Written by John C. Eastman

Until her release [last week], Kim Davis, the clerk of rural Rowan County, Kentucky, was confined to a jail cell because she refused to issue marriage licenses over her name to same-sex couples. She has been pilloried in the media for “lawlessness” and compared not to Martin Luther King Jr. for her civil disobedience but to Governor George Wallace of Alabama. Michael Keegen of the grossly misnamed People for the American Way called her actions an “abuse of power” and proposed instead that she should “find another line of work” — that is, resign her elected office — if she “can’t in good conscience fulfill [her] duties.”

The double standard on display is palpable. I don’t recall Keegen or any of the other self-righteous, newfound devotees of the rule of law calling for the resignation of Kentucky’s attorney general when he refused to defend his state’s marriage law — or any of the other state attorneys general who did the same, from California’s Jerry Brown to Pennsylvania’s Kathleen Kane, and several others, including perhaps most notoriously Oregon’s Ellen Rosenblum, who was caught actively colluding with plaintiffs to ensure judicial invalidation of the Oregon marriage law she disliked.

“But Davis was refusing to comply with a decision of the Supreme Court,” it will be argued. So, too, did all those illustrious attorneys general. All of them refused to do their duty and defend their state’s man-woman marriage laws, even though the binding precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court at that time, a 1972 case called Baker v. Nelson, was that such laws were constitutionally valid.

Ms. Davis’s position has also been mischaracterized as asserting that because the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision is contrary to God’s authority, she cannot be compelled to comply with it and therefore can prevent same-sex couples from getting married in her county. Her position — so described — has been belittled by simpletons across the political spectrum as nothing more than the misguided stance of a crazy evangelical clinging to her Bible. But that is not her legal argument at all (however much merit it might have as a reaction to an illegitimate decision by the U.S. Supreme Court). Her actual argument is much more restrained.

Kentucky has a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which expressly prevents the government from imposing a substantial burden on someone’s religious beliefs unless the government’s mandate is narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest. Because this lawsuit is pending in federal court, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which contains the same protection, is also applicable. Ms. Davis’s lawyers have simply argued that these federal and state laws require that her religious objection to issuing same-sex “marriage” licenses over her own name be accommodated.

There is no compelling interest here. Even assuming the validity of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision holding that right to same-sex “marriage” is a fundamental right, no one is being denied the right to marry. As a matter of Kentucky law, the couples seeking to compel Ms. Davis herself to issue them a marriage license can obtain a marriage license from any other county in Kentucky. They can also get one from the county executive of Rowan County. And if the governor would simply call the legislature into special session to deal with the problem that has arisen since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June, it would likely even be possible for other clerks in Ms. Davis’s office to issue a marriage license without its being issued on Ms. Davis’s authority (the legislature could simply remove the problematic “under [her] authority” language from the statewide uniform form), or for marriage licenses to be obtained via a statewide online system.

But none of those options would accomplish what the same-sex couple and its chorus of advocates are really after, which is not the “marriage” but forcing Ms. Davis and everyone like her to bow to the new, unholy orthodoxy. In other words, this controversy has all the hallmarks of the one that engulfed Thomas More, who silently acquiesced in but would not condone King Henry VIII’s illicit marriage.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, both the federal law and Kentucky’s version of it, required that Ms. Davis’s religious objection be accommodated as a matter of law. The federal court’s refusal to respect those laws is where the real lawlessness lies in this case. And of course, that lawlessness is quite apart from the not insignificant question of whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision is itself lawless. Such claims did not originate with Ms. Davis, but with the four U.S. Supreme Court Justices who stridently dissented from Justice Kennedy’s diktat, calling it “illegitima[te],” “indefensible,” “dangerous for the rule of law,” “demeaning to the democratic process,” “a naked judicial claim to legislative — indeed, super-legislative — power,” “pretentious,” “egotistic,” a “judicial Putsch,” “deeply misguided,” a “usurp[ation of] the constitutional right of the people,” a “perhaps irremediable corruption of our legal culture’s conception of constitutional interpretation,” and an “extravagant conception of judicial supremacy.”

That latter point is important to put to rest the other charge that has been leveled against Ms. Davis, namely, that she is violating her oath of office by not upholding the law she swore to uphold. The Constitution requires that all officials, both federal and state, take an oath to “support this Constitution,” and the Constitution itself provides that “this Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof . . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” Neither the oath clause nor the supremacy clause requires fealty to an erroneous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that is contrary to the Constitution itself. That is not constitutionalism, or the rule of law, but the rule of judges; a claim that although the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, the Constitution is whatever the judges say it is, even if what they say is a patently erroneous interpretation of the Constitution.

Reacting to a similar piece of judicial tyranny in the Dred Scott case, Abraham Lincoln famously said, in his first inaugural address, that although judicial decisions are binding on the specific parties to a case, “the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”

In short, Ms. Davis was much more faithful to her oath of office, and to the Constitution she vowed to support, than the federal judge who jailed her for contempt, the attorney general of the state who refused to defend Kentucky’s laws, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, who usurped the authority of the states and the more than 50 million voters who had recently reaffirmed the natural definition of marriage, in order to impose his own more “enlightened” views on the nation. One can only hope that Ms. Davis’s simple but determined act of civil disobedience will yet ignite the kind of reaction in the American people that is necessary to oppose such lawlessness, or at the very least bring forth a national leader who will take up the argument against judicial supremacy in truly Lincolnian fashion.

This article was originally posted at the National Review Online.

— John C. Eastman is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law and Community Service, and former dean, at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law. He is also the founding director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence and chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage.

Written by Frederick M. Hess

Like fascists, Communists, and boy-band producers, the American Left has always believed it could fine-tune human nature if it could only “get ’em while they’re young.” That’s why the Left works so hard to impose its will on schools and universities. As John Dewey, America’s high priest of educational progressivism, explained in 1897, the student must “emerge from his original narrowness” in order “to conceive of himself” as a cog in the larger social order.

Last week’s gay-marriage ruling will yield a new wave of liberal efforts to ensure that schools do their part to combat wrong-headed “narrowness.” Justice Anthony Kennedy’s sweeping 5–4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges opened by declaring, “The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.” Kennedy took pains to opine that marriage “draws meaning from related rights of childrearing, procreation, and education.” In finding that the Fourteenth Amendment secures the right to “define and express [one’s] identity,” the Obergefell majority has issued a radical marker. (If gay marriage had been established by democratic process, things might have played out in a more measured manner.)

Justice Samuel Alito predicted, “Today’s decision . . . will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy,” and “they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.” Alito is almost assuredly right, and that poses serious questions for schools and colleges.

At the collegiate level, the implications are pretty clear — especially for religious institutions. Christian colleges are going to find their nonprofit tax status under assault unless they agree to embrace gay marriage. (The relevant precedent is the 1983 Supreme Court ruling that enabled the IRS to strip Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status because of the school’s ban on interracial dating.) Policies regarding “family housing,” employee benefits, use of chapels for marriages — all will come under fire. And then we’ll start getting to questions of readings, campus programs, and curriculum, where familiar First Amendment rights will clash with the new Fourteenth Amendment right to “define and express [one’s] identity.” For religious colleges stripped of their nonprofit status, many — if not most — will be compelled to close their doors. (It’s safe to say that plenty of progressives would regard this development as a bonus).

More broadly, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that gay-rights advocates believe the decision will “help them move on to other issues, such as access to higher education and mental-health concerns for young LGBTQ students of color and transgender students of color.” Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride, said, “I’m hopeful we can now say we won one game; now the next game is looking at trans rights, how we treat queer people of color, especially first-generation LGBTQ students of color.”

LBGT crusaders are also pushing for big changes in K–12 public schooling. Education Week’s legal-affairs reporter noted that the decisions “holds various implications for the nation’s schools, including in the areas of employee benefits, parental rights of access, and the effect on school atmosphere for gay youths.” I can’t say with certainty what’s coming. But here are four things to watch for. Expect demands for schools to amp up their efforts to feature “nontraditional” families in all kinds of contexts.

Educators have long celebrated “diversity.” Now they can expect heightened pressure to do more, and to ensure that nothing stymies a student’s “identity.” When a tiny handful of social crusaders complain that this play feels too stereotypically masculine or that those stories don’t include enough LGBT students, they’re going to pull Obergefell out of their pocket. Things will prove particularly contentious in history, where a dearth of gay marriages and nontraditional families will invite creative efforts to “balance” things out.

School leaders have judged that American flag T-shirts are unacceptably provocative when worn on Cinco de Mayo. Clothing and artifacts perceived as hostile to another’s “defined and expressed” identity, such as badges of religiosity, may well come under the closest of scrutiny. After all, the Court has long held that freedom of speech and religion may be circumscribed in educational settings. Now, protestations on behalf of free expression and free speech can be answered with Fourteenth Amendment claims.

Expect demands for schools to amp up their efforts to feature “nontraditional” families in all kinds of contexts. Schools may be scrutinized for the mixture of families that wind up in posters, brochures, student art displays, instructional materials, and the rest. Failure to include a satisfactory percentage of gay parents (or other nontraditional family groupings) may be judged evidence of a hostile environment.

And casual language will have to change. Teachers may instinctively ask a volunteer father about his wife or mention mothers and fathers; when they do, it won’t be long until a sensitive parent decides that this kind of “heteronormativity” is an unconstitutional violation of their identity. Pity the poor assistant principal who knows two parents are attending a meeting and mistakenly asks the woman sitting in the office if her “husband” is running late — rather than asking about her “spouse.” In the wrong circumstances, that could be a career-ender. Minimizing such mistakes means schools will soon be at pains to replace the terminology of “moms and dads” with that of genderless dyads.

America’s principals, superintendents, and school boards generally don’t have a lot of stomach for waging these fights. Even those who hate being bullied don’t want the exhausting slog or public criticism. Far more likely is that they’ll pack it in, lending Justice Kennedy’s rhetorical flourishes a practical import even he may not have imagined.

— Frederick M. Hess is director of education-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.  This article was originally posted at National Review Online.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) will soon issue a ruling on same-sex “marriage.” In the video below, Princeton University Professor Robert P. George tells IFI that  Christians should be in prayer about the Justices’ decision:

“Prayer is the most powerful weapon we have.”

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to visit The Defend Marriage Pledge website. Add your name to send a clear message to the justices of the SCOTUS, asking them to uphold God’s biblical plan for marriage and to uphold the choice of the American people.

It is vital for people of faith to let the justices know that millions of American voters stand united in defense of biblical marriage: one man and one woman.  We cannot remain silent when our government officials mandate policies that conflict with God’s design of marriage.

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This is a collection of random thoughts on the U.S. Supreme Court’s hearings on whether to deconstruct marriage and refashion it in accordance with the desires of homosexuals.

Some of my thoughts are in response to comments made by U.S. Supreme Court Justices, some are in response to comments made by the attorneys arguing for the deconstruction of marriage, and some are in response to commentary floating about the Internet. Following my random thoughts is a short list of questions that I wish SCOTUS had asked.

Thoughts

The Left says two men or two women who are raising children should be able to marry. Such a claim suggests that it is the presence of children that renders the relationship between their caretakers a marriage. Clearly, however, there are many adults who are raising children whose relationships do not constitute a marital-type of relationship. Few people are currently arguing, for example, that two brothers who love each other, express that love erotically, and are raising children together should be able to legally marry.

Law professor Ilya Somin writing for the Volokh Conspiracy blog  dismisses the ontological differences between men and women that homosexuals themselves affirm:

In addition to discriminating on their face, laws banning same-sex marriage are also in part based on sweeping (and often empirically dubious) generalizations about the abilities and social roles of men and women….

When homosexual men and women assert that they are erotically and romantically attracted only to members of their own sex, they are acknowledging that men and women are substantively and significantly different and that those differences are not merely anatomical. Is it so irrational then to argue that these substantive differences inform parenting?

Chief Justice John Roberts asked a pointed question that reflects the “sex discrimination theory” endorsed by Professor Somin:

[I]f Sue loves Joe and Tom loves Joe, Sue can marry him and Tom can’t. And the difference is based upon their different sex. Why isn’t that a straightforward question of sexual discrimination?

This theory errs in that it presumes what it has not proved, which is that the sex of marriage partners is irrelevant to marriage. It simply presumes that sexual complementarity is not an essential constituent feature of marriage. It would be like saying, “12-year-old Sue loves 30-year-old Joe, and 27-year-old Ann loves 30-year-old Joe. Ann can marry Joe, and Sue can’t. Why isn’t that a straightforward question of age discrimination?”

It isn’t a straightforward question of age discrimination because in the case of the unique institution of marriage, the age of partners is integral.

Similarly, in the case of the unique institution of marriage, sexual differentiation is integral. Without it, a union ceases to be, in reality, marital.

Somin and many other marriage deconstruction advocates appeal to laws banning interracial marriages as apt analogies. But laws banning interracial marriages were wrong for the same reason laws permitting same-sex “marriages” are wrong: Both depend on wrong assumptions about the intrinsic nature of marriage. If marriage has a nature central to which is sexual differentiation, then marriage laws that recognize that ontological nature do not reflect invidious discrimination.

Moreover, anti-miscegenation laws, like marriage-deconstruction laws, embodied other serious ontological errors. Laws banning interracial marriage wrongly assumed that blacks and whites have different natures, while laws permitting same-sex “marriage” wrongly assume that men and women have identical natures.

Meanwhile a twittering tweeter over on SCOTUSblog.com seemed inordinately impressed with this statement from Mary Bonauto, one of the attorney’s arguing for marriage deconstruction:

In terms of the question of who decides, it’s not about the court versus the states. It’s about the individual making the choice to marry and with whom to marry, or the government.

Seriously, an attorney is arguing that every individual should be able to decide what the government should recognize as a marriage. If that’s the case, then current marriage criteria regarding blood kinship and numbers of partners need to be jettisoned as well.

Justice Anthony Kennedy oddly views the role of both the legislative and judicial branches of government as dignity-dispensing. Here’s yet another remarkable Kennedy statement:

I thought [dignity-bestowing] was the whole purpose of marriage.  It bestows dignity on both man and woman in a traditional marriage.  It’s dignity-bestowing, and these parties say they want to have that, that same ennoblement.

The whole purpose of marriage is to bestow dignity on sexually differentiated marital unions? Many Americans thought the inclusion of sexual differentiation in the legal definition of marriage was a recognition of the intrinsic nature of marriage and served to tie mothers and fathers to each other and to any children that may result from their sexual union, which in turn serves to protect the inherent needs and rights of children, which in turn serves the public good. The bestowal of dignity is decidedly not the “whole purpose of” the legal recognition of what marriage is, though it may be a beneficial consequence. In Kennedy’s alternate universe, which other relationship configurations merit the bestowal of dignity through access to legal marriage?  Incestuous unions? Incestuous homosexual unions? Polyamorous unions?

Even “dignity-bestowing” is largely a thing of the past. Large swaths of the population think no more of legal marriage than they do of co-habitation. But even prior to the “sexual revolution” that is responsible in large measure for the low regard with which the public holds marriage, the whole purpose of marriage never was solely or centrally to “bestow dignity” and “ennoblement” on man-woman unions.

Kennedy waxed foolish again:

Same-sex couples say…We know we can’t procreate, but we want the other attributes of it in order to show that we, too, have a dignity that can be fulfilled.

First, the government is involved in marriage precisely because the sexual union of one man and one woman is the type of union that naturally produces children. This is not to say that the government has any interest in ascertaining fertility or compelling procreation. But it is to say that if humans did not procreate through heterosexual intercourse, the government would have zero interest in recognizing and regulating marriage. If humans reproduced asexually, there would be no more reason for the government to be involved with marriage than there is for the government to be involved with recognizing and regulating platonic friendships.

Second, Kennedy inadvertently gets to the heart of the mission of homosexuals to reinvent marriage in their own image when he says that they want “the other attributes of marriage” in the hope that the dignity imputed to marriage will be imputed to their unions. But the dignity that inheres marriage derives from its nature—not the word “marriage” or the license. Nonetheless,  homosexuals seek to obliterate in law and the public consciousness all ontological distinctions between heterosexual marriage and homoerotic non-marriage.

Questions I wish the Supreme Court had asked:

What is marriage?

Does marriage have a nature that the government merely recognizes and regulates, or is it wholly a social construction with no intrinsic features?

If it has a nature, what are its essential, intrinsic features without which marriage ceases to be marriage?

Why should the criterion regarding sexual differentiation be jettisoned from the legal definition but the criterion regarding numbers of partners be retained?

What is the government’s interest in marriage?

Why does the government not recognize or regulate the union of those in platonic friendships as marriages?

What constitutes homosexuality?

Should those who experience other conditions similarly constituted be allowed to redefine marriage in accordance with their desires?

Let’s pray that wisdom informs SCOTUS’ ultimate decision in June.

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Barely five days after The New York Times ran a major news article on the firing of Atlanta’s fire chief for his views on homosexuality, a major Times opinion writer declared that religious liberty is a fine thing, so long as it is restricted to “pews, homes, and hearts” — far from public consequence.

The firing of Kelvin Cochran as chief of Atlanta’s Fire Rescue Department came after the city’s mayor, Kasim Reed, determined that the chief could not effectively manage the department after he had written a book in which he cited Scripture in defining homosexuality as a sin.

The most crucial portion of the Times story includes the mayor’s rationale:

“At a news conference, Mr. Reed said that Mr. Cochran’s ‘personal religious beliefs are not the issue.’ But Atlanta’s nondiscrimination policy, the mayor added, is ‘nonnegotiable.’

‘Despite my respect for Chief Cochran’s service, I believe his actions and decision-making undermine his ability to effectively manage a large, diverse work force,’ Mr. Reed said. ‘Every single employee under the fire chief’s command deserves the certainty that he or she is a valued member of the team and that fairness and respect guide employment decisions.’”

But the mayor’s words do not form a coherent argument. Chief Cochran was fired precisely because his “personal religious beliefs” are, in the mayor’s mind, incompatible with assuring every member of the department “that he or she is a valued member of the team and that fairness and respect guide employment decisions.”

Chief Cochran had written a book entitled, Who Told You that You Were Naked?, in which, according to the Times, he had affirmed that homosexual acts are among what the Bible defines as “vile, vulgar, and inappropriate activities” that “dishonor God.”

The story has been widely reported in the national press, and no accusation that Chief Cochran had acted in a discriminatory fashion toward any department employee has yet been asserted. In November, announcing the Chief’s suspension without pay, Mayor Reed said that Chief Cochran’s views as expressed in the book were inconsistent with the city’s policies on discrimination. Note, as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution made clear, the mayor’s concern was the chief’s views on homosexuality. The paper cited a statement from the mayor’s office in its report on the suspension: “I want to be clear that the material in Chief Cochran’s book is not representative of my personal beliefs, and is inconsistent with the administration’s work to make Atlanta a more welcoming city for all of her citizens — regardless of their sexual orientation, gender, race and religious beliefs.”

But the mayor did not extend his concern about non-discrimination on religious beliefs to Chief Cochran, who clearly expressed his views as a matter of biblical belief.

Liberties do not exist in a vacuum. In any historical moment, certain liberties collide with other liberties. We are now witnessing a direct and unavoidable collision between religious liberty with what is rightly defined as erotic liberty — a liberty claimed on the basis of sexual identity and activity. Religious liberty is officially recognized in the Bill of Rights — even in the very first amendment — and the framers of the American order did not claim to have established this right to free religious expression, but to have recognized it as a pre-existent right basic to citizenship.

Erotic liberty is new on the scene, but it is central to the moral project of modernity — a project that asserts erotic liberty, which the framers never imagined, as an even more fundamental liberty than freedom of religion. The logic of erotic liberty has worked its way from law schools and academia into popular culture, entertainment, public policy, and Supreme Court decisions.

In one classic example, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy famously wrote  of human dignity in terms of one’s “concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” — and he has explicitly tied that to erotic liberty in a series of decisions and opinions.

Chief Cochran wrote a book, as a Christian and for his fellow Christians. According to the Times article, he gave a copy of the book to three city employees who had not asked for it. In response, he was fired by Mayor Reed.

The opinion column published just days after Chief Cochran’s firing was written by Frank Bruni, an openly-gay columnist whose essays often appear in the “Sunday Review” section of the paper. In this case, he cites his own sexual orientation in making his argument in “Your God and My Dignity.”

His argument is that claims of endangered religious liberty for conservative Christians are “absurd.” He complains about “religious people getting a pass that isn’t warranted.” Religious liberty, he claims, is being used as “a fig leaf for intolerance.”

The legalization of same-sex marriage cannot and will not infringe upon religious liberty, he claims, because such laws “do not pertain to religious services or what happens in a church, temple or mosque; no clergy member will be compelled to preside over gay nuptials. Civil weddings are covered. That’s it.”

The really chilling part of his statement is the restriction of religious liberty to “religious services or what happens in a church, temple, or mosque.” This is becoming more and more common, as major political and legal figures speak more and more of “freedom of worship” as a replacement for religious liberty. Religious liberty certainly includes freedom of worship, but it by no means stops there.

Furthermore, when the proponents of same-sex marriage and the new sexual revolution promise even to respect what goes on in a church, temple, or mosque, they evidently cannot keep their arguments straight. In the very same column, Bruni complains that religious congregations are given too much liberty to define their own ministry. He laments that “churches have been allowed to adopt broad, questionable interpretations of a ‘ministerial exception’ to anti-discrimination laws that allow them to hire and fire clergy as they wish.”

The front lines of the battle for religious liberty will be at the door of your congregation very soon, if this column is any indication — and it is. While promising to respect “freedom of worship,” Bruni openly implies that congregations should not have the right to hire and fire ministers or clergy on the basis of their sexual orientation or beliefs. What kind of liberty is that?

It is no liberty at all. This argument spells the end of religious liberty in any meaningful sense. What about the right of religious schools to hire, admit, and house on the basis of Christian moral judgment? If Bruni complains about congregations having the right to “hire and fire clergy as they wish,” we can only imagine what he would want to see mandated in terms of religious schools and institutions.

The headline over the print edition of Frank Bruni’s column is “Your God and My Dignity.” The use of the term “dignity” in this way is explained by University of Texas professor Mark Regnerus as “the mission creep of dignity.” In an important article released today, Regnerus contrasts the traditional view of human dignity, rooted in the belief that every human being is made in God’s image and affirmed by natural law theorists as “Dignity 1.0.” As Regnerus explains, this view of human dignity is defined as a person’s “inherent worth of immeasurable value that is deserving of certain morally appropriate responses.” As he further explains, “Understood in this way, dignity is an inalienable value. It’s a reality. Human dignity does not become real when you start to believe in it. It remains real even when neglected or violated. It may be discerned differently across eras, but it’s not arbitrary, to be socially constructed in unique ways by collective will or vote.”

“Dignity 2.0,” on the other hand, is on the ascent. As Regnerus asserts, “To be sure, Dignity 2.0 exhibits some similarities with its predecessor. Each has to do with inherent worth. Each implies the reality of the good. Each understands that rights flow from dignity. But Dignity 2.0 entrusts individuals to determine their own standards.”

In terms of the moral revolution and marriage, he writes:

“Witness, as an example, what is happening to marriage in the West, where the power elite has aligned behind Dignity 2.0 and its novel conclusions about the nature and structure of a timeless institution. The basis for Dignity 2.0 in the West does not rest on external standards, on traditional restraints such as kinship, neighborhood, religion, or nation, which are all stable sources of the self. Rather, it is based upon the dis-integrated, shifting “me,” subject to renegotiation, reinvention, and reconstruction, reinforced by expansive conditions and regulations. It’s exhausting—though profitable to attorneys. And Facebook. But it also explains my confusion: there are rival forms of dignity, and the version you employ matters a great deal.”

Indeed, it matters a very great deal. And the central thrust of Dignity 2.0 is what I describe as erotic liberty — the newly asserted liberty that is now trampling  or endangering religious liberty.

Don’t miss the final words of Frank Bruni’s column:

“And I support the right of people to believe what they do and say what they wish — in their pews, homes and hearts. But outside of those places? You must put up with me, just as I put up with you.”

In the event we missed the point earlier in his column, he makes the point crystal clear in the end. Religious liberty is to be respected, so long as it is confined to “pews, homes, and hearts.”

Chief Kelvin Cochran knows exactly what Frank Bruni means. Do you?

This article was originally posted at the AlberMohler.com website.

A Sad Milestone for Marriage and Morality

A giant milestone in the moral revolution passed this week when the U.S. Supreme Court turned down every single appeal from several states on the issue of same-sex marriage. This decision not to take at least one case under consideration stunned both sides in the same-sex marriage battle. Last weekend’s edition of USA Today featured a front-page story that declared the virtual certainty that the Court would take at least one of the cases and declared same-sex marriage to be “a cause whose time has come.”

Well, same-sex marriage may well be an issue whose time has come in the culture, due to the massive moral shift that has taken place over the last few decades, but the nation’s highest court has decided that now is not the time for it to take up such a case. Faced with the opportunity either to stop same-sex marriage in its tracks or to hand down a sweeping decision tantamount to a new Roe v. Wade, the Court took a pass.

Some will argue that the Court’s decision was a strategic choice intended to preserve its dignity and stature. Already, many defenders of natural marriage are doing their best to argue that the Court’s refusal to take a case is better for the cause of marriage than a sweeping decision in favor of same-sex marriage. The proponents of same-sex marriage had hoped for just such a decision, and attorneys were jockeying for position, wanting to be the lead counsel for the “gay marriage Roe decision.” But make no mistake, the proponents of same-sex marriage won this round, and they won big. They did not get the sweeping coast to coast ruling they wanted, but what they got was an even faster track to the same result.

Had the Court taken one of the cases, the oral arguments would not have taken place until early 2015, and the decision would not have been likely until the end of next June. Until then, same-sex marriage would be on hold to some degree. Now, the Court’s decision to allow lower court rulings to stand sends an immediate signal — it is full steam ahead for same-sex marriage coast to coast.

As of last week, 19 states and the District of Columbia had legalized same-sex marriage by one means or another. The Court’s decision not to take one of the cases from the lower Federal courts means that every one of them stands. Therefore, not only will same-sex marriage be legal in the states that made a direct appeal, but in every state included within the same U.S. Circuit.

That result is that the decision made clear by the Court will lead, automatically, to the fact that 30 states will have legal same-sex marriage within weeks, if not days. The news from the Court means that the vast majority of Americans will live where same-sex marriage is legal, and three fifths of the states will have legalized same-sex marriage.

But the Court’s decision also sent another even more powerful message. The remaining federal courts were put on notice that same-sex marriage is now the expectation of the Supreme Court and that no appeal on the question is likely to be successful, or even heard. You can expect the lower courts to hear that message loudly and clearly — and fast.

This day in U.S. legal history will be remembered for many years to come as a landmark day toward same-sex marriage. It was the day the nation’s highest court took one of the lowest paths of least resistance. It now seeks to maintain its prestige by avoiding the backlash the Court experienced in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade in 1973. It wants to have its victory without taking further risks to its reputation.

Given the recent remarks made by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, even some of the Court’s most liberal justices wanted to avoid a backlash while achieving the same eventual result. This week’s announcement means that their hopes were achieved.

But the decision also indicates something further — it points to the vindication of Justice Antonin Scalia. When the Court handed down the decision striking down all state sodomy statutes in 2003 in Lawrence v Texas, Justice Scalia declared that it meant the end of all morals legislation. The majority opinion in that decision was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose legal reasoning was ridiculed by Scalia in one of his most scathing dissents.

Kennedy, said Scalia, had created “a massive disruption of the current social order,” that could not be stopped. Further: “Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.”

Eleven years earlier, Scalia had dissented from another Kennedy majority opinion, that time on abortion. Justice Kennedy had sustained a right to abortion, maintaining the central impact of Roe and pushing further toward a mysterious existential argument. Kennedy had written, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

Scalia famously rejected that language as Kennedy’s “sweet-mystery-of-life passage,” and he saw that same reasoning behind the Lawrencedecision.

But Scalia also said this about the 2003 decision: “This reasoning leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples.” Further: “Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as a formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is ‘no legitimate state interest’ for purposes of proscribing that conduct … what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples?”

Indeed, the Lawrence decision did put all laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples on shaky ground. Very shaky ground. Justice Scalia saw what now appears obvious. The Court’s decision in Lawrence in 2003 set the stage for this week’s news.

Even more recently, Justice Kennedy was the author of the Court’s majority opinion in the Windsor decision striking down the federal government’s Defense of Marriage Act. That decision, handed down in June of 2013, set the stage for this week’s development in a big way.

Once again, Justice Scalia saw it coming. He called the Court’s decision to strike down DOMA “jaw-dropping” in both its audacity and its reasoning. Then he offered these memorable words: “As far as this Court is concerned, no one should be fooled; it is just a matter of listening and waiting for the other shoe.”

That “other shoe” was the inevitability of same-sex marriage as a national reality.

What happened this week at the Court — or perhaps what didn’t happen — is a direct vindication of Scalia’s warnings. He saw it coming and he warned us.

What the Court’s majority has now decided, evidently, is to allow shoes to fall at the hands of lower courts that will follow its reasoning and obey its signals.

The news from the Court means a sad vindication for Justice Antonin Scalia. It means an even sadder day for marriage in America.

And it means, no matter what you think you heard or didn’t hear from Washington, that the other shoe has dropped.

This article was originally posted at the AlbertMohler.com blog.

While reams have already been penned examining the implications of last week’s Hobby Lobby decision, most of what’s been written, particularly in the liberal press, has missed the point entirely.

Though I’m mildly pleased that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is not quite ready to take gasoline to both the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), signed into law by Bill Clinton, a liberal, in 1993, I am alarmed, and so too should you be, that only 56 percent of our sitting SCOTUS justices are still willing to give the U.S. Constitution a modicum of the respect, recognition and compliance it not only deserves, but requires.

America was dragged before Emperor Obama’s counter-constitutional, secular-”progressive” firing squad and remarkably, miraculously, they missed.

But it’s a false sense of security. As we Christians and conservatives celebrate with chest bumps and high fives, we remain bound, gagged and blindfolded while these “progressive” fascists reload. The next volley of cultural Marxist lead is but moments away.

Tick, tick goes the judicial-supremacy time bomb.

I don’t mean to throw a wet blanket on the party. There is much to celebrate, and this ruling’s broader implications are profound indeed. The opinion simply doesn’t go far enough.

Yes, Hobby Lobby was, in part, about the non-negotiable fact that government cannot compel religious business owners of private, closely held corporations to be complicit in abortion homicide. It was also, tangentially, about the self-evident reality that women are not, never have been and never will be, entitled to expect Christian men, who are not their husbands, to pay for their birth control and abortion drugs so that they can have consequence-free sex or otherwise murder their pre-born babies.

Hobby Lobby was chiefly about one of our very first freedoms: religious liberty.

How is it that this was a 5-4 decision? Even an elementary understanding of American history and a cursory analysis of both our U.S. Constitution and RFRA establish that this opinion should have been roundly unanimous. The majority decision merely recognized, in the weakest of terms, Americans’ God-given, inalienable, constitutionally guaranteed right to religious free exercise (yes, even for those pesky Christian business owners).

Still, while lovers of freedom rejoice across the nation, the reality is that there are at least four domestic “enemies within” currently sitting on the highest bench in the land, not the least of whom is Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Ginsburg tells you everything you need to know about Ginsburg: “I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a Constitution in the year 2012,” she disgracefully vomited a couple years back in an interview about the fledgling Egyptian government. “I might look at the Constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights. … It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done. Much more recent than the U.S. Constitution.”

Ginsburg hates the America of our founding. She hates our constitution and, like all true “progressives,” endeavors to circumvent it at every turn.

And that’s the prism through which we must interpret the parade of hyperbolic horribles in her scathing Hobby Lobby dissent. She excoriated the constitutionalist majority for its ruling, calling it a “radical” decision “of startling breadth.” Still, when you cut through the alarmist tripe, she actually gets to the meat of the matter.

“In a decision of startling breadth,” she wrote, “the Court holds that commercial enterprises, including corporations, along with partnerships and sole proprietorships, can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Uh, yeah, and?

Here’s what Ginsburg actually meant: “I hate the First Amendment. It’s broad, inalienable, and I want to alienate it. Oh, and dead babies. Lots of dead babies.”

Ginsburg is right. This decision was “of startling breadth,” but only if you happen to be a secular elitist hell-bent on marginalizing Christians and wielding unchecked power over your fellow Americans.

Indeed, the secularist left’s utter meltdown over having but a small measure of control over others wrested away is highly instructive. Still, why would we expect lefties to understand the First Amendment when these Rhodes Scholars are calling a decision penned by Justice Samuel Alito “#ScaliaLaw” on Twitter?

In his concurring opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who more often than not gets it wrong, got one right:

In our constitutional tradition, freedom means that all persons have the right to believe or strive to believe in a divine creator and a divine law. For those who choose this course, free exercise is essential in preserving their own dignity and in striving for a self-definition shaped by their religious precepts. Free exercise in this sense implicates more than just freedom of belief. … It means, too, the right to express those beliefs and to establish one’s religious (or non-religious) self-definition in the political, civic, and economic life of our larger community.

Wow. And now for the pink elephant in the room: Although the Hobby Lobby decision did not directly address the raging cultural debate over counterfeit “gay marriage” and the irreconcilable friction this modern, sin-centric novelty has with the long-established and inalienable right to religious free exercise, it doesn’t take a Phi Beta Kappa to read between the lines and discover, as Ginsburg and Kennedy evidently agree, that the “startling breadth” of the decision most assuredly touches and concerns the debate head on. (And not in favor, I might add, of the homofascist “you-have-to-affirm-my-faux-marriage-or-go-to-jail” crowd.)

While Justice Kennedy is anything but predictable on these matters, this ruling makes it pretty clear that, as both the First Amendment and RFRA already assure, the Christian baker, photographer, florist or any other business owner, is protected from being forced, under penalty of law, into indentured servitude – from having to give their God-given time and talent to create goods or services that require they violate sincerely held religious beliefs.

In other words, both the First Amendment and RFRA trump any and all so-called “sexual orientation” laws. Or, as Ginsburg put it, private businesses “can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Darn skippy.

Furthermore, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act expressly protects religious free exercise while ignoring newfangled notions of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.”

When religious belief comes into conflict with sexual identity politics, religious belief wins every time. Period.

Let me be clear so there’s no misunderstanding. I’m a Christian. If I’m a business owner and someone comes in requesting goods or services that would require me to violate my conscience – especially my biblically based, sincerely held religious beliefs – I will not, under any circumstances, provide those goods or services. This is my absolute, non-negotiable, constitutionally guaranteed right.

No debate. No question. No compromise.

The language of the Hobby Lobby decision simply acknowledges this reality.

One year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the Defense of Marriage Act, this much is clear: Justice Antonin Scalia is a prophet.

Back in 2003, when the court handed down the decision in Lawrence v. Texas, striking down all criminal statutes against homosexual acts, Scalia declared that the stage was set for the legalization of same-sex unions. That was 2003.

“Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as a formal recognition in marriage is concerned,” wrote Scalia.

He was proved to be absolutely prophetic when, just ten years later, the court ruled in United States v. Windsor that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional — thus striking down the federal statute defining marriage exclusively as the union of a man and a woman.

Once again, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, while Scalia handed down a fiery dissent. As before, Scalia was prophetic.

Even though the Court did not rule that same-sex marriage must be legal in all states, it set the stage for that to happen. As Scalia wrote: “As far as this Court is concerned, no one should be fooled; it is just a matter of listening and waiting for the other shoe.”

One year later, it is abundantly evident that we did not have to wait or listen for long.  Almost immediately, challenges to state laws and constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriages erupted.

In a staggering series of decisions at the federal and state levels, judges explicitly cited the nullification of DOMA and the central arguments of the Windsor decision in striking down those laws and constitutional amendments.

A year after the death of DOMA, not one major decision has defended any of these statutes or amendments. Kennedy’s opinion has been cited as authoritative in virtually every one of these judicial actions.

This has meant that in a single year, the legalization of same sex marriage has become a reality or received a positive judicial action in states including Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Oregon and a host of other states far from where such unions had previously been recognized.

A year later, it is clear that the Supreme Court remains the central political institution of moral transformation in America.

A year later, it is also clear that the court was riding a vast change in public opinion.

We must also see that the time is almost at hand for that transformation to be made complete, at least in terms of the legalization of same-sex marriage in all 50 states.

What was not clear a year ago was the velocity of this transformation. Even the architects of the revolution are expressing surprise at the speed of these judicial actions.

By the end of this summer, the Supreme Court will likely need to revisit the question once again, this time responding to the cavalcade of lower court decisions the high court spawned.

There is very good reason to expect a decision mandating same-sex marriage coast-to-coast in the Court’s next term, with a decision to be handed down just a year from now, almost to the day.

Furthermore, the Obama administration has been pushing the agenda vigorously, with the federal government now aligning all agency policies in line with the Windsor decision – even extending to areas the decision was never intended to reach.

Where does that leave committed Christians?

Those of us who believe that human flourishing depends upon the recognition and honoring of marriage as exclusively the union of a man and a woman see this transformation of marriage into something radically different as a grave threat to human society and human happiness.

We do not argue that these damaging effects on society and its individuals will be immediately apparent, but we are sadly confident that the subversion of marriage will bring devastating effects over time.

In retrospect, we can also see that previous subversions of marriage set the stage for the radical redefinition of marriage in our times.

Our failure to answer the challenge of rising divorce rates was, eventually, fatal to our effort to defend marriage against its redefinition in terms of gender. Some of us saw this danger at the time, but there was no adequate effort to oppose the devastating impact of divorce.

The larger sexual revolution also plays an incalculable role in this transformation. The moral separation of sex and marriage among millions of Americans removed any hope of establishing a lasting consensus on the central importance of marriage and its essence as a monogamous man-woman union.

A year after the death of DOMA, it is also clear that very real threats to religious liberty now loom before us. This is perhaps the inevitable consequence of a moral revolution of this scale.

Will the government now coerce the consciences of churches, religious institutions, schools, colleges, social service agencies, and the like? There is now strong evidence that government at every level will attempt such coercion. Will America abandon religious liberty for the sake of erotic freedom?

Those of us who believe same-sex marriage to be a moral impossibility now face a very daunting challenge — how to live in a society that is moving so rapidly against our moral worldview, even as the society shared that worldview for over 2,000 years.

We face the challenge of finding how to relate to our neighbors and contribute to the common good when we see that very society undermining human flourishing in the name of sexual liberty.

A year after the death of DOMA the listening and the waiting are almost over. The revolution is almost complete. The shoe is dropping fast.

One thing is clear to all – no one was exaggerating when the Windsor decision was declared by both sides to be revolutionary.

We can all agree on that much, just one year after the revolution was declared.

This article was first published on the CNN Belief Blog.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled today that the Christian-run Hobby Lobby doesn’t have to obey the HHS mandate that is a part of Obamacare that requires businesses to pay for abortion causing drugs in their employee health care plans.

The Obama administration was attempting to make Hobby Lobby and thousands of pro-life businesses and organizations comply with the HHS mandate that compels religious companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees. However, the U.S. Supreme Court today issued a favorable ruling in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a landmark case addressing the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of business owners to operate their family companies without violating their deeply held religious convictions.

Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Samuel Alito handed down the decision for the high court, saying, “The Supreme Court holds government can’t require closely held corporations with religious owners to provide contraception coverage.”

“HHS’s contraception mandate substantially burdens the exercise of religion,” the decision reads, adding that the “decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to mean that all insurance mandates.” The opinion said the “plain terms of Religious Freedom Restoration Act” are “perfectly clear.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion saying that government itself could provide the coverage for contraception and the abortion-causing drugs if a company declines to do so.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a dissent that claims the decision is “of startling breadth,” a claim the majority denies. The major decision indicates it applies to the abortion mandate, not blood transfusions or other practices to which people may have religious objections.

The Hobby Lobby decision only applies to companies, including Conestoga Wood Specialties, which had a companion case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Non-profit groups like Priests for Life and Little Sisters are still waiting for a ruling about their right to opt out of the mandate.

The Obama administration said it was confident it would prevail, saying, “We believe this requirement is lawful…and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.”

Responding to the decision, Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel David Cortman told LifeNews: “Americans don’t surrender their freedom by opening a family business. In its decision today, the Supreme Court affirmed that all Americans, including family business owners, must be free to live and work consistently with their beliefs without fear of punishment by the government. In a free and diverse society, we respect the freedom to live out our convictions. For the Hahns and the Greens, that means not being forced to participate in distributing potentially life-terminating drugs and devices.”

In July, a federal court granted Hobby Lobby a preliminary injunction against the HHS abortion-drug mandate. The injunction prevented the Obama administration from enforcing the mandate against the Christian company, but the Obama administration appealed that ruling. Hobby Lobby could have paid as much as $1.3 million each day in fines for refusing to pay for birth control or abortion-causing drugs under the mandate.

After the appeals court ruling, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton issued a preliminary injunction and stayed the case until Oct. 1 to give the Obama administration time to appeal the decision.

In an opinion read from the bench, the court said, “There is a substantial public interest in ensuring that no individual or corporation has their legs cut out from under them while these difficult issues are resolved.”

A December 2013 Rasmussen Reports poll shows Americans disagree with forcing companies like Hobby Lobby to obey the mandate.

“Half of voters now oppose a government requirement that employers provide health insurance with free contraceptives for their female employees,” Rasmussen reports.

The poll found: “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 38 percent of Likely U.S. Voters still believe businesses should be required by law to provide health insurance that covers all government-approved contraceptives for women without co-payments or other charges to the patient.

Fifty-one percent (51 percent) disagree and say employers should not be required to provide health insurance with this type of coverage. Eleven percent (11 percent) are not sure.”

Another recent poll found 59 percent of Americans disagree with the mandate.

The Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, grew their family business out of their garage. They now own stores in 41 states employing more than 16,000 full time employees. They have always operated their business according to their faith.

Kristina Arriaga, Executive Director of the Becket Fund, tells LifeNews, “In fact, the Greens pay salaries that start at twice the minimum wage and offer excellent benefits, as well as a healthcare package which includes almost all of the contraceptives now mandated by the Affordable Care Act. Their only objection is to 4 drugs and devices which, the government itself concedes, can terminate an embryo.”

“Their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act should be protected by the government. Instead, the government has threatened them with fines and fought them all the way to the Supreme Court,” Arriaga added.

“The government has already exempted tens of millions of Americans from complying with the mandate that forces employers to provide certain specific drugs and devices. However, it refuses to accommodate the Green family because the Green family’s objections are religious.  We believe that the government’s position is not only extreme and unconstitutional; it presents a grave danger to our freedoms,” she continued.

“My family and I are encouraged that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide our case,” said Mr. Green, Hobby Lobby’s founder and CEO.  “This legal challenge has always remained about one thing and one thing only: the right of our family businesses to live out our sincere and deeply held religious convictions as guaranteed by the law and the Constitution. Business owners should not have to choose between violating their faith and violating the law.”

This article was originally posted at the LifeNews.com blog. 

The future of the institution of marriage in the United States will be decided next year as the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) rules on two landmark cases.  The High Court has agreed to hear legal challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and to a California constitutional amendment preserving the definition of natural marriage.

In the most momentous case, the Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, which was approved by California voters in 2008.  Proposition 8 amended California’s state constitution to affirm that marriage is the legal union of one man and one woman.  The passage of Proposition 8 reversed a unilateral decision of the California Supreme Court which mandated that marriage be redefined to include homosexual unions.

Proposition 8 was struck down by a homosexual U.S. District Judge whose ruling was broadly criticized as a “gay rights” manifesto,  rather than a reasoned examination of constitutional law.  That decision was upheld by the Ninth U.S Circuit Court of Appeals in a bizarre ruling that applied its result only to the state of California, rather than the entire Ninth Circuit.  The ruling by the Ninth Circuit has been on hold pending what is now a successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Leading voices in the pro-marriage movement are calling the decision by the Supreme Court to hear the California case welcome news.  “We believe it is a strong signal that the court will reverse the lower courts and uphold Proposition 8,” says John Eastman, chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.

“Had the Supreme Court agreed with the lower courts’ decisions invalidating Proposition 8, it could simply have declined to hear the case,”  Eastman continues.  “It’s a strong signal that the justices are concerned with the rogue rulings that have come out of San Francisco.”

“Marriage between a man and a woman is a universal good that diverse cultures and faiths have honored throughout the history of Western civilization,” says Jim Campbell, legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom.  “We look forward to advocating before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the people’s right to preserve this fundamental building block of civilization.”

Forty-one states currently have laws on the books defining marriage in historical terms as the union of one man and one woman — including Illinois.  Thirty of those states have incorporated definitions of traditional marriage in their state constitutions.  

The Proposition 8 case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, has the potential to be the Roe v. Wade of the national debate over the institution of marriage.  Should the Supreme Court uphold the Ninth Circuit decision, it would almost assuredly lead to the invalidation of all state laws protecting marriage, much like Roe v. Wade nullified all state laws protecting the unborn child.

Brian Brown, President of the National Organization of Marriage, believes such an outcome “would launch a national culture war.”  “The majority of Americans who have voted to protect marriage as the union of a man and a woman are never going to go away.”  A Supreme Court decree mandating so-called “same-sex marriage” on the nation would result in an explosive legal, cultural, and religious civil war more intense than the decades-old national struggle over legalized abortion.

Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, agrees, saying  “Should the Supreme Court decide to overturn the marriage laws of 41 states, the ruling would become even more divisive than the court’s infamous Roe v. Wade decision.  Voters in these states will not accept an activist court redefining our most fundamental social institution.”

The other case the Supreme Court agreed to hear, United States v. Windsor, involves a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.  This federal DOMA protects states who have preserved the institution of marriage from being required to acknowledge same-sex unions approved in other states. 

However, the legal challenge to the federal DOMA regards another provision that provides that government spousal benefits can only be extended to someone in a valid marriage between a man and a woman.   The plaintiff, Edith Windsor of New York’s Greenwich Village, claims she should not have to pay inheritance taxes on the estate of her lifelong lesbian partner.   The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal benefits section of DOMA is unconstitutional, echoing a decision made by a Boston appeals court in another DOMA challenge.

The Supreme Court will have to decide whether that section of DOMA is constitutional in its entirety, or whether it is unconstitutional as applied in states where marriage has been redefined to include homosexual unions.  In a stunning example of dereliction of duty, President Barack Obama instructed the U.S. Justice Department not to defend the federal DOMA in court.  The U.S. House of Representatives stepped forward to provide its own legal defense of the federal DOMA in the absence of Justice Department attorneys.

Some homosexual activists believe momentum is on their side following the decision by voters last month in Washington, Maine, and Maryland to redefine marriage to include homosexual unions.  Those three states join the states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, and Iowa, where so-called same-sex “marriage” has been mandated by state courts or state legislatures.

Other homosexual activists are wary of an unfavorable High Court decision that could prove to be a major setback for their agenda.  Even if the Supreme Court were to force same-sex “marriage” on the entire country, some legal voices in the homosexual community believe that such a decision would be premature, prompting a potent backlash that would refuel the defense of traditional marriage.

The Supreme Court of the United States is expected to hear oral arguments in March, and issue a decision by late June.  Please be praying for all the Justices, particularly Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is expected to be the crucial vote in determining the outcome of these cases.