30 March 1987
Dear Bahá’í Friend,
Your letter of 16 December 1986 was referred by the Universal House of Justice to the Research Department, which has prepared responses to your first and third questions. A copy of the Department’smemorandum is enclosed. In reply to your second question, we are instructed by the House of Justice to convey the following comments.
No reply has been found to the letter written by the Spiritual Assembly of Seattle to the Guardian in the 1930s, to which you refer. It would seems, however, from the general tenor of the many letters written by the beloved Guardian on the matter of deprivation of voting rights, that, in principle at least, there are no exceptions to the guidance given in the letter quoted on pp. 51-52 of "Messages to Canada", namely:
"...before anyone is deprived of their voting rights, they should be consulted with and lovingly admonished at first, given repeated warnings if they do not mend their immoral ways, or whatever other extremely serious misdemeanor they are committing, and finally, after these repeated warnings, be deprived of their voting rights."
There are, however, many different ways in which this is applied, depending upon the nature of the offence and the situation in each case.
For example, when there is an isolated, but serious offence, such as that of a Bahá’í woman who indulges in one act of immorality as a result of which she gives birth to a child out of wedlock, this is no grounds for the removal of administrative rights. But the Assembly, when it learns of the situation should certainly arrange for the believer to be met and consulted with, to assist her in her difficulties, to ascertain her attitude to the situation. If she has no regret for the offence and indicates that she feels free to repeat it in future, she will need to be educated in the teachings, counselled and, if she does not change her attitude, to be warned that a continuation of such actions would cause forfeiture of her administrative rights. If, however, she is contrite and is determined to lead a moral life henceforth there would be no question of sanctions. The same course would be followed with the man involved if he were a Bahá’í.
Another example would involve, not a single offence, but a continuing course of behaviour, such as flagrant and continuing violation of the law prohibiting the drinking of alcohol, or of involvement in political activities In such situations the Assembly should explain the law to the believer, urge him to obey it, encourage and assist him and warn him if necessary. If the response is favourable there would, again, be no need to deprive him of his administrative rights but, if the believer is obdurate or continues in his course of misbehaviour, he should, according to the circumstances of each case be warned and warned again, with increasing severity and, if this produces no amelioration, he would have to lose his administrative rights.
A third example involves the taking of a definite step which violates a clear law with which the believer is familiar. Offences against the Bahá’í law of marriage mostly fall in this category. For example, if a believer enters into the married state (e.g. by having a civil wedding) without having a Bahá’í wedding, he must be instructed to immediately rectify the fault. This can often be achieved by having a Bahá’í ceremony without delay; however, there may well be obstacles to the marriage, such as a parent's refusal to give consent. If this consent is not forthcoming, enabling a Bahá’í ceremony to be held, the only solution is to have a divorce, and, pending this, the offender would have to be deprived of his administrative rights. This is not the place to go into all the complications that can arise in connection with breach of Bahá’í marriage law, but this example will suffice to illustrate the point that in such cases the deprivation of rights, while not being automatic, usually follows the offence more swiftly than in other kinds of offence.
With loving Bahá’í greetings,
For Department of the Secretariat