I have already written on the fateful decision of the US Supreme Court to redefine marriage and show its utter contempt for the majority of Americans who know that marriage is always about a one man, one woman relationship. As I argued there, this is as momentous as the 1973 abortion decision, and is just as evil: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2015/06/27/scotus-declares-war-on-marriage-and-family/
The fallout of course continues with plenty of commentary from all sides of the debate. This is one of the most far-reaching and radical decisions ever made by SCOTUS, and we will feel the negative after-effects for decades to come. The only good news is four of the judges had the sense, and moral and mental clarity, to strongly denounce the decision of the other five.
For example, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: “They know that an institution as old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until 15 years ago, cannot possibly be supported by anything other than ignorance or bigotry. And they are willing to say that any citizen who does not agree with that, who adheres to what was, until 15 years ago, the unanimous judgment of all generations and all societies, stands against the Constitution.”
And Justice Samuel Alito said, “The decision will also have other important consequences. It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy. In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women. …Today’s decision shows that decades of attempts to restrain this Court’s abuse of its authority have failed.”
Ted Cruz: Today is some of the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history. Today this radical decision purporting to down the marriage laws of every state; it has no connection to the United States Constitution. They are simply making it up. It is lawless, and in doing so, they have undermined the fundamental legitimacy of the United States Supreme Court.
Gov. Bobby Jindal: The Supreme Court decision today conveniently and not surprisingly follows public opinion polls, and tramples on states’ rights that were once protected by the 10th Amendment of the Constitution. Marriage between a man and a woman was established by God, and no earthly court can alter that.
This decision will pave the way for an all out assault against the religious freedom rights of Christians who disagree with this decision. This ruling must not be used as pretext by Washington to erode our right to religious liberty.
The government should not force those who have sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage to participate in these ceremonies. That would be a clear violation of America’s long held commitment to religious liberty as protected in the First Amendment. I will never stop fighting for religious liberty and I hope our leaders in D.C. join me.
Ryan T. Anderson: Today is a significant setback for all Americans who believe in the Constitution, the rule of law, democratic self-government, or marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Court got it wrong: It should not have mandated all 50 states to redefine marriage. This is judicial activism. Nothing in the Constitution requires the redefinition of marriage, and the Court imposed its judgment about a policy matter that should have been decided by the American people and their elected representatives. The Court got marriage and the Constitution wrong today, just as they got abortion and the Constitution wrong 42 years ago with Roe v. Wade. Five unelected judges do not have the power to change the truth about marriage or the truth about the Constitution.
Al Mohler: The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the land, and its decisions cannot be appealed to a higher court of law. But the Supreme Court, like every human institution and individual, will eventually face two higher courts. The first is the court of history, which will render a judgment that I believe will embarrass this court and reveal its dangerous trajectory. The precedents and arguments set forth in this decision cannot be limited to the right of same-sex couples to marry. If individual autonomy and equal protection mean that same-sex couples cannot be denied what is now defined as a fundamental right of marriage, then others will arrive to make the same argument. This Court will find itself in a trap of its own making, and one that will bring great harm to this nation and its families. The second court we all must face is the court of divine judgment. For centuries, marriage ceremonies in the English-speaking world have included the admonition that what God has put together, no human being — or human court — should tear asunder. That is exactly what the Supreme Court of the United States has now done.
The threat to religious liberty represented by this decision is clear, present, and inevitable….
In one sense, everything has changed. And yet, nothing has changed. The cultural and legal landscape has changed, as we believe this will lead to very real harms to our neighbors. But our Christian responsibility has not changed. We are charged to uphold marriage as the union of a man and a woman and to speak the truth in love. We are also commanded to uphold the truth about marriage in our own lives, in our own marriages, in our own families, and in our own churches.
We are called to be the people of the truth, even when the truth is not popular and even when the truth is denied by the culture around us. Christians have found themselves in this position before, and we will again. God’s truth has not changed. The Holy Scriptures have not changed. The gospel of Jesus Christ has not changed. The church’s mission has not changed. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.
Robert Gagnon: As individuals, people of faith will be aggressively indoctrinated, fined, denied advancement, fired, intimidated, and subjected to ceaseless verbal abuse in public and private schools, at institutions of higher learning, at places of employment in public and private sectors, and throughout the main communication organs of the media and entertainment industry. Their institutions and businesses will be set on a collision course with the state: denied government funding, contracts, and loans; denied accreditation and tax-exempt status; and subjected to government harassment.
Contrary to what deceived and deceiving proponents of “gay marriage” have argued, homosexual relationships will not be tamed by marriage but rather will destroy it and render it meaningless. The institution of marriage will not so much conform homosexual activity to the Christian understanding of marriage (lifelong, monogamous, procreative, balancing the sexes) as be transformed over time to accommodate to virtually any type of adult-consensual union. It will eradicate the very basis in creation and nature for defining marriage as complementary of body and monogamous: a male-female foundation. Taking account of sexual differentiation at any level, even opposition to cross-dressing and “transgenderism” and sex-distinguished bathroom facilities, must now be treated as malicious.
Jennifer Roback Morse, The Ruth Institute: Today’s decision undermines the natural right of every child to know the identity of his or her own parents, and as far as possible, to be in a relationship with and to be raised by both his or her mother and father. No amount of legal mumbo-jumbo or cultural happy-talk can fully compensate for this fundamental structural injustice.
Forty-two years after Roe v. Wade, the majority of the country opposes abortion — the ultimate structural injustice to children. Future generations will come to their senses and realize the injustice that a genderless marriage institution inflicts on children. But when those people of the future overturn today’s ruling, not a single child born motherless or fatherless in a gender-neutral marriage will get his or her missing parent back. The structural injustice to children will be deep and permanent. The thin disguise of “marriage equality” will not fool anyone. Nor will it atone for the wrong done this day.
Brian S. Brown, The National Organization for Marriage: Though expected, today’s decision is completely illegitimate. We reject it and so will the American people. It represents nothing but judicial activism, legislating from the bench, with a bare majority of the Justices on the Supreme Court exercising raw political power to impose their own preferences on marriage when they have no constitutional authority to do so. It is a lawless ruling that contravenes the decisions of over 50 million voters and their elected representatives. It is a decision that is reminiscent of other illegitimate Court rulings such as Dred Scott and Roe v Wade and will further plunge the Supreme Court into public disrepute.
Make no mistake about it: The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and countless millions of Americans do not accept this ruling. Instead, we will work at every turn to reverse it.
The US Supreme Court does not have the authority to redefine something it did not create. Marriage was created long before the United States and our constitution came into existence. Our constitution says nothing about marriage. The majority who issued today’s ruling have simply made it up out of thin air with no constitutional authority.
In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King discussed the moral importance of disobeying unjust laws, which we submit applies equally to unjust Supreme Court decisions. Dr. King evoked the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas that an unjust law or decision is one that is “a human law that is not rooted in eternal law or natural law.”
Today’s decision of the Supreme Court lacks both constitutional and moral authority. There is no eternal or natural law that allows for marriage to be redefined.
David van Gend, The Australian Marriage Forum: The US Supreme Court has ushered in a new era of civil discord with its politically activist and morally reckless ruling on homosexual ‘marriage’. We must not let that happen here. The moral dementia of the West is evident when the honourable name of marriage is given to a relationship that can only be consummated by an indecent act.
This is the third historic act of social self-mutilation by the US Supreme Court, the most recent being the Roe-v Wade decision in 1973 that found a constitutional right for adults to kill their babies in the womb. Further back, five judges in 1857 imposed the racist abomination of the Dred Scott decision on all the states of the Union.
Just as the five judges in 1857 were so degenerate as to enshrine slavery in the Constitution, so five judges today enshrine sodomy in the Constitution. The fallout for the moral culture of the US and for the education of children is incalculable.
The court decision stands against the clearly-stated will of the people, where a majority of 61% to 39% (51.5 million to 33 million) have voted in ballots in 35 states to keep marriage a man-woman thing. The Supreme Court’s slavery decision was eventually repented of and reversed, just as the homosexual ‘marriage’ decision will have to be repented of and reversed – but after how much social damage is done?
The social science evidence on why marriage matters, why children do best in a heterosexual marriage household, and why the homosexual lifestyle is a high-risk and dangerous lifestyle, has all been made perfectly clear for decades now. Yet all that has been dumped in favour of allowing a tiny activist lobby group to destroy marriage and family, all in the name of their radical social engineering ideology.
This is an incredibly sad day for America and the rest of the world. The pressure will now further mount for countries like Australia to follow suit. Well I for one will never capitulate. I will never surrender. The wellbeing of children, of marriage, of family, and of society are all too important to give up without a fight.
And the spiritual implications are overwhelming. “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” At the highest levels in America, sin has been embraced and righteousness has been eschewed. To top off this reprehensible decision, the White House was actually bathed in homosexual rainbow colours. God have mercy on America.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/ted-cruz-today-is-some-of-the-darkest-24-hours-in-our-nations-history/
http://news.sbts.edu/2015/06/26/mohler-responds-supreme-courts-same-sex-marriage-decision/
http://www.robgagnon.net/homosexSCOTUSgaymarriage.htm
https://stream.org/christian-leaders-respond-to-supreme-court-decision-same-sex-marriage/
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420397/gay-marriage-decision-conservative-response-ryan-t-anderson
http://www.ruthinstitute.org/ruth-speaks-out/ruth-institute-statement-on-the-us-supreme-court-ruling-on-obergefell-v-hodges
http://www.nomblog.com/40488/
http://australianmarriage.org/the-insanity-of-the-us-supreme-court/
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