The
United States Supreme Court recently announced it has added gay marriage to the
agenda for its September 29th private conference. The purpose of the conference is to determine
which cases will accepted for decision making by the Court. The justices have placed cases from Oklahoma,
Wisconsin, Utah, Virginia, and Indiana for consideration. The review of five such cases would seem to
indicate the broad interest of the Court in this issue. It would also seem to indicate that the
Supreme Court is not going to delay some form decision making in this matter.
SCOTUS
has already made some rulings on the gay marriage issue. In a 5-4 decision in June of 2013 the Court
ruled that the federal government must recognize the validity of gay marriages
in states that allow them. The Court has
also refused to overrule a California court’s decision striking down that
state’s gay marriage ban.
While
both these rulings can be viewed as sympathetic to the gay marriage agenda,
this announcement of consideration of these five state court cases would be the
first indication of the Court’s willingness to address whether individual
states have the right to outlaw gay marriage.
Thirty one states presently have such laws on the books, but they are
being attacked and overturned systematically by federal judges.
Should
the Supreme Court decide that gay marriage is a constitutional right, it would
automatically invalidate all state prohibitions and legalize it nationwide. This, of course, has huge moral, cultural,
and religious implications. When the
Court steps into the moral and religious arena, its influence cannot be
overstated. Two previous rulings serve
to drive home just how important and influential these decisions can be.
On June
17, 1963 SCOTUS issued its decision rewriting how government and religion
interrelated. Citing an invented “wall
of separation” between church and state, the judges outlawed prayer and Bible
reading in public schools as it had been practiced for decades. This initial decision has since resulted in
ongoing court fights over any representation of Christianity in public
life. It empowered atheism and basically
neutered the rights of Christians to practice their faith in a public
setting. Prayers before football games,
mentions of God in valedictorian speeches, even teachers bringing a Bible into
the classroom have been judged violations based on the Court’s precedent making
decision. We are now experiencing in
this country a government operating on the basis of freedom from religion,
rather than freedom of religion. The moral and spiritual consequences of this
have been catastrophic.
On
January 22, 1973 SCOTUS issued another ground breaking decision with huge moral
and spiritual implications. This time
the Court found for women an invented “right to privacy” which legalized
abortion. Over 40,000,000 dead babies
later, the legacy of that decision continues to haunt us. It stripped away the “right to life” of the
unborn, placing the continuance of that life in the hands of the mother. While regulations put forward by various
states have sought to mitigate this decision, the damage done morally and
spiritually is really incalculable. The
State, whose responsibility is to guard and protect the life of the innocent,
has instead granted the right to destroy that life.
The
possibility of SCOTUS once again
stepping into the realm of the moral and spiritual, this time in the context of
determining what marriage is, gives me cold shivers. Two Justices have already performed gay
marriages. Justices Kagan and Ginsberg
have made very public their participation in officiating in these
ceremonies. There is no question as to
where their loyalties lie.
The
genius of those who founded this country and wrote its originating documents
centered in their deep concern that a balance of power would be found in
government. The legislative, executive,
and judicial branches were designed to serve as a system of checks and balances. It is a system that, in theory, works. However, as we have seen the Constitution
recently trampled upon, reviled, and ignored, the coopting of the judicial
branch of our government is especially disheartening. When it begins to rule, not on the basis of
the Constitution, but rather on the basis of the winds of social change, we
have lost one of the last protections extended to us to protect us from the
totalitarianism of barbarians.
Occasionally
we still hear the singing of “God Bless America.” I’m not really sure how much longer this country’s
leaders can shake their fist in His face and defy His will before that will
cease to be the case. As we look at the
encroachment of a poverty that is both physical and spiritual, that cessation
may be, sadly, already occurring.
Please
pray that SCOTUS will not add another nail to the spiritual coffin of this
country by legalizing relationships that demean the sanctity and purpose of
marriage and fly in the face of clear Biblical teaching. I don’t know how much farther we can go down
this dark trail before it will become impossible to find our way back.
