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Alabama Supreme Court Rejects SCOTUS Marriage Opinion

[On Friday] in a 170-page ruling, the Alabama Supreme Court rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage opinion by issuing its own Judgment in favor of Liberty Counsel’s Petition for Mandamus. In the petition, Liberty Counsel demanded on behalf of its Alabama clients – Alabama Policy Institute (“API”) and Alabama Citizens Action Program (“ALCAP”) – that the state’s probate judges obey Alabama’s Constitution and laws. On March 4, 2015, the Alabama Supreme Court ordered the probate judges to immediately cease issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

“The ruling last year by the Alabama Supreme Court was historic, and is one of the most researched and well-reasoned opinions on marriage to be issued by any court in the country. Today’s opinion by the Alabama Supreme Court calling the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage opinion ‘illegitimate’ will be remembered in history like the ‘shot heard around the world,’” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel.

Following the June 26, 2015, U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 Obergefell opinion on marriage, the Alabama Supreme Court requested the parties to file additional briefs. [On Friday], the Alabama Supreme Court issued its final Judgment, thus affirming and implementing its March 4, 2015 opinion.

“The Alabama Supreme Court has openly rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 marriage opinion, labeling it ‘illegitimate’ and without legal or precedential authority. This is a clear victory for the rule of law and an historic decision by the Alabama Supreme Court. The Judgement makes permanent the Alabama Supreme Court’s order prohibiting probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Alabama Supreme Court has rejected the illegitimate opinion of five lawyers on the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Staver.

Chief Justice Roy Moore and Justice Tom Parker issued concurring opinions openly criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court marriage opinion. Using Supreme Court Chief Justice John Robert’s term of “five lawyers” when referring to the U.S. Supreme Court Obergefell opinion, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore wrote a blistering 105-page concurring opinion:

  • Today this Court by order dismisses all pending motions and petitions and issues the certificate of judgment in this case. That action does not disturb the existing March orders in this case or the Court’s holding therein that the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment, art. I, § 36.03, Ala. Const. 1901, and the Alabama Marriage Protection Act, § 30-1-9, Ala. Code 1975, are constitutional. Therefore, and for the reasons stated below, I concur with the order.
  • I agree with the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts, and with Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, that the majority opinion inObergefell has no basis in the law, history, or tradition of this country. Obergefell is an unconstitutional exercise of judicial authority that usurps the legislative prerogative of the states to regulate their own domestic policy. Additionally, Obergefell seriously jeopardizes the religious liberty guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
  • Based upon arguments of “love,” “commitment,” and “equal dignity” for same-sex couples, five lawyers, as Chief Justice Roberts so aptly describes the Obergefell majority, have declared a new social policy for the entire country. As the Chief Justice and Associate Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito eloquently and accurately demonstrate in their dissents, the majority opinion in Obergefell is an act of raw power with no ascertainable foundation in the Constitution itself. The majority presumed to legislate for the entire country under the guise of interpreting the Constitution. 
  • The Obergefell majority presumes to amend the United States Constitution to create a right stated nowhere therein. That is a lawless act. 
  • I submit that our Founders knew a lot more about freedom than [Justice Kennedy’s opinion] indicates. They secured the freedoms we enjoy, not in judicial decrees of newly discovered rights, but in the Constitution and amendments thereto. That a majority of the Court may identify an “injustice” that merits constitutional correction does not dispense with the means the Constitution has provided in Article V for its own amendment.
  • Although the Court could suggest that the Constitution would benefit from a particular amendment, the Court does not possess the authority to insert the amendment into the Constitution by the vehicle of a Court opinion and then to demand compliance with it. 
  • Novel departures from the text of the Constitution by the Court are customarily accompanied by pretentious language employed to conceal the illegitimacy of its actions. Justice Scalia in hisObergefell dissent refers to this abandonment of “disciplined legal reasoning” as a descent into “the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.”
  • Some of the ostentatious phrases used in the majority opinion [are] more suitable to a romance novel.
  • The majority seeks to invoke the grief, sorrow, and compassion associated with a Greek tragedy. Riding a tidal wave of emotion, the ensuing tears and pathos then suffice to fertilize a new constitutional right nowhere mentioned in the Constitution itself.
  • Abandoning the role of interpreting the written Constitution, the majority has instead decided to become the supposed “voice” of the people, discerning the people’s sentiments and updating the document accordingly. The function of keeping the Constitution up with the times, however, has not been delegated to the Court — or to Congress or the President; that function is reserved to the states under Article V. 
  • Historically, consummation of a marriage always involved an act of sexual intimacy that was dignified in the eyes of the law. An act of sexual intimacy between two men or two women, by contrast, was considered “an infamous crime against nature” and a “disgrace to human nature.”Homosexuals who seek the dignity of marriage must first forsake the sexual habits that disqualify them from admission to that hallowed institution. Surely more dignity attaches to participation in a fundamental institution on the terms it prescribes than to an attempt to wrest its definition to serve inordinate lusts that demean its historic dignity.
  • A “disgrace to human nature” cannot be cured by stripping the institution of holy matrimony of its inherent dignity and redefining it to give social approval to behaviors unsuited to its high station. Sodomy has never been and never will be an act by which a marriage can be consummated.
  • Government exists to secure that right. Because liberty is a gift of God, it must be exercised in conformity with the laws of nature and of nature’s God.
  • Liberty in the American system of government is not the right to define one’s own reality in defiance of the Creator. . . . But the human being, as a dependent creature, is not at liberty to redefine reality; instead, as the Declaration of Independence states, a human being is bound to recognize that the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are endowed by God. Those rights are not subject to a redefinition that rejects the natural order God has created.
  • Citing Genesis 2:24 — The Obergefell majority’s false definition of marriage arises, in great part, from its false definition of liberty. Separating man from his Creator, the majority plunges the human soul into a wasteland of meaninglessness where every man defines his own anarchic reality. In that godless world nothing has meaning or consequence except as the human being desires. Man then becomes the creator of his own reality rather than a subject of the Creator of the Declaration.
  • This false notion of liberty, which permeates the majority opinion in, is the ultimate fallacy upon which it rests. In a world with God left out, the moral boundaries of Scripture disappear, and man’s corrupt desires are given full rein. The end of this experiment in anarchic liberty is yet to be seen. The great sufferers will be the children — deprived of either a paternal or a maternal presence — who are raised in unnatural families that contradict the created order.
  • The invocation of “equal dignity” to justify the invention of a heretofore unknown constitutional right is just another judicial mantra to rationalize the invalidation of state laws that offend the policy preferences of a five-person majority.
  • The majority opinion in Obergefell represents the culmination of a change in our form of government from one of three separate-but-equal branches to one in which the judicial branch now exercises the power of the legislative branch.
  • The Obergefell majority, presuming to know better than the people themselves how to order the fundamental domestic institution of society, has usurped the legislative prerogatives of the people contrary to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
  • In short, the majority acts not as a court of law but as a band of social revolutionaries. The Chief Justice, amazed at this presumption, exclaims: “Just who do we think we are?”
  • The Chief Justice’s quotation of Justice Curtis’s Dred Scott dissent merits serious consideration. If acquiescence to Obergefell indicates that “we have no longer a Constitution,” then the legitimacy of Obergefell is subject to grave doubt. If five Justices of the Supreme Court may at will redefine the Constitution according to their own policy preferences, the mechanism of judicial review, designed originally to protect the rights of the people from runaway legislatures, has morphed into the right of five lawyers to rule the people without their consent.
  • Indeed, as the Chief Justice warns, the plenary power the majority asserts to redefine the fundamental institutions of society offers no assurance that it will not give birth to yet further attacks on the social order.
  • If, as the Chief Justice asserts, the opinion of the majority is not based on the Constitution, do state judges have any obligation to obey that ruling? Does not their first duty lie to the Constitution? 
  • The right to change the form of government in this country belongs to the people themselves through the amendment process, not to judicial oligarchs.
  • These metaphors identify the essence of the majority’s actions: an illegal displacement and usurpation of the democratic process. Chief Justice Roberts accuses the majority of imposing “naked policy preferences” that have “no basis in the Constitution.” Accordingly, the majority’s “extravagant conception of judicial supremacy” is “dangerous for the rule of law.” The unmistakable theme that emerges from these critiques is lawlessness.
  • Justice Scalia also emphasizes the revolutionary character of the majority’s assault on the social order — elevating the “crime against nature” into the equivalent of holy matrimony. This decision, “unabashedly not based on law,” represents a “social upheaval” and a “judicial Putsch.” Justice Alito sounds the same themes. The Court has not unwittingly tread into forbidden territory; instead, it has acted “far beyond the outer reaches” of its authority, boldly trampling the right of the people “to control their own destiny.” 
  • For the last 50 years, the Supreme Court has consistently misused the Fourteenth Amendment to destroy state laws that protect the marital relation and its offspring. Obergefell is the latest fruit of this corrupt tree (refer to Matthew 7:17-18).
  • Truly, the less basis the majority has for its innovations upon the Constitution, the grander is the language employed to justify them, as if high-blown rhetoric could compensate for the absence of constitutional substance. 
  • Obergefell is but the latest example of the Court’s creation of constitutional rights out of thin air in service of the immorality of the sexual revolution. Like Roe, Obergefell is no more than “an exercise of raw judicial power … an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.”
  • Amendments to the Constitution are the business of the people pursuant to Article V; they are not the business of the Court under Article III. Truth may not always be clearly seen, but the majority’s reasoning should not blind us to the reality that the Court seems determined to alter this nation’s organic law. 
  • The definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has existed for millennia and has never been considered an “ill tendency.” By contrast, the Court’s attempt to redefine marriage is “a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty.” 
  • The Obergefell majority, conspicuously overlooking the “essential and historic significance” of the connection between religious liberty and “supreme allegiance to the will of God,” failed to appreciate the seriousness of imposing a new sexual-revolution mandate that requires Alabama public officials to disobey the will of God. 
  • Religious liberty, however, is about more than just “teaching” and “advocating” views of marriage. The majority condescendingly approves religious speech against same-sex marriage but not religious practice in conformity with those beliefs. As Chief Justice Roberts states in his dissent: “The First Amendment guarantees … the freedom to ‘exercise’ religion. Ominously, this is not a word the majority uses.”
  • Obergefell promises to breach the legal protections that have shielded believers from participating in acts hostile to their faith. As Chief Justice Roberts points out, the Obergefellmajority piously declaims that people of faith may believe what they want and seek to persuade others, but it says nary a word about them practicing or exercising their faith as the Free Exercise Clause provides.
  • The Free Exercise Clause, an express constitutional provision, logically takes precedence over a pretended constitutional right formulated from whole cloth by “five lawyers.”
  • Foreseeing the dire consequences for religious freedom in the principle that same-sex marriage must be given equal stature with holy matrimony and foreseeing the inevitable pressure to compel religious institutions, businesses, and practitioners of professions to conform to that unreality, it would be imprudent to wait for the onset of these persecutions, to stand idle until Obergefell “usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents.” Rather “the axe [must be] laid unto the root of the trees,” (refer to Matthew 3:10) and the consequence avoided by denying the principle. To allow a simple majority of the United States Supreme Court to “create” a constitutional right that destroys the religious liberty guaranteed by the First Amendment violates not only common sense but also our duty to the Constitution. 
  • I disagree with the conclusion that the “rule of law” requires judges to follow as the “law of the land” a precedent that is “a super-legislative imposition,” “a mockery,” “a legal fiction,” and “an utter travesty.”
  • By the plain language of Article VI, state judges are bound to obedience to the Constitution, laws made in pursuance thereof, and treaties made under the authority of the United States, not to the opinions of the United States Supreme Court. 
  • Thus, in the plainest terms and employing emphasis, Hamilton declared that acts of the federal government that invade the reserved rights of the states are “acts of usurpation” that deserve to be treated as such. Such acts “would not be the supreme law of the land, but an usurpation of power not granted by the Constitution.”
  • The Supremacy Clause, quite obviously, by this chain of reasoning, does not give the United States Supreme Court or any other agency of the federal government the authority to make its every declaration by that very fact the supreme law of the land. If the Court’s edicts do not arise from powers delegated to the federal government in the Constitution, they are to be treated not as the supreme law of the land but as mere usurpation. 
  • Thus, if precedents are “manifestly absurd or unjust,” “contrary to reason,” or “contrary to the divine law,” they are not to be followed.
  • Applying Blackstone’s analysis, which is compatible with that of Hamilton, one must conclude that the Obergefell opinion is manifestly absurd and unjust, as demonstrated convincingly by the four dissenting Justices in Obergefell and the writings of two Justices of the Louisiana Supreme Court in Costanza. Basing its opinion upon a supposed fundamental right that has no history or tradition in our country, the opinion of the Obergefell majority is “contrary to reason” as well as “contrary to the divine law.”
  • The Obergefell opinion, being manifestly absurd and unjust and contrary to reason and divine law, is not entitled to precedential value. 
  • If, as an individual who is sworn to uphold and support the United States Constitution, I were to place a court opinion that manifestly and palpably violates the United States Constitution above my loyalty to that Constitution, I would betray my oath and blatantly disregard the Constitution I am sworn to uphold. Acquiescence on my part to acts of “palpable illegality” would be an admission that we are governed by the rule of man and not by the rule of law. Simply put, the Justices of the Supreme Court, like every American soldier, are under the Constitution, not above it. 
  • The general principle of blind adherence to United States Supreme Court opinions as “the law of the land” is a dangerous fallacy that is inconsistent with the United States Constitution. Labeling such opinions as “the rule of law” confuses the law itself — the Constitution — with an opinion that purports to interpret that document.
  • Opinions of the Supreme Court that interpret the Constitution are, as Lincoln said, “entitled to very high respect and consideration,” but only insofar as they are faithful to that document. In a case like Obergefell, the “evil effects” Lincoln described should be confined to the unfortunate defendants in that case. We must protect the institution of marriage from judicial subversion and maintain loyalty to the principles upon which our nation was founded.
  • Finally, we should reject the conversion of our republican form of government into an aristocracy of nine lawyers.
  • Some contend, however, that Obergefell, by its mere existence, abrogates the March 2015 orders in this case. Those orders, of course, were not the subject of review in Obergefell
  • The Court had no jurisdiction to order nonparties to Obergefell to obey its judgment for they have not had an opportunity to appear and defend.
  • No Alabama probate judges were parties to Obergefell. Neither were they officers, agents, or servants of any of the defendants in those cases, or in active concert or participation with any of them. The Obergefell defendants were state officials in the four states in the jurisdiction of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, namely Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. Needless to say, Alabama probate judges were not agents, servants, or employees of any of those state officials. Nor were they in “active concert or participation” with any of them.Thus, the judgment in Obergefell that reversed the Sixth Circuit’s judgment does not constitute an order to Alabama probate judges.
  • The dissents of Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, and Justice Alito provide ample justification to refuse to recognize Obergefell as a legitimate judicial judgment. Obergefellconstitutes an unlawful purported amendment of the Constitution by a judicial body that possesses no such authority. As Chief Justice Roberts stated: “The right [Obergefell] announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent.”
  • Rather than limiting themselves to the judicial function of applying existing law to the facts and parties before them, the Obergefell majority violated “the metes and bounds which separate each department of power” by purporting to rewrite the marriage laws of the several states to conform to their own view of marriage.
  • Even more injurious to the rule of law, the Obergefell majority “overleap[ed] the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people” as expressed in the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The majority thus has jeopardized the freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience and the right to acknowledge God as the author and guarantor of true liberty. 
  • By transgressing “the metes and bounds which separate each department of power” and “overleap[ing] the great Barrier” which protects the rights of conscience, the Obergefell majority “exceed[s] the commission from which they derive their authority” and are “tyrants.” By submitting to that illegitimate authority, the people, as Madison stated, become slaves. Free government, rather than being preserved, is destroyed.
  • Obergefell is completely without constitutional authority, a usurpation of state sovereignty, and an effort to impose the will of “five lawyers,” . . . on the people of this country. 
  • In my legal opinion, Obergefell, like Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade that preceded it, is an immoral, unconstitutional, and tyrannical opinion. Its consequences for our society will be devastating, and its elevation of immorality to a special “right” enforced through civil penalties will be completely destructive of our religious liberty.
  • Obergefell contradicts “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” that were invoked in the organic law upon which our country is founded. To invariably equate a Supreme Court decision that clearly contradicts the Constitution with “the rule of law” is to elevate the Supreme Court above the Constitution and to subject the American people to an autocracy foreign to our form of government. Supreme Court Justices are also subject to the Constitution. When “that eminent tribunal” unquestionably violates the limitations set forth in that document, lesser officials — equally bound by oath to the Constitution — have a duty to recognize that fact or become guilty of the same transgression.

In a separate concurring opinion, Alabama Supreme Court Justice Parker wrote:

  • Obergefell conclusively demonstrates that the rule of law is dead.”
  • Obergefell … trampled into the dust the last vestiges of the legitimacy of the United States Supreme Court.”
  • Obergefell is not based on legal reasoning, history, tradition, the Court’s own rules, or the rule of law, but upon the empathetic feelings of the ‘five lawyers’ in the majority.”
  • “[The Supreme Court] majority illegitimately imposed its will upon the American people. We now appear to be a government not of laws, but of ‘five lawyers.’”
  • Obergefell is ‘no judicial act at all’ because it is ‘without principled justification.’”
  • Obergefell is without legitimacy.”
  • “This is not the rule of law, this is despotism and tyranny.”
  • “Despotism and tyranny were evils identified in the Declaration of Independence as necessitating the break with King George and Great Britain.”
  • Obergefell is the latest example of judicial despotism.”
  •  “As justices and judges on state courts around the nation, we have sworn and oath to uphold the United States Constitution. We have not sworn to blindly follow the unsubstantiated opinion of ‘five lawyers.’”

Justice Parker quotes from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1992 abortion decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey:

[T]he Court cannot buy support for its decisions by spending money and, except to a minor degree, it cannot independently coerce obedience to its decrees. The Court’s power lies, rather, in its legitimacy, a product of substance and perception that shows itself in the people’s acceptance of the Judiciary as fit to determine what the Nation’s law means and to declare what it demands…. [A] decision without principled justification would be no judicial act at all…. The Court must take care to speak and act in ways that allow people to accept its decision on the terms the Court claims for them, as grounded truly in principle, not compromises with social and political pressures having, as such, no bearing on the principled choices that the Court is obliged to make. Thus, the Court’s legitimacy depends on circumstances in which their principled character is sufficiently plausible to be accepted by the Nation.

“Justices and judges are bound to interpret the U.S. Constitution. When they write opinions that have no legal foundation, then their opinions lack legal legitimacy. That is what the five lawyers did on the U.S. Supreme Court in the marriage opinion. They ignored the Constitution, the Court’s precedents, and millennia of human history. Their opinion calls into question the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. When we the people lose trust in the Justices, the authority of the Supreme Court is undermined. If the people accept this 5-4 opinion, then we have transitioned to a despotic form of government. The people must now decide if we are governed by the rule of law or the whim of unelected judges,” concluded Staver.


Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.




The Gift of Religious Freedom

While the legal case will continue to work its way through the courts, the bottom line is this: Kim Davis has won. The homofascists have lost.

Last Tuesday, Kentucky’s new governor, Matt Bevin, issued an executive order that eliminates the names of all county clerks from marriage licenses and protects the unalienable constitutional rights and religious freedoms of Kim Davis and all other clerks in Kentucky.

“This action is a fulfillment of a campaign promise by Gov. Bevin and is directly what our client Kim Davis has been requesting for months,” said Mat Staver, Davis’ attorney and founder of the Christian civil rights firm Liberty Counsel. “This promise will enable her and other clerks to do their jobs without compromising religious values and beliefs.”

The governor’s statement reads in part:

“To ensure that the sincerely held religious beliefs of all Kentuckians are honored, Executive Order 2015-048 directs the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives to issue a revised marriage license form to the offices of all Kentucky County Clerks. The name of the County Clerk is no longer required to appear on the form.”

While the First Amendment alone should be enough to ensure these safeguards, the unconstitutional actions of five “progressive” lawyers on the U.S. Supreme Court, who, back in June, presumed to capriciously redefine the immutable meaning of marriage, has created legal and moral chaos from coast-to-coast, making fixes such as that issued by Gov. Bevin necessary. Furthermore, these extremist lawyers’ subjective and unprecedented opinion will require additional fixes in all other states to reaffirm Christians’ objective and constitutionally guaranteed rights. Although the fight to repair the perversion of marriage committed by the high court will continue, this is an important step in the right direction.

You may recall that Davis was arbitrarily imprisoned for five days earlier this year by federal Judge David Bunning for exercising her religious liberties and refusing to violate her conscience by signing her name to, and, thereby, giving her official approval of, counterfeit “gay marriage” licenses. These licenses, of course, violate both natural law and the manifold biblical proscriptions against the sin of unnatural same-sex deviancy. Bunning’s tyrannical move backfired tremendously, earning Davis’ the support of tens-of-millions of Christians worldwide, as well as both a private audience with, and the express support of, Pope Francis.

“This is a wonderful Christmas gift for Kim Davis,” continued Staver. “This executive order is a clear, simple accommodation on behalf of Kim Davis and all Kentucky clerks. Kim can celebrate Christmas with her family knowing she does not have to choose between her public office and her deeply held religious convictions. What former Gov. Beshear could have done but refused to do, Gov. Bevin did with this executive order. We are pleased that Gov. Bevin kept his campaign promise to accommodate the religious rights of Kim Davis. We will notify the courts of the executive order, and this order proves our point that a reasonable accommodation should have been done to avoid Kim having to spend time in jail.”

“Bah humbug!” cried the ACLU.

“Governor Bevin’s executive action has added to the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over marriage licensing in Kentucky,” claimed ACLU of Kentucky Legal Director William Sharp.

“The requirement that the county clerk’s name appear on marriage licenses is prescribed by Kentucky law and is not subject to unilateral change by the governor,” he demanded, proving that the anti-Christian left’s goal was never about so-called “marriage equality” but, rather, was to force Christians to deny marriage reality and personally affirm, under penalty of law, mock “gay marriages.”

The ACLU will soon have little more to say on the subject as lawmakers are poised to further codify and build upon Bevin’s executive order. “Next month, the Kentucky legislature is expected to update the state’s marriage laws and will consider a provision exempting county clerks from having to issue them,” reports ABC News. “Davis said Kentucky’s marriage laws have been ‘completely eviscerated’ by the Supreme Court’s ruling and said she would be willing to come to the state Capitol to testify about any changes.”

Other state legislatures, as well as the U.S. Congress, must soon follow suit if any progress is to be made into the impasse between secularist change agents hostile to religious freedom, and the faithful Christians who enjoy it as a matter of law.

“In an interview with the Associated Press about her year at the center of one of the biggest social changes in decades, Davis described it as ‘a very emotional and a very real situation to all people.’ But she said simply telling others about her faith was not ‘going to make anybody believe anything.’ And so she put her faith in action by refusing to issue the licenses,” added ABC.

“‘No one would ever have remembered a county clerk that just said … ‘Even though I don’t agree with it, it’s OK. I’ll do it,’ Davis said. ‘If I could be remembered for one thing, it’s that I was not afraid to not compromise myself.’”

Kim Davis will certainly be remembered for her steadfast refusal to compromise herself. But she, along with Gov. Bevin, will also be remembered for helping, this Christmas season, to re-establish the gift of religious freedom for the people of Kentucky.

Even so, the war for our culture will continue into the New Year and well beyond.


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‘Gay Marriage’ Rooted in Fraud

The very notion of “gay marriage” is an artificial construct. It’s the aberrant byproduct of the sexual revolution, which, itself, was largely instigated by bug doctor turned “sexologist,” Alfred Kinsey.

Though married to a woman who took part in his many filmed “scientific” orgies, Kinsey was a promiscuous homosexual and sadomasochist. He managed to completely upend and twist the world’s perception of human sexuality in the 1950s and ’60s with his world famous “Kinsey Reports.”

While his “research” has been universally discredited and exposed as fraudulent, ideologically motivated and even criminal, it remains, nonetheless, the primary source behind today’s “sexual orientation science.”

For this reason, and many others, the novel notion of “gay marriage” sits atop a house of cards.

On April 28, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on whether to attempt, once and for all, the deconstruction and redefinition of the institution of marriage. The court will then hand down a decision by the end of June. In anticipation of this landmark case, civil rights law firm Liberty Counsel has submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court a friend of the court brief that reveals the criminally fraudulent foundation upon which the “marriage equality” Tower of Babel has been raised.

Among other things, the brief features the findings of Dr. Judith Reisman, the foremost expert on Kinsey’s pseudo-scientific cultural activism. Reisman has served as scientific consultant to four U.S. Department of Justice administrations, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). She is a visiting professor of law at Liberty University School of Law and works hand-in-hand with Liberty Counsel.

As the brief reveals, most people are completely unaware that during his tenure at Indiana University, Kinsey facilitated, with stopwatches and ledgers, the systematic sexual abuse of hundreds, if not thousands, of children and infants – all in the name of science.

Kinsey asserted that children are “sexual from birth.” He further concluded, based upon experiments he directed and documented in his infamous Table 34, that adult-child sex is harmless, even beneficial, and described child “orgasm” as “culminating in extreme trembling, collapse, loss of color, and sometimes fainting. …” Many children suffered “excruciating pain,” he observed, “and [would] scream if movement [was] continued.” Some “[would] fight away from the [adult] partner and may make violent attempts to avoid climax, although they derive[d] definite pleasure from the situation.”

It’s little wonder that Dr. Reisman identifies Kinsey as a “sexual psychopath.” These children were as young as 2 months old.

Kinsey’s research also determined that rape doesn’t really hurt women. In his 1953 volume “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” at page 122, Kinsey wrote, “Among the 4,441 females [reporting rape] on whom we have data, there was only one clear cut case of injury … and very few instances of vaginal bleeding, which however, did not appear to do any appreciable damage.”

Kinsey claimed that, like himself, over 30 percent of men are homosexual (today’s legitimate research has established this figure to actually fall somewhere between 1-3 percent). There can be no doubt that, if he were alive today, Alfred Kinsey would be one of the loudest voices clamoring for the redefinition of marriage.

“For the past 67 years, scholars, lawyers and judges have undertaken fundamental societal transformation by embracing Alfred Kinsey’s statistically and scientifically fraudulent ‘data’ derived from serial child rapists, sex offenders, prisoners, prostitutes, pedophiles and pederasts,” notes the brief. “Now these same change agents, still covering up the fraudulent nature of the Kinsey ‘data,’ want this Court to utilize it to demolish the cornerstone of society, natural marriage.”

“Changing millennia of history must always be approached with trepidation,” the brief continues. “In this case, the change must be rejected outright not only because it is seeking to redefine something which cannot be redefined, but also because the proposed change is grounded in fraudulent ‘research’ based on skewed demographics and the sexual abuse of hundreds of infants and children.”

The brief pleads with the U.S. Supreme Court not to “erase millennia of human history and dismantle the granite cornerstone of society in favor of an experimental construct that is barely a decade old.” Instead, Liberty Counsel asserts, “This case presents the Court with the opportunity to affirm and preserve the unique, comprehensive union of a man and a woman, the foundational social institution upon which society was built and the future of the nation depends.”

In the past, the Supreme Court has upheld marriage as a foundational social institution that is necessarily defined as the union of one man and one woman:

  • Marriage is “fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.” Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942).
  • “An institution in the maintenance of which in its purity the public is deeply interested, for it is the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress.” Maynard v. Hill, 125 U. S. 190 (1888).

“Older than the Constitution and the laws of any nation, marriage is not a creation of any government, but it is an obvious relationship between one man and one woman. Marriage is a natural bond that society or religion can only ‘solemnize,’” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel.

It is a tragic commentary on America’s moral freefall that the highest court in the land would consider, even for an instant, perverting the cornerstone institution of marriage to reflect the psychotic image and anti-social activism of a man who, himself, was a criminal pervert.

Illinois Family Institute is joining Liberty Counsel in calling Christians to unite in fasting and prayer for three days before the U.S. Supreme Court hears the case – on April 23, 24 and 25.

At this point, prayer alone may save marriage and keep, at bay, the wrath of a just and Holy God.


Read more about the Kinsey’s fraudulent research and cover up at Dr. Reisman’s website.

 




Judicial Clash on Alabama’s Horizon

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a stay paving the way for Alabama probate judges to issue same-sex “marriage” licenses and perform the ceremonies. Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver tells OneNewsNow that Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore issued a memo to the judges instructing them not to do so because a federal court lacks jurisdiction to force them to do it.

“We fully support that,” Staver emphasizes. “We’re ready to defend any Alabama probate judge who refuses to participate – and we’re actually willing also to come against those who violate now the administrative order of the chief justice.”

Liberty Counsel is representing Nick Williams and other probate judges in Alabama who refuse to participate in same-sex marriages. “And we fully support not only the letter and the memorandum and now most recently the administrative order from the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore,” Staver adds.

Some of the probate judges are issuing the licenses, but Staver says Judge Moore is on target with his instruction forbidding them to do it – an argument the chief justice himself has made.

“This is to be applauded,” states the Liberty Counsel founder. “This may set up a clash between the federal and state system, a clash that is far overdue – because these federal judges have gone way beyond their authority assuming that they can order the rest of state authorities and officials to participate in an immoral act such as same-sex marriage.”

Staver points out that the Alabama code doesn’t require a judge of probate to perform marriage for anyone – so they can refuse if they choose. A federal judge has no jurisdiction over them.

Read Judge Moore’s order to Alabama probate judges




Secular Sensitivity Gone Wild

It’s not enough for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to use its legal clout to halt graduation invocations or prayers before high school football games.

In Florida, the ACLU insists that even a secular school concert in a building that is used for religious services is beyond the pale. As is often the case, a single “atheist” parent complained, and that was enough for the ACLU to threaten legal action over the possibility of attendees catching religion “cooties.”

Of course, the ACLU did not phrase it as such, nor did they liken the church to a leper colony. But they got their way – sort of.

Rather than fight the legal assault, officials at Barron Collier High School near Naples, Florida at first called off their fifth annual fall concert at Moorings Presbyterian Church. As outraged students who had practiced for weeks for the event objected, school officials fashioned a deal. They would move the fall concert to another district high school and then have a second concert at the church in December.

Students were not thrilled, and they let school officials know it. Only about a third of the chorale’s members performed at the other school on Nov. 20, even though absentees were warned they would be given an F and it would count for one-sixteenth of their final grade.

“It was kind of like, ‘take one for the team,’ ” senior Claire Welsh told the Naples Daily News after the performance:

“She was crying right up to the start of the show, which saw only about 60 of the 175 choirs students take part. ‘It’s my senior year and I’ve been doing this for four years. This is a really sad start to my final year of choir.’

“Parents were told if the concert went off Thursday at Gulf Coast, the December concert would be back at Moorings, which parents and students argue has better acoustics.”

The ACLU had contended that because Moorings Presbyterian Church is regularly used for religious services, the atheist parent rightly found the concert location objectionable, even though the event contains no religious content.

Liberty Counsel, a pro-family, constitutional legal group, offered the school pro bono legal representation to fight the ACLU, urging district officials not to cave in to its “campaign of intimidation and misinformation,” according to OneNewsNow.com.

“The courts have held the use of religious property by a school district to be constitutional if there is a clear secular purpose for the use, the use does not endorse or discourage religion, and the ‘reasonable observer’ would not conclude that the school district endorses religion,” Liberty Counsel asserted. “The clear secular purpose to use the Presbyterian church auditorium is for sufficient room to hold the crowd and appropriate acoustics. … The students know that they are simply using a building.”

In an Oct. 30 letter issued to Collier County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Kamela Patton, Liberty Counsel attorney Horatio G. Mihet assured district officials that holding the concert would not put the district in legal jeopardy:

“The ACLU’s legal position and threats are baseless and constitutionally infirm. Collier County Schools does not violate any student’s constitutional rights by simply using or even leasing a church building for the performance of concert music by the High School Chorus. Courts have been crystal clear on this point:

“‘Plausible secular reasons…exist for performing school choir concerts in churches and other venues associated with religious institutions. Such venues often are acoustically superior to high school auditoriums or gymnasiums, yet still provide adequate seating capacity. Moreover, by performing in such venues, an instructor can showcase his choir to the general public in an atmosphere conducive to the performance of serious choral music.’” Bauchman for Bauchman v. W. High Sch., 132 F.3d 542, 554 (10th Cir. 1997).

“Thus, if a church can permanently lease a building for operation of a school without violating the Establishment Clause, then surely two hours in a large, air conditioned, acoustically ideal room is perfectly acceptable,” Mihet wrote.

It would have been nice if school officials had bucked the ACLU’s bullying and gone ahead with the fall concert at the church, which they had done the previous four years.

But at least an anemic version of the show went on, with the promise of another, and lots of students who got an ‘F’ showed that they know something very important: that freedom is not free.


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

 




Bloody Hands: The Southern Poverty Law Center

Long before homosexual activist Floyd Corkins entered the D.C.-based Family Research Council (FRC) with the intent to commit mass murder, I warned from the rooftops that the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center’s anti-Christian “hate group” propaganda might spur such bloodshed. With a column headlined, “Liberal violence rising,” I wrote, “The SPLC’s dangerous and irresponsible (‘hate group’) disinformation campaign can embolden and give license to like-minded, though less stable, left-wing extremists, creating a climate of true hate. Such a climate is ripe for violence.”

Tragically, my deepest fears were realized.

Then, in August, days after Corkins was heroically disarmed by FRC employ Leo Johnson, whom Corkins shot in the arm, I penned another column titled “Fanning the flames of left-wing violence.” I plead with the SPLC to end its “dishonest and reprehensible” strategy of “juxtaposing FRC and other Christian organizations with violent extremist groups” in a transparent effort to marginalize them.

“I appeal to your sense of goodwill. This is not a game. Lives are at stake,” I implored. “I know you have good employees (I’ve met some) who believe they’re doing the right thing; so, please, validate that belief. It’s time to remove your metaphorical ‘hate group’ Star of David from mainstream Christian organizations before another of your ideological allies spills blood.”

I no longer believe the SPLC has a sense of goodwill. In fact, based on FBI evidence and the group’s own actions (and inaction), I and many others are left with no other inference but this: The SPLC – a left-wing extremist fundraising behemoth – may be intentionally inciting anti-Christian violence.

Just days ago, Corkins pled guilty to a number of charges, including domestic terrorism. FBI evidence revealed that he was both motivated by and utilized the SPLC’s “anti-gay hate map” to target and locate his intended Christian mass murder victims.

Further evidence reveals that the “hate map” – more accurately labeled “hit map” – even provided the exact location of FRC and other Christian groups found on Corkins’ hit-list with little red dots to helpfully pinpoint their precise locations.

Corkins told the FBI after the shooting that he intended to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-fil-A sandwiches (which he brought with him) in victims’ faces.” Prosecutors said that he planned to leave FRC after the attack and go to another conservative group to continue his reign of terror. A handwritten list of three other groups was found with his belongings while an investigation of Corkins’ computer revealed that he identified his targets on the SPLC website. The other groups were also maliciously listed by the SPLC as “hate groups.”

Motive to kill? Fomented. Who to kill? Provided. Where to kill? Pinpointed, with easy access to driving directions. The only thing the SPLC did not do was purchase Corkins’ gun and drive him to the crime scene.

Here’s why, to my own aghast bewilderment, I’m left with little choice but to believe the SPLC may be intentionally inciting anti-Christian violence. As noted by the FRC, “Even after an attempted mass murder of the FRC staff, the ‘hate map’ is still prominently featured on the SPLC website today – which shocks most conservative pundits.”

“Shocks” is an understatement.

“When Congresswoman Giffords and several others were shot in Arizona by Jared Loughner, the left went into overdrive blaming Sarah Palin for a map that had a list of political targets on it. After the fact, we learned that Loughner was apolitical and he clearly had not used Sarah Palin’s map of political targets. That did not stop the left from blaming the right,” noted RedState’s Erick Erickson. “By the way, Palin took down her target map after the controversy. The Southern Poverty Law Center? Crickets …” 

What other explanation is there? I understand that it’s difficult to admit you’re wrong, especially when the scheme seemed so delicious at the time. But once FBI evidence conclusively proves that you were, to a large degree, responsible for inciting an act of domestic terrorism, most reasonable people would take a deep breath, take a step back, admit fault and hobble forward in an effort to rehabilitate a reputation in ruin.

Is the SPLC a left-wing extremist group? Absolutely. Are they anti-Christian? Without a doubt. But few would have believed, until now, that they might intentionally, with malice aforethought, seek to incite anti-Christian bloodshed.

Scandalously, the Barack Obama administration continues to maintain deep ties with this radical organization.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center has a long history of maliciously slandering pro-family groups with language and labels that incite hatred and undermine civil discourse,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “In the issues of family and marriage, Christians are literally in the crosshairs of radical homosexual activists, and the SPLC is fueling the hatred and providing the targets. The SPLC should be held accountable for its reckless acts. Even more disturbing than the SPLC’s irresponsible behavior is the fact that the Obama administration is in bed with this group,” said Staver.

“It is ironic that Christians who believe in natural marriage have been isolated by radical homosexual activists and demonized as ‘homophobes’ and ‘haters,’” he concluded.

Weeks before Corkins pleaded guilty of terrorism and assault with intent to kill, a study from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point entitled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far Right” said the “violent far right” exhibits an intense fear or dislike of foreign people, “including people with alternative sexual preferences.” The SPLC’s warped view of reality has been adopted by the Obama administration.

“What the SPLC and other homosexual activists are doing is intentional and dangerous,” said Staver. “It is time to end the dangerous rhetoric and resume a civil discourse on the subject of natural marriage and morality.”

Indeed if, God forbid, this SPLC “hate group” propaganda leads to another act of left-wing terrorism like that at FRC, this dangerous group should be held legally – perhaps even criminally liable.

In the meantime, to the media, I say this: If you dare, even for a moment, give any credence whatsoever to this deadly SPLC “hate group” nonsense, you too will have blood on your hands.

SPLC, you’re no longer fooling anyone.

Stop fooling yourselves.




DOS Protest Keeps Students from Learning in School

From Liberty Counsel

On Friday, April 20, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) will encourage students to remain silent for an entire school day in solidarity with the radical lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) agenda. 

While “peaceful” in name, schools face harsh pressure from the radical LGBT movement to support and promote the Day of Silence. Despite the huge push on schools and teachers from GLSEN to advance the LGBT agenda through this event, no one can be legally forced to participate or condone the Day of Silence. 

Last year, some parents chose to withdraw their children from school on that day. Parents are encouraged to call the schools and tell them the reason their children will not be attending. School administrators usually listen, because the school loses money for each absence. 

School teachers should be aware that students do not have the right to remain silent when they are called upon by teachers. Conduct on the part of a student that causes a substantial disruption or material interference with school activities is not protected under the First Amendment. Students cannot learn if they refuse to participate in class, and they harm other students’ experience by not contributing to a dialogue of learning. 

School administrators do not have to promote the Day of Silence. In those states that require abstinence instruction, schools do not have to recognize clubs that promote sexual activities. 

Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, said, “The Day of Silence is not about tolerance or bullying. It is about pushing a sexual agenda. Students and staff who disagree with a radical sexualized agenda are demonized and made to feel like outsiders. Children should be afforded a rigorous education opportunity and not be forced to accept a radical sexualized agenda subsidized with tax dollars. Parents and lawmakers should take the time to learn about the extreme views of GLSEN and the intolerance promoted by the Day of Silence.”