By now everybody knows about the U S Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling on ‘gay marriage,’ shunting aside the votes of 50 million people in 30 states and arrogating to themselves the right to redefine what the Creator ordained in Genesis chapter 1.
But have you heard some of the colorful opinions of the minority Justices?
Excerpts from Chief Justice’s John Roberts’ dissenting opinion:
“If you favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.
“The Court orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?”
Excerpt from Justice Antonin Scalia’s Dissenting Opinion:
“This is a naked judicial claim to legislative— indeed, super-legislative— power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government.
“But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch.” (def: a secretly plotted and violent attempt to overthrow a government).
“The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mythical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.” . . . “Hubris is sometimes defined as o’erweening pride; and pride, we know, goeth before a fall.”
(You can count on Justice Scalia to be forthright.)
The last two Justices appointed by President Obama can be counted on to be his puppets. (but that’s to be expected—appointments are the spoils of campaigns.) The Court is on a teeter-totter, with Justice Kennedy at the fulcrum. He may totter in either direction, but usually teeters to the left.
What would some earlier Presidents and Justices have to say about this power grab?
As former Chief Justice Charles Hughes put it, “We live under a constitution, but the constitution is what the judges say it is.”
Justice Hugo Black said that the Court’s power to hold laws unconstitutional was not given by the framers, but was bestowed on the Court by the Court (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965).
“The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” —Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804.
And Abraham Lincoln said “If the policy of the government . . . is to be fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court . . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers” Inaugural address, March 4, 1861.
What does this have to do with us—Christians living in the 21st Century? A lot.
The powerful LGBTQ Lobby has won this round, but be assured that they will continue to do all they can to shut us up and to bring to bear the bureaus with the power to punish us, not only for daring to differ with them, but for declining to promote their cause.
Already Christians have lost jobs, pensions, careers, businesses, diplomas, freedoms, and privileges. Adoption agencies have had to shut down.
Christians have faced the burden of lawsuits, fines, and enforced “sensitivity education.” Parents have to wonder what their children are being taught at school, and by whom, without the parents’ knowledge. Or worse, if the parents might lose custody of their children for opposing the government’s indoctrination.
Some counselors have been forbidden by law to counsel people who want to be set free from “gender confusion”. Christian speech in schools and the military has been intimidated into silence by authorities faced with threats from the ACLU and the IRS.
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They’re at it already. On the very day the Marriage decision was announced, an on-line site called Politico Magazine featured an article called “It’s Time to Legalize Polygamy.”
“It goes on, Judah.”
But the good news is that our leaders are rising up too.
Two days before the decision, 16 former Southern Baptist Presidents and the current one sent an open letter to 16 million constituents, urging them to stand firmly together in civil disobedience to any agency, including the Supreme Court, that demanded they violate God’s law regarding homosexual marriage!
The next day 50,000 Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish leaders released an agreement to hold the line against the new law. The statement addressed the Court: “You have no authority to redefine marriage.” The document warns believers of looming persecution. Nevertheless, ministers and denominations continue to sign up.
The bright side is that Christians will be driven closer together, to support one another as the days grow darker.
This particular sin is one for which God destroys societies, (witness Sodom) but let’s not contribute to the bigotry and ugliness around us. Remember that God loves these people for whom Christ died, and we are his representatives.