as normal people, but definitely in sex education in public high schools that if we are going to affirm them, it's okay. Therefore, homosexuality must be presented as a valid alternative. That's kind of an example. I mean, he made statements. This fellow is a pastor, and unfortunately out of over 100 people in the room, not one voice was raised against him. He made statements to effect. Just talking candidly about what he
thought was right was he thought that sexual relations between, not only between consenting adults, but between adults and consenting older adolescents was just fine. That's the kind of thing that he would definitely see as an advocate for from gay liberation in general and from the gay lobby in the United Presbyterian Church. So I think that it clouds the issue simply to say, well, let someone have their own lifestyle. Once we say it's all right, at that
point they earn the right to control certain aspects of the public life as a totally normal, totally acceptable aspect. And also I think that at the same time, conservatives that are in a danger of being hypocritical, we must speak out against fornication. We easily swallow, and you see this on a college campus in particular, fornication as a normal everyday lifestyle. So it's a double standard. If we're going to live with that, even in our school teachers,
if we're going to say it's all right for the phys ed teacher to sleep around, it's okay, nobody cares, then you're right. We are being hypocritical. We just single out the homosexuals. But I think as a Christian, and maybe you can respond to this, don't we have a right to say no. This is wrong in public education to allow these types of situations and allow the furtherance of homosexuality and fornication on those grounds. Dick and I
are going to be at a large level of concurrence at this particular point. I really raise some very serious questions about the whole involvement of the public school system in sex education period. It's a very strange thing to say for a bona fide liberal, and your boss will tell you that I really am. But I really have some very serious questions about sex education in public school, because there's a presupposition that sex, quote unquote, can be
taught value free. And there is no such thing as the communication of sex value free. As a matter of fact, if you communicate sex value free, that in itself is a value. For it is saying that the sexual act is devoid of value. And basically to me, the sexual act is a very religious act. It has religious connotations, religious meaning, and has a religious interpretation. And to talk about sex without that is to mess it up
completely. So yeah, I think that I would be very negative towards a school system that in fact gave either approval or disapproval to, and note what I said, either approval or disapproval to the gay rights lifestyle. I think it ought to just shut up about that kind of thing. I think furthermore, it ought to shut up about giving values in the sex education period. I'm appalled at some of the programs that CECUS has put out, do
you see? I mean, granted, I had a particularly bad experience in sex education. I went to West Philadelphia High, and a gym teacher taught it. Right? You know, with the whistle hanging around his neck, and came in and told us how beautiful sex was the whole first week, and we all sat there and giggled. And after telling us how beautiful sex was the first week, the second week, he showed us World War II movies of gonorrhea
and syphilis. You know, and we all went out of there, you know, like this, and saw guys with crazed looks on their faces. So I came away with a very bad view of my, you know, sex education course. Now you say, that's an extreme. I'm not sure that it is. I think that we are agreed at certain points here, and the point that we have to agree on, that maybe, just as between you and me, Dick,
we are saying that, I would say there are certain privatistic spheres of human behavior that the government ought to stay out of, and sex is one of them, do you see? And I'm arguing that the government should not regulate sexual behavior, and it should not, in fact, make it a crime to be a homosexual, nor should homosexuals be prosecuted if, in fact, they adopt this lifestyle. But likewise, I agree with you, I don't see that they
have, they ought to be privileged to foster this on people who don't want it fostered on them. I think it's as simple as that, and I think we're going to have to reevaluate the whole sex education program in the public school system and see whether or not it's a good thing or a bad thing, particularly in light of the growing level of pregnancies. You know, there are approximately one million pregnancies in the United States among teenage
females every year, 250,000 abortions among teenage females every year. Now when we say all of that, the answer too often is, we need more sex education in the public schools. I can show you the studies that will prove to you conclusively that where sex education has been introduced into schools, that the incidence of premarital pregnancy and abortion soars. So, you know, I'm just trying to, you know, we Americans think that education is the great panacea,
and that's why I'm a Christian, because I don't think education is the great panacea. I think we have to look for answers in other areas of life. I'd like to make an information point, not a debate point on this. The area of the federal government getting involved is increasing rapidly. I have here, for instance, a copy of a questionnaire that gets into some of the most detailed, intimate questions you could imagine regarding individual sexual behavior. Now
this is something that was commissioned by federal tax dollars, and I think as you do, the federal government has got no business getting into it. Now in 1975, a publication, and I realize that was during a Republican administration, so it's not a partisan matter, it's a government matter, that the Department of HEW at that time put out a publication called Practical Suggestions for Family Planning Education, and they go through here and they list a number of
publications that they recommend for you to read under the guise of family planning education. They also give you a list of organizations where you can send away and get materials, and I'll tell you that some of the things that the publications that they recommend, the titles won't necessarily give you any feel for it, but I have a couple of excerpts here, but some of the organizations that they suggest, I find difficult to imagine how they fit
into family planning information, such as the Georgia Gay Liberation Front. By definition, that is carried to its logical extent is not family. Now, and one other organization, they also have the National Abortion Rights Action League, the National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws, these are organizations that they recommend to you as sources for family planning materials. Now another one is called Multimedia Resource Center. Any of you ever heard of that? Well, that saved you. I got
a hold of them not too long ago, and I said, would you please send me a copy of your catalog? Because that's a very innocuous sounding title. And so they said, well, are you looking for the professional material or the layman's material? And I said, oh, well, I certainly want the professional's material. You know, a little bit of counseling with young people, so they sent it to me. Now we'll have a line back here at the
back to look at this after the meeting. This is what they sent me, and this is nothing but a catalog of pornography. There are all kinds of films and books listed in here. There are pictures of group sex. There are all kinds of things promoting homosexuality, child love, all kinds of things. And this is the product that you get from one organization that is recommended by the Department of HEW as a source of family planning materials.
And I'm sick and tired of my tax dollars going for this kind of rot. Excuse me. Okay, I would prefer not to get into a situation where we have a continuation of the rebuttal period. But since you were given an opportunity to comment on Mr. Campala's statement, I think it's only fair that you have a brief period of time to comment on Mr. Dingman's before moving on to another question. I'm not even going to get up.
The thing is that this is what scares me about the moral majority, namely that I have the feeling that first it's the gay thing and the abortion thing, where they have great support. But they are gathering so much support. They are so powerful. They have so much money. I'm afraid that they're going to be moving into other areas of sexual behavior and are going to spell out more and more what I can do and what I
can't do sexually. I mean, that scares me. I mean, I don't want to respond to it. I'm just saying I'm just expressing my own concerns. I worry about a group that begins to tell me what I can do and what I can't do sexually because the gay thing is just the beginning and it moves on beyond that. We'll now have a question for Mr. Dingman. We'll get back to the audience, but I believe Arch has a
question. Arch Davis. This is a question I'd like to ask each of you. It seems as though I've listened to these issues, I want to see if there's anything underlying them that is a unifying theme. And one possible theme that I bring up is the question of rights versus denial as a personal matter. As a Christian, it seems to me one of the principal things, and Tony, you brought this up in terms of the consumption of
resources. Do we have an obligation to demand that I have a right to more resources, I have a right to more coal, I have a right to more food, and I'm going to get mine and I'm going to stand up for mine. On the other hand, I see people saying I have a right to live my lifestyle exactly as I want it. I don't want anybody telling me. I see something in common here in terms of
abortion. I have a right to an abortion. I have a right to my body. I have gay rights. I have equal rights. I have rights to consume all that I want. It's a matter of lust versus discipline, it seems to me. Does that make any sense to you? I'd like to hear from each of you. Obviously, we are going to have a continuing great difference on what is proper in this area, but let me suggest to
you that as Christians, that it seems to me that the question of rights should not even enter the mind of a Christian in this sense. I don't recall anywhere in Scripture there being a delineation of rights. I do recall many passages where we are exhorted to love, to responsibility, and to service. I think that if you will look at every area of your life, if you will examine it carefully, that if you will put yourself in
the position of being loving, responsible, and of service to others, the question of rights will never have to be raised. I realize that's rather utopianistic. But in the marriage relationship, if my goal is to love my wife, to put her first in my life, she doesn't have to be concerned about her rights. And it works the other way around, too. Now, I realize this simply means that we as Christians have a much larger mission field than
we do just on strict evangelism. But I think that certainly we should start at home. And that if we will exemplify that biblical exhortation, that at least we should not be the ones concerned about demanding our rights, that we can follow the Lord's guidance in these areas of service to others. You know, I think, for instance, on the whole welfare thing, I think that if the church community carried out what was, years ago, their self-accepted
responsibility, if they did it today, we wouldn't have to worry about the welfare problem. But they haven't done it. And that's why we have government involved in welfare. But if the church community adopted that philosophy of service and loving and responsibility, I think we could pretty well abolish the whole governmental involvement in welfare. So we're not going to resolve the matter between rights and denial. But certainly as an individual, at least I think I know where
I have to begin. And I think that we could get away from rights demands if we could invoke these other qualities. Adlai Stevenson once said that a democracy is not necessarily a society that is ruled by the majority. A democracy is a system where it is safe to be a minority. And that's exactly where I want to point to at this juncture. Namely, I want a society where people who are minorities, and when I'm talking about,
you know, gays or women who are minorities, if not numerically, at least sociologically in terms of power, I want a society where things are safe for them, where in fact they don't have to worry about being persecuted and prosecuted. I worry about people having certain rights. I worry, for instance, about, you know, since we got on the gay thing, the fact is that the Leviticus writings say that gays ought to be stoned to death. I mean,
that's what it says in the book. And I worry about people who are anxious to translate literally their biblical teachings into social practices. I mean, if the Bible says it and that's it, that scares me. I want to worry about welfare people, too, because we have two names for everything. One when the middle class does it and one when the lower class does it. When the middle class gets money for airports, for highways, and for all
other kinds of things, we call them social services. But I would dare say that when it comes to benefiting from the taxpayer's dollar, the middle class and the upper middle class benefits much more from the taxpayer's dollar than the lower class does. And when it comes to handouts, in subtle ways, the middle class and the upper middle class get many more handouts than do the upper. Oh, in ways that nobody even thinks about. Loans for houses
that are backed up by the government, millions and billions of dollars backed up there. When, for instance, I look at the city of Philadelphia and ask, why is it bankrupt? I have to ask, why is it bankrupt? Well, I can point to corrupt government administration and welfare, but any urban economist knows why the city is bankrupt. Because the city is spending vast amounts of its resources on suburbanites. The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Philadelphia Art Museum, the Delaware
Expressway, takes vast amounts of land out of the tax base of the area. In fact, when you realize how much money the city loses in providing services for white suburbanites, I say it's a small thing for the blacks in the city to say, hey, what do we get out of all of this? We demand our economic rights because we're getting shafted in the system. Any study will show that the amount of money that comes out of
cities in tax dollars, and both Republicans and Democrats both agree at this point, that the amount of money that's coming out of urban centers for tax dollars is far greater than the amount of money that's going into cities in tax dollars. As a matter of fact, one thing that I liked that Reagan said, well, he said he loved his mother and I liked that too. The truth of the matter is when he said that I see
something wrong with high taxes that take money away from urban people, why not just leave it there in the first place? I think there's a certain validity to that. But unfortunately, it's not that simple, is it? Because the cities do have to provide vast services for people that don't live there. I think that the question of rights cannot be ignored. I agree with you completely, Dick, that Christians never have to be told about their rights. We
are not right-oriented. We are slaves to God and we are obligated to do His will and we don't talk about rights. But the fact is we live in a pluralistic society. And in a pluralistic society, I am concerned about the rights of other people who do not have my particular spiritual orientation. And I think we have to fight for their rights and defend their rights. And I guess most of all, the thing that I have
to concern myself about is poor people. I concern myself about poor people because I think that the Bible makes it very clear that Jesus has a very special interest in the poor, that he identifies with the poor. And he calls upon us to recognize that our Christianity, and this is one of the things that I dislike about the moral majority, they think that we all become Christians if we give up our, you know, our adultery and
if we give up our pornography and if the gays give up their homosexuality, that we all become pure and we become a good nation and we be... I want to tell you why Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. Check it out in the Bible. Check it out in Isaiah. Check it out in Ezekiel. You'll find that Sodom and Gomorrah was not destroyed because of homosexuality, contrary to popular belief, but because they oppressed the poor. And basically in
any given social system, the poor are powerless. The poor are unorganized. The poor do not articulate their concerns. The poor end up at the short end of the stick, politically, socially, and economically. And I believe that a Christian government is one that champions the causes of those who cannot speak for themselves, who hear the cries of those who do not vote, who in fact minister to the needs of people to a large degree who have been
socially disinherited by our American political system. And I want a government that does that. And at that point, we may disagree, because I really see that the poor are oppressed and need special attention at this particular stage in our history. Thank you. Another question from the audience. I'd like to take a question from Mr. Dingman from this side of the auditorium. See if my wife has a question. Does she? Do you? Okay, you answer. Why don't
we make this the last question, and then we can carry on the discussion informally, okay? I have a comment and a question. My comment, both directed to you, Mr. Dingman. My comment is, you made a rather blunt statement that you didn't know what gay rights had to do with families, and it may not have occurred to you that there are many gay men and women who happen to find themselves in families. And it's a funny thing
that in the evangelical world, families are the first unit of our social structure and of our evangelical church to turn from the gay, to turn their back on the gay. But that's just my comment. My question is a more pressing one. And since this is sponsored by the C .S. Lewis Society, it's a very Christian question. And I really don't know how to begin with it, but I'm going to try it in two ways. The first
biblically and the second historically. It has to do with the whole idea of the unrepentant sinner being damned to eternal hell and our understanding of what forgiveness means. Biblically. I want to raise the question of where Jesus spent his time. Did he spend his time with the pure, with those who had no sins and were bound already for the kingdom of heaven? No. Jesus spent his time with the lepers, with the homosexuals, with the prostitutes, with
the people for whom culture had no time and families had no time and governments certainly had no time. And historically, I'd like to talk about an experiment which some people call the Reformation in the 16th century, when a lonely monk realized that he couldn't perfect himself. He agonized in his cell, trying to live the perfect life, the life of no sin, trying to attain himself salvation. And at the end of his struggles, he left the church.
I don't know if we can understand what it meant in 1517 to leave the only church in the western world, but that's what he did. He left the church because he realized that he couldn't earn his own salvation. He couldn't live the perfect life that would guarantee that he would live then eternally with God, but that Christ had already affected that and that only by living in faith, as a sinner, justified, as a justified sinner, could
he attain salvation. And so I raise a very large question to you as a Christian and maybe to all of us who are Christians here. In the way that we deal with the ideas of gays, of men and women who are involved in the abortion question, and I don't think it's one that only faces women, but especially gays, I want to raise a question of should we, as you said, when our teacher, the teacher of our
child, is an espoused homosexual, and in fact maybe even bring men into the classroom, should we bang their head against the wall? Should we reject them? Should we turn our backs on them? And then should we assume that our salvation depends upon our getting to the end of our lives in perfection, absolutely repented, there are no sins that we need to repent? And if so, perhaps we need another Martin Luther, perhaps we need another Reformation, perhaps
we need another Jesus. You're laying it on very heavy. That's fine. First of all, let me comment on my earlier comment about reference to family planning and the Gay Liberation Front of Georgia. What I said was that I don't feel that family planning can be the logical conclusion of the gay lifestyle, because by very definition, the gay lifestyle is non-procreating. Now obviously I did not go into any real discussion there of family relationship with gays.
Not for a moment would I suggest that a family reject one of its members who became gay, who was gay. If I had a son that was gay, it is true that my heart would be deeply saddened, but I would love that child, and I would love him throughout his whole life, but still every step of the way I would be telling him, son, you're wrong. I love you. I do not love what you're doing. And
I would say the same thing were he on drugs or were he in any other area of habitual sin. I love you son, but I do not love what you're doing. Now I do not feel, especially a Christian family, that they should just reject and turn off the love because one of their own has departed and has gone into a way that they do not accept. They should continue to pray. They should continue to exhort. They
should continue to love. So I do not suggest by my incomplete earlier statement that there be a separation of the family. My reference to taking a child out of a classroom or getting the teacher removed, I would do that not because I feel that we as Christians should isolate ourselves from those that we consider to be sinners. In that particular circumstance, I would do it because that is in a classroom environment with a young person who
is in the position of life of formulating values, and I do not want those values inculcated in my child. Now if it were a matter of an adult relationship with that person, I still intend to be, to the extent that they will let me be, a friend, hopefully a confidant, hopefully someone who could minister to them with Bob Balman of Maryland, and with John Hinson of Mississippi. Now John Hinson, you may recall two months earlier, he
has said he is not a homosexual, but it came out in the press that he had been in the gay bar that had a major fire in Washington, D.C. in 1977. So naturally the inference is there. But in both of those cases, I sent notes to those congressmen, and I said even though our relationship has been strictly one of business, I want you to know that I am here to listen, I am here to pray
with you, I am here to be your friend. And I think that that is the way that we must approach anyone in any category of sin. We cannot isolate ourselves, and you are right, Christ served among those who had need. There is not much point in serving among those that are pure, except to hopefully build them up and exhort them, so they will go out and meet with those who are in need. Go ahead. I see
what you are saying. I didn't want to get caught on my con, because it wasn't an important thing. But when the Pharisees came and found Jesus with the prostitutes, did the press come in and say Jesus is the prostitute? No. I think that we have a level of reconciliation, because I think that there is some misunderstanding. You came on a little bit too strong with your hell statement, and it came on because, first of all, neither
you, Dick, nor I would presume to know who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. Absolutely. That's the first thing. The second thing is I am sure that you would also agree, along with our brother back there, that if all unrepentant people went to hell, then everybody in this room is in trouble, because there is something in every one of our lives that is unrepentant. I mean, you know, not as though I have already attained,
said the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3:14, not as though I am already there, but I press towards the mark of the high calling of God and Christ Jesus our Lord. I am not Jesus, you are not Jesus. Brethren, it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. So there is this whole concept of becoming that is very much a part of our lives. And I think to add to what both of you would agree, and
I want to end on a high note of reconciliation, because I am sure you would agree, I am sure it is semantics that has got you separated, because I sense a Christian spirit in both of you, very strong in each of you. I do want to say this, that in the end, we are here to declare that salvation is by grace. By grace. And by grace we mean simply this, that the people that are welcomed into
the arms of God are basically people who do not deserve to be. And thus we stand, both you and you, and I guess I stand with you too. Thank you. Final question this evening from the audience, and if there is no objection, I would like to take one from this side of the room. Gentlemen, for Mr. Kempelt. Oh, you get the question. Or you want to pick who you... Okay, no, that is all right. I will
make it fast, because I think we are running late. Do you want to... Go ahead, please. You look so brilliant. I do not think that a brilliant question ought to be squelched. Go ahead. Is that okay? Especially if it is a brilliant question. That is all right. I have sort of a double-barreled question for the Equal Rights Amendment and your view of it. This took place before I was politically aware, but not before you were.
Back in 1963, as it was before, at the time of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, because I think they were both in 1964, a great many people, including Ronald Reagan, were opposed to the Voting Rights Act and to the Civil Rights Act, if I am correct. And they said that they are not opposed to civil rights, but they are just opposed to this federal act and getting the federal government involved. Now, at
that time, we had a situation which in a number of southern states, the fact was that the Constitution of the United States was not in effect as regards the rights of black people to vote. Mr. Reagan today says that he was mistaken in opposing these acts and that he, I am not quoting him exactly, but I am sort of paraphrasing, that he sees that this type of an action was necessary. Back then, a lot of people,
a lot of women people and some non-women people were against it. I remember seeing an advertisement from the John Birch Society, which said, we are not against civil rights, we are just against what is being done in the name of it, which was back in the early '60s. Now, today, there are a lot of people, and for most of them I don't have any basis to question their sincerity in the face of it, who say,
well, we are not opposed to equal rights for women, but we are just opposed to the constitutional amendment or getting the federal government involved or perhaps the form in which this particular amendment takes. So the first part of my question is, isn't it possible that the situation might be analogous and despite what you might think now, that it might be necessary to have this amendment? That's the first part. The second part is that you questioned the
wording of the amendment that you said was too open-ended. Now, it has three articles. The second one, fairly very widely, the first says that equality of rights under law shall not be abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Now, it seems to me that this is very clear. It says, you shall not be denied a right on account of the fact that you are a man, or you shall not
be denied a right on account of the fact that you are a woman. You shall not be treated unambiguously. There may be cases in which we might ask ourselves, well, do we really want to treat everyone equally? For instance, if the equal rights amendment were passed, men could not be drafted without drafting other people, without breaking women also. That's a consideration. But the second part of my question is, where exactly is this room for interpreting it
all out in proportion to you, if you seem to see? Okay, you've already hit on one, of course. You know, another one, and some people will say, oh, you're really reaching for these things, but having worked in the Congress as long as I have, I have seen the illogical extent to which interpretations sometimes go. All right, as it is now in most states, when a couple goes down for a marriage license, you have one male and
one female. Now, suppose you had two males go down and apply for a marriage license, and they said, no, we don't grant same-sex marriage licenses. Now, I don't know how you could interpret it any other way. That is a discrimination based on sex. It is because you have two of the same sex instead of one of each sex. Now, there is just one example. You've already mentioned draft. You've got the other dimension of combat. Another
reason that I have real concerns about the ERA is because as I started out tonight, I said I view the family unit as one of the most important in our society, and I would not want to see any law that would allow in its interpretations an encouragement to the destruction of the family unit. And what I see coming in the ERA are such things as removing the husband's primary responsibility for the support of his family, sharing
it with the wife. Now, I know that in many cases a wife is having to help support, and I know that in some divorce cases today that it's being split up so that it's more even than it used to be. But I personally feel as a man, as a father and as a husband, that it is my God-given responsibility to be responsible for the support of my wife and my children. Now, when it comes to
child custody, and of course the courts are moving in different directions on that, but I would hate to see, again, this matter of ERA be the means by which there is any diminution of family responsibility. I want to see our families held together rather than an encouragement of breaking them up. Now, as far as working women are concerned, there are many extremely competent women who work because they choose to. That's fine. My wife happens to work
part-time. That's fine. She chooses to. She's capable of doing it. There are many who have to do it out of economic necessity. That's fine. But I would hate to see us have laws that would encourage the wife to take the attitude, I'm absolutely free. I don't have to stay home with those children. You have to stay home with them half the time, and I have to stay home with them half the time. I just don't
want to see that kind of encouragement of diminution of the family responsibility. So the whole thing is very open-ended. Now, you talked about the Civil Rights, the Voting Rights Act. I have no problem with a federal law that says it's against the law, against the federal violation, to infringe upon anybody's right to vote. But let me tell you just one little example of how far this law has gone. It's not just that simple of guaranteeing
people the right to vote. I served for ten years as a town councilman in the town of Vienna, Virginia, where I live. Now, we have a town of 18,000 people. When we have town elections, we have only one polling place. Now, a number of years ago, we built a new town hall, and we built it large enough so that we had room for expansion. So we had in the basement one wing that was essentially vacant.
So we held our elections with that being the polling place. Then, as our town demands increased and we had to begin using that space in the basement of the building, we wanted to move the polling place for town elections across the street to the community center, where there was a gymnasium that was plenty large to handle it. Do you know that it took us many, many months to go through the Justice Department of the United States
to get permission to move that polling place from the basement of the town hall to the building across the street? Now, that is just ludicrous. Now, I know you can say, well, there can be circumstances where changing the polling place really disenfranchises certain people. I'll go back to my first statement. I agree there should be a federal law saying you can't infringe upon a person's right to vote. And if changing the polling place does that, fine.
Then you take action on it. But the thing has gotten to be such a bureaucratic maze that localities can do almost nothing without going through the federal government. That's the kind of expansion that I'm concerned about in that, in the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, as well as the ERA. You just can't begin to identify all the areas it's going to move into. Could I just comment on that? You know, just because something good
ends up doing something evil is no reason to not do the good in the first place. I grant you that there are all kinds of abuses of good laws. But if, in fact, we never passed a law for fear that it might have negative effects in the society, we would end up not doing anything at all. Please understand that whenever you do anything good, there are negative side effects. And whenever you do something good, you can
point to a hundred ways in which that good thing has worked in a disastrous way. You talk about federal control over changing voting places. And in your case, that was very, very bad. But may I say, I come from the city of Philadelphia, and I have watched city politicians deliberately place voting places that make them inaccessible to certain segments of the population. And you cannot go to the city government to correct that because it's the city
politicians that have created this situation for their own purposes. And unless they had the possibility of going through federal means, they could never correct the voting abuses that are taking place constantly in a city like Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago. I want to say one last thing. The ERA has become a symbol. It has become a symbol of women who say we want to be treated as equal human beings. What's even worse is the ERA has
become a symbol of people who are male chauvinist. And there's a great deal of opposition to the ERA, not because of any other thing than we've got a lot of male chauvinist pigs out there that are trying in reality to make women into subservient to the point of being slaves. I get so tired of running to church and hearing men say, wives, be subjected to your husbands. You know why I get tired of it? Because they
don't give me the next verse. Husbands, love your wives. And then they say, yes, see, if you serve me, I'll love you. Big deal. That's not the verse I'm dealing with. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. The role of the husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. And how did Christ love the church? That's simple. He became the servant. Now to the male chauvinist. I
simply say, when you're ready to scrub the shower, when you're ready to scrub the toilet, when you're ready to do all the dirty work, when you're ready to be a servant to your wife, then you will be loving your wife like Christ loved the church. Unfortunately, this value system is not inherent in the religious types. And when I say religious types, I have to confine certain religious types, who I hear on the airwaves that are in
fact putting down the ERA. They are not doing it on the grounds that we don't want the government influenced. They are doing it on the grounds that we, and it's not even implication, it's outright, it's blatant. We want to keep women in submission. Thus, I end up supporting the ERA for no other reason than this, that its symbolic meaning is that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, all are
one in Christ Jesus. And, you know, if women are encouraged to realize their potentialities as human beings by a law, terrific, I can live with that. I'll leave it there. Thank you very much. Applause Before turning this program back to Rick, I'd just like to say that that concludes the event for this evening. And I'd like to say that if you kept points tonight, that you're pretty much following a game that was never really played out
here. And there was no loser. I think that both distinguished gentlemen are big winners. And I thank you for sharing your political views and your faith with us. And I'd just like to say, again, thank you to the CS Lewis Society for putting so much work into this event. And I think that we've benefited from this event as we have from all of your events this semester. And I encourage you to continue to do so in
the future. Okay, Rick. Well, thank you, Dwight, for moderating for us tonight. You've really made it a big success. And thank you both of you gentlemen for agreeing to come and speak with us tonight and for sharing your thoughts with us. Did you bring any books, Mr. Campallo? Yes. Okay. Where are your books? Okay. Mr. Dingman has his books on that table back there. And why don't you just go and take Mr. Campallo's books back there?
And as you might not have guessed by now, or as you might have guessed, both of these men brought books that they'll be offering for sale in case you're interested in them. Can we just comment so they have some idea what they are? Okay, yes. The one that I brought is a collection. It's called View from the Capitol Dome. It's a collection of 20 chapters representing philosophical, the conservative perspective on a whole range of public issues,
not particularly Christian issues, but political issues. The book price is $2.95, but we're at a discount for you only at $1. So if you have some interest in political issues and what the conservative views are on a number of these, we'll be glad to make a book available to you for adults. Yes? It was published in June of this year. My book is called Success Fantasy, and it's an attack on such statements as was made
by Jerry Falwell that his material success is God's way of rewarding people who put God first in their lives. It's that kind of blasphemy, and it is blasphemy because what it basically says to all the deeply spiritual Christians in Haiti is that obviously you don't put God first in your life or else you wouldn't be so poor. It's a treatise that deals with that kind of stuff. How much does it cost? It's very expensive. It's
$3.50, but the good news is all the profit goes to missions. All right? All right, so that's what you have waiting for you on the back table in case you're interested. Also, what you have waiting on you at the front table in case you're interested is in case any of you are interested in getting on the CS Lewis Society mailing list to find out what types of programs that we'll be having coming up to receive newsletters
from the Society about just what we've been doing. Just come up to the front and leave your name with myself, and I'd be more than happy to put you on the list. Thank you.