The Quaker Shaker And Gay Marriage

My Nixon brother Hugh Hewitt put this video on YouTube with the headline "God Weighs In On The Same Sex Marriage Debate?" I thank God for the question mark.

Hewitt was at the Nixon library Wednesday night moderating a debate between conservative John Eastman, former dean of Chapman University's law school, and liberal UC Irvine law dean Erwin Chemerinsky. Hewitt regularly hosts the legal eagles on his syndicated radio show.

With cameras rolling (providentially? There's that question mark again), a 4.0 earthquake struck Yorba Linda while Eastman was speculating about how associate justice Anthony Kennedy might rule on Prop. 8 and DOMA. After the shaker, which occurs at 3:45 in the video, Eastman said, "See what happens when you mess with traditional marriage?" and basked in a thundering ovation. Offered the opportunity to interpret the event himself, Chemerinsky paused for a long moment and said, "My field's constitutional law, not geology."

Note he didn't say "theology." Hewitt and Eastman get kudos for handling a scary moment with elan. But I'm glad they didn't test the ineffable grace of heaven any more than they did. The God who would send an earthquake to a double-domes' debate must've been a lot angrier at the tens of thousands he killed by dropping buildings on them in Japan and China. My God, that one is not. Chemerinsky may have been tempted to say that the incident could just as well have been a rebuke as an affirmation of Eastman's rhetoric. He was wise to leave God's intentionality out of the earthquake as we -- experts, voters, and judges -- continue to do our our best to behave honorably and justly toward all his people on earth.