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Bad Laws Lie About Right and Wrong

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Written by Abigal Ruth

The love of a parent for a child is the most natural love there is. Most people find it easier to love their children than any other people on the planet and would sacrifice their very lives for their children if necessary. I don’t think it’s overstating it to say that our love for our children is probably the purest and least self-serving love of which we are capable as fallen human beings in a broken world.

So how is it that killing our children has become not only epidemic in practice but morally acceptable in the minds of so many Americans? I am of course talking about abortion. The most obvious answer is that we are sinners and everything about us is corrupt in one way or another—even our love for our children. God makes that fact crystal clear in the Bible which whitewashes nothing. References to children being sacrificed to pagan gods pepper the pages of the Old Testament. The well documented practice of ancient Romans abandoning their unwanted infants at garbage dumps to die of exposure, neglect and/or animal attack, surely indicates that a lack of respect for human life is normal for human beings who don’t have the enlightenment of God’s law. But still, how have so many mothers become the mortal enemies of their own unborn children?

I would suggest to you that there is another principle at work here. It can be found in Paul’s letter to the Galatians (3:24) which says, “the Law has become our tutor…(AMP)” Paul was, of course talking about God’s laws which He gave to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. The central point of this verse is not the point I am about to make, but nevertheless true: For better or worse, all laws teach people about right and wrong—especially non-religious people who do not have an independent moral code. They figure if it’s legal it must not be that bad…

In their excellent book, Legislating Morality, Dr. Norman Geisler and Frank Turek say it this way,

“Even though laws don’t change hearts overnight, they often help change attitudes over the long term…Today, apart from the tiny fraction of racist extremists in this country, everybody believes that slavery is morally wrong. Did hearts and attitudes change overnight because we outlawed slavery? No. Behavior changed because slave owners didn’t want to go to jail, but the law did help change pro-slavery attitudes over the long term…Before the Civil War, slave owners could rationalize the obvious immorality of slavery under the cover of “it’s legal.” Afterward, the law didn’t proved that convenient excuse and attitudes slowly changed.”

The same has been true of abortion. Abortion on demand was illegal for the first 200 years of our existence as a nation. All fifty states had laws against it. Even in New York it was limited to cases of rape, incest and saving the mother’s life. Before Roe v. Wade the vast majority of Americans believed that abortion was immoral. The laws in all fifty states protecting the unborn confirms this. The legalization of abortion did not come about as a result of the American people clamoring for it. The change in attitude toward abortion came after seven unelected U.S. Supreme Court justices arbitrarily reversed the will of the majority as expressed through their legislators to protect the unborn. Legalizing abortion helped to remove the stigma of immorality and taught millions of Americans the lie that abortion is morally acceptable. We have seen the same change in attitude happen in a stunningly short period time with regard to homosexual behavior and same-sex marriage.

We need not criminalize every behavior that God calls sin. That would be both unworkable and foolish. However, our civil laws should never contradict God’s laws because God’s laws accurately reflect what is truly right and wrong.

I can foresee a day in which infanticide, prostitution and even pedophilia will not only be legalized but will become morally acceptable in the minds of many Americans. Unless more people learn to fear God and turn to His law as the primary source of moral wisdom, the escalation of evil is inevitable. The consequences will be catastrophic–especially for children. Pastors, it’s time to quit pulling your punches. Teach God’s law as well as His grace. If your congregations don’t learn right and wrong from God they WILL learn it elsewhere…

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
~Romans 10:14~



Scalia Defended Democracy, Liberals Subvert It

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Written by Frank Turek

“Well, there are many legitimate philosophies of judicial review,” you say.

Not if you believe in democracy, or a representative republic. Only originalism, which insists on interpreting the Constitution by its original meaning, protects democratic rule. The people spoke when they originally passed the Constitution. And they can speak again through the amendment process.

But when justices take it upon themselves to amend the Constitution from the bench, then “we the people” no longer govern ourselves. We are, instead, governed by unelected justices who bypass democracy to impose their will on the rest of us.

“Oh, but the Constitution is a ‘living’ document!” say the liberals.

If it is, then we have no constitution at all. Why have a written constitution if justices can interpret it any way they want? Why have red lights if drivers are free at anytime to interpret them as green lights?

Actually, in one sense the Constitution is a living document, but not in the sense liberals advocate. The Constitution is “living” through the amendment process built into the document itself. It is not living through the whims of liberal justices.

“Ah, but the amendment process is too arduous,” you say.

It’s supposed to be arduous because changing the highest law of the land can have serious negative consequences. When the court unilaterally changes the Constitution, it not only subverts democracy, but it often moves important fences without considering why they were placed there in the first place. Their cavalier changing of abortion and marriage laws, for example, is killing or hurting millions of innocent children.

Moreover, the separation of powers created by our Constitution recognizes the fact that power tends to corrupt — another reason why no one branch should be able to unilaterally alter the law.

As Justice Scalia put it, “If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That’s flexibility.”

“Oh Frank,” you say, “Scalia was so extreme. Why can’t we take a moderate interpretation of the text?”

Justice Scalia had a brilliant response to that as well: “What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you’d like it to mean?”

You want it to mean something else? You can change the meaning, as Justice Scalia observed, by convincing your fellow citizens at the ballot box!

In fact, that’s how it’s been for most of our country’s history. To show you how much our country long-believed what Justice Scalia championed — that the people, not judges, are the legislators — consider the fact that even moral no-brainers, such as the right not be enslaved, and the rights of blacks and women to vote, were enshrined in the Constitution by the amendment process, not by judges legislating from the bench.

A hundred years ago, no judges thought that the Fourteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote. A Constitutional amendment had to be passed to recognize the right. Yet, today five justices think that the Fourteenth Amendment somehow grants a woman the right to marry another woman. (Newsflash: if the equal protection clause didn’t guarantee a woman the right to vote when it was passed, it certainly doesn’t guarantee her right to marry another woman today!)

If you’re for so-called same-sex marriage (really genderless marriage), you might like the result of that decision. But you should be very afraid of the process by which that result was achieved. For if justices can evolve the Constitution according to their own whims, one day they might declare that your rights have “evolved” in a direction you don’t like.

Consider the “right” to abortion invented in 1973. If you’re a liberal, is that “right” subject to “evolution”? What if a judge comes along one day and declares that the U.S. Constitution has “evolved” to guarantee the unborn a right to life. Would you accept that idea of constitutional evolution?

And what’s to stop liberal justices from unilaterally “evolving” the Bill of Rights, so your rights to free speech, religion, association, and to bear arms are diminished? The only way to stop them is to put more Justice Scalia’s on the court. Indeed, only originalist judges should be confirmed on the Court. After all, you don’t need to worry about losing your freedoms to a judge’s political preferences if he is an originalist because his political preferences have nothing to do with his job!  On the other hand, liberals are not committed to the defending the Constitution; they are committed to inserting their own “reasoned judgment” into the Constitution.

A liberal Supreme Court is not only a threat to democracy; it’s a threat to stability. If we don’t respect the rule of law, we will slip further into a state of corruption and instability common in so many other countries, where people rule by intimidation and political paybacks rather than adherence to the law as written. To maintain America we must respect the process by which we make, interpret and apply law.

Antonin Scalia consistently did that, even ruling against his own policy preferences when the law demanded he do so. He was a witty, winsome, articulate and unwavering defender of the most American of ideals — that we have the right to govern ourselves.

Please pray for his family. And pray for our freedoms that have become less secure with his passing.

This article was originally posted at ChristianPost.com