Legislating Gay Marriage

In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that barring same-sex couples from civil marriage was unconstitutional. In an advisory opinion to the state legislature on why enacting “civil unions” as an alternative to marriage was legally insufficient, the Court explained its view that “segregating same-sex unions from opposite-sex unions cannot possibly be held rationally to advance or preserve” the governmental aim of encouraging “stable adult relationships for the good of the individual and of the community, especially its children.” Under this decision, the state of Massachusetts began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in May 2004. Over the next seven years, activist courts across the country continued to rule that the failure or refusal to extend “marriage” to gay couples violated state and the federal constitution.  See here.

Polls show an ever increasing number of Americans support the notion of gay marriages, demonstrating yet again the normative influence of laws over time and the power and consequence of an activist judiciary. See here.

This past June, the New York legislature was the first body of elected officials to pass a gay marriage statute on its own volition.

Two leading conservative evangelicals point the blame for this unbiblical re-defining of marriage not on the activist courts or the politicians, but instead on the Church. Ken Ham observes of the NY gay marriage law, “This is only the latest in a long list of how America has been turning its back on biblical authority.”  See here.  Mr. Ham points out that the church and Christian leaders have so compromised God’s word and failed to teach apologetics and that faith that the current generations are simply walking away from the faith and Biblical truth is increasingly ignored.  Mr. Ham explains and demonstrates these points at the church and Christian college level in his two recent books Already Gone and Already Compromised. 

In a recent interview with Charisma News, Dr. Michael Youssef expressed a similar sentiment:

Younger evangelicals have been sucked in by false teaching and are now walking away and turning their backs on biblical morality. The only morality they look at is taking care of the poor by the government—not by us but by the government. That is very dangerous. …

This problem started in the church. The society did not begin to collapse on its own, morally, when churches started to reject the authority of the word of God. The debate about homosexuality started in the church and not politics. The Episcopal Church started the whole thing by ordaining gays and blessing gay marriages. That came from the church pulpit into society. Then the Presbyterians followed and now many evangelicals don’t want to talk about it. The main issue is rejecting God’s word as authoritative over us as individuals and as a church. As goes the church so goes society. The church is the one that needs to repent first. It is my call to the church … to call the church to repentance. Until that happens society is going to continue going in a downward spiral.

Alan Sears recently wrote in American Thinker that the church’s morale failure has been by design, which would make repentance of the church even more difficult:

The church survived intact until late in the 20^th century, when the leftist onslaught changed from “in your face” to “in your place,” and activists of every stripe pursued the pulpit in order to further their various causes.  (Thus, certain churches are often accomplices in things like the homosexual agenda instead of an impediment to it.)  Thus, rather than calling the culture to repentance in light of biblical truth, churches increasingly reflected the culture, actually providing a degree of spiritual comfort for all sorts of behavior.

Mr. Sears sees the church’s being encroached  by the dollar and by government.

At CatholicCulture.org, Dr. Jeff Mirus recently explained why homosexuality may provide the impetus for the next gulag.

No group is more hateful to modern society than the perceived moralistic prigs who, out of what most perceive as religiously-motivated prejudice, seek to diminish the personal sexual liberty of others. Nothing could be more obvious in our current culture than that such people must be silenced and, if necessary, restrained. Moreover, it seems only right and just that their denunciation of the gay lifestyle and their opposition to gay marriage should be criminalized. In fact, it should be criminalized in the name of liberty. That is why gay marriage is the lie that will create the next Gulag.

Dr. Mirus concisely explains how we’re following the logical path of “sterile” marriages, i.e. where reproduction is no longer the central focus of marriage and sex. The path started with divorce and then to birth control, abortion, homosexual marriage and increasingly suppression of opposition.  There is increasing evidence of a future where standing for Biblical truths will result in criminal and professional punishment. Dr. Mirus advises that we are to live the Truth of Christ in our lives and in our families in the days to come, particularly in the face of persecution.

The prospect of criminal and professional persecution of those who espouse or practice Biblical truths is not terribly far fetched or far off.  Indeed, my State Bar of NC recently tried to prohibit its licensed attorneys from taking taking sexual orientation, transgender, or sexual identity issues into consideration during the course of practicing law, such as when hiring new attorneys or deciding whether to represent a client.

Not only are Baby Boomers leaving future American generations with trillions of dollars of debt to repay, but these sexual Bolsheviks appear intent on establishing Pink Fascism as part of their legacy. Pray hard for repentance and revival.