Follow the Money: HRC/Amicus Brief

Written by Chris Walker

This past Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments for Obergefell v. Hodges in what is shaping up to be a landmark case in the national marriage debate. At issue are the questions of whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to license marriages between two people of the same sex and whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to recognize marriages between two people of the same sex licensed and performed out-of-state.

By now, conservatives should be very familiar with an influential organization that has carried the banner for same-sex marriage advocacy, the Human Rights Campaign. However, many may be unaware of the powerful network of corporations that are involved with HRC’s longstanding push to overturn marriage laws in America.

Just a few years back, HRC organized the Business Coalition for DOMA Repeal as a series of cases, such as Windsor, challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act were heading to the Supreme Court. Fast-forward to 2015 and we see a growing number of corporations advocating for ultimate overhaul of state marriage laws in Obergefell.

In March of this year, 379 business entities signed an amicus brief urging the Court to rule against traditional marriage laws. Not surprisingly, many of the companies signing the brief are listed as corporate supporters of HRC. Just a few examples of these include American Airlines, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Starbucks.

Other signers that are also confirmed sponsors of the annual HRC National Dinner include Marriott, Microsoft and Wells Fargo.

2nd Vote has compiled a resource page that list the companies involved with HRC, as well as the companies advocating against traditional marriage laws. This page also includes a list of all the signers of the amicus brief and links to the language contained in the brief.

CLICK HERE to see the list of corporate sponsors.

In dissent of Windsor, Justice Antonin Scalia appears to have been eerily prescient in his criticism of the majority’s ruling when he wrote: By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition. Indeed, the ruling in Windsor gave groups like HRC a valuable rhetorical tool to enlist the support of major corporations to fund their agenda.

However, that agenda that we actually fund by doing business with many of these companies goes against our values on several levels. Recently, we have seen major corporations in Indiana eagerly joining the campaign to spread disinformation on laws protecting religious liberty. Perhaps just as concerning, we see the business alliance with HRC pushing for judicial activism that could threaten the very tenets of the legislative process and federalism.

Conservatives should inform themselves on the potential ramifications of Obergefell and hold these companies accountable for their advocacy that benefits their own self-interest, which the evidence shows is not constitutionalism, nor is it the defense of our most sacred social unit.

Chris Walker is the Executive Director of 2nd Vote, a conservative shopper app. To find out more, download the free app or visit 2ndVote.com. Originally posted at Redstate.com.

SCOTUS Hearings on Same-Sex Faux-Marriage

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.

The Illinois Family Institute is completely dependent on the voluntary contributions of individuals just like you. Without you, we would be unable to fight the radical agenda being pushed by the godless Left.

To make a credit card donation over the phone, call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.

Secularism Declares Open War on Religious Faith

In case you didn’t know it, if you are a conservative Christian, you are just like Boko Haram and ISIS. At least, that’s what the secularists are saying. More absurd still, they actually believe this.

Of course, secularism has been waging war against religion for centuries, but more recently, in America and Europe, the rhetoric of secularism has become more extreme and shrill.

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, critics complained that the Court’s eminently reasonable decision was “anti-scientific.”

As noted by Jonathan Adler in The Washington Post, “The Daily Beast’s Sally Kohn decried the Court’s reliance on ‘bunk science’ and The Nation’s Reed Richardson claimed the Hobby Lobby majority’s opinion rested on ‘specious scientific claims.’ ‘Alito and the four other conservative justices on the court were essentially overruling not just an Obamacare regulation, but science,’ reported Mother Jones, while another MoJo story ranked Hobby Lobby to be among the Supreme Court’s four ‘biggest science blunders.’ And over at The Incidental Economist, Austin Frakt simply declared ‘The majority of the Supreme Court doesn’t get science.'”

Adler, hardly a flaming fundamentalist, refuted the claim.

But is anyone surprised that a faith-based challenge to Obamacare would be branded “anti-scientific”?

Shades of the Church’s historic suppression of intellectual progress!

Still, attacks like these are minor compared to secularism’s idea that all committed believers must be the same, be they Islamic extremists or evangelical Christians.

Earlier this year, “City councilors from Nanaimo, B.C. [Canada] voted . . . to ban a Christian leadership conference scheduled to be podcast at the city’s convention center because one of the sponsors of the conference was U.S. restaurant chain Chick-fil-A. According to one councilor, the chain spreads ‘divisiveness, homophobia…[and] expressions of hate’ because of its CEO’s pro-marriage views.”

But it gets worse: “City councilors condemned the event as ‘hateful’, compared it to the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram, and said the decision to ban the event from public property was no different than if they had voted to ban an organized crime ring, too.” (Ironically, the conference featured speakers like Laura Bush and Desmond Tutu, both of whom support same-sex “marriage.”)

There you have it. Chick-fil-A is no different than Islamic radicals who burn little boys alive and kidnap and rape young girls, not to mention being similar to an organized crime ring.

In the same spirit, radio host David Pakman stated that he saw no real difference between ISIS and what he called conservative, right wing extremists (a definition that he would use to describe many evangelical Christians), a charge affirmed by his producer during the show as self-evident and irrefutable.

But of course! Bible believing Christians who affirm the sanctity of life and marriage are the same as monstrous brutes who behead the innocent in cold blood. Who can’t see this?

In case this isn’t clear enough for you, on October 14th, the Peter Tatchell Foundation, led by the UK gay activist of the same name, released its “Manifesto for Secularism – Against the Religious Right.”

Tatchell issued a “call on people everywhere to stand with us to establish an international front against the religious-Right and for secularism.”

And what exactly does Tatchell mean by “the religious-Right”? Specifically, “The Islamic State (formerly ISIS), the Saudi regime, Hindutva (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) in India, the Christian-Right in the U.S. and Europe, Bodu Bala Sena in Sri Lanka, Haredim in Israel, AQMI and MUJAO in Mali, Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria.”

Read that list again slowly.

Tatchell explicitly places conservative Christians in the US and Europe in the exact same category as the Taliban, ISIS, and Boko Haram, among others. (I’ll not comment here on his reference to ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, called Haredim.)

As the manifesto declares in its opening line, “The launch of the Manifesto for Secularism is a challenge to the global rise of the Religious Right and its menacing values, which threaten women, LGBTs, atheists, minority faiths, apostates and many others.”

Yes, dear believer, you are a menace, and war has been declared against you.

“We call on people everywhere,” the manifesto declares, “to stand with us to establish an international front against the religious-Right and for secularism.”

Among the manifesto’s demands, not all of which are outrageous, are the calls for the, “Separation of religion from public policy, including the educational system, health care and scientific research” and, “Abolition of religious laws in the family, civil and criminal codes.”

Make no mistake about it.

You have been marked, and you have been classified as a dangerous extremist capable of all kinds of nefarious acts.

And you have been forewarned.

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

States That Voted Against Gay Marriage Now Have It Forced Upon Them

Written by Katrina Trinko

This isn’t OK.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to hear any of the cases on same-sex marriage means, as my colleague Ryan T. Anderson writes, that “lower court rulings that struck down state marriage laws now will go into effect, forcing the redefinition of marriage in [Indiana, Wisconsin, Virginia, Oklahoma and Utah] and potentially in other states in the 4th, 7th, and 10th circuits.”

That shouldn’t be acceptable—regardless of your position on same-sex marriage.

Voters in 31 states voted to define marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Liberal California voted for that in 2008, and so did red Texas in 2005. From 1998 to 2012—not say, from 1870 to 1890, or some other long-gone time period—34 states voted on defining marriage as being between a man and a woman—and only three voted against it.

And now the will of the people is being struck down by judge after judge.

If you think same-sex marriage should be legal, put it on the ballot. Ask the people of your state to decide in a vote.

Pundits have been pointing out that polls show Americans’ views on same-sex marriage have changed in recent years. “The Supreme Court confirms what we already knew: The fight over gay marriage is over,” tweeted the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, including a chart that shows higher support for than opposition to same-sex marriage.

But those polls are irrelevant. If people want to change a law they now consider to be wrong, they should do it at the ballot box, not at the courthouse. Unless, of course, the law is in clear violation of the text of the U.S. Constitution. But no one seriously thinks that when we ratified the 14th Amendment, we were voting to redefine marriage.

Americans deserve the right to choose the laws governing marriage. Everyone who values the will of the people, no matter what they think on the issue of same-sex marriage, should be decrying how it’s judges, not Americans, getting to decide this important issue.

This article was originally posted at The Daily Signal blog.

Unanimous: SCOTUS Strikes Down Buffer Zone Law

In a unanimous decision handed down yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled that a law in Massachusetts creating abortion clinic buffer zones for pro-life demonstrators was unconstitutional.

The City of Chicago has a similar law that is known as a “bubble zone.” The Chicago ordinance creates an 8 foot no-approach “bubble zone” around people within 50 feet of abortion clinic’s entrance and exits. But according to a report by the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago law is based on a Colorado law which “was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hill vs. Colorado in 2000.”

So is Chicago’s ordinance next to fall? Please watch the video report below which includes an interview with pro-life leader Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League:

Stand with Illinois Family Institute!

Marriage: Where Do We Go From Here?

Written by Ryan T. Anderson

In the media’s portrayal, people defending marriage as the union of a man and woman have been getting routed ever since the U.S. Supreme Court decision last June — if not before. They point to a string of lower-court rulings striking down state marriage amendments and to public-opinion polling, especially of my peers in the Millennial generation. Many also point to the forced resignation of Brendan Eich and the defeat of Arizona’s religious-liberty bill.

Some people would like me and the millions of Americans who continue to believe that marriage is what societies have believed it to be throughout human history — a male-female union — to get with the program and accept the inevitable. We’re clearly, they tell us, on the Wrong Side of History.

But we should avoid the temptation to prognosticate about the future in lieu of working to shape that future. We are citizens in a self-governing society, not pundits watching a spectator sport, not subjects of rulers. We are participants in one of the most significant debates our society — any society — has ever faced.

So, the question is, where do we go from here? How do we best advance the cause of marriage as the union of a man and woman, husband and wife, father and mother?

Some say we should abandon the defense of marriage and retreat to only protecting religious-liberty exemptions. They argue that this is the best course of action in light of what they take to be an inevitable defeat. Others go further and suggest that we should simply disengage with politics entirely, retreat to our own communities, and rebuild a marriage subculture there.

As tempting as these plans may be, they aren’t the right answer.

We must continue to witness to the truth about marriage, find new ways to make the reasoned case about what marriage is, and work to protect our freedoms to do so for the next generation. All of this must be done in service of the long-term goal of restoring a culture of marriage.

This requires both political and cultural efforts. Those who emphasize religious-liberty protections are somewhat right, for to even have the freedom to build counter-cultural institutions that preserve the truth about marriage we will at the very least need to protect the liberty — including religious liberty — to do so. But they are wrong in thinking we can protect religious liberty without defending the substantive view we seek the liberty to hold and act on. In order to protect our liberty with respect to marriage, we must persuade our neighbors that our views about marriage are reasonable, and thus that our rights to govern our lives in accord with those views should be respected.

In doing this, we must understand that, for many of our neighbors, the argument for marriage hasn’t been heard and rejected; it simply hasn’t been heard. We must make that argument in new and creative ways.

In the short run, the legal battle over the definition of marriage may be an uphill struggle. But in the long run, those who defend marriage as the union of a man and woman will prove to be prophetic. First, because when people do hear a compelling case for marriage, they respond accordingly. And second, because the logic of marriage redefinition ultimately leads to the dissolution of marriage into nothing more than a social mess of consenting adult love of manifold sizes and shapes.

Those who defend — and live out — the truth about marriage should redouble their efforts to witness to the truth about marriage while there is still time to steer clear of that chaos. Here are six ways to do that.

ONE. Stand Up for Our Authority as Citizens to Pass Laws Reflecting the Truth about Marriage

Last summer, when the Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), many cited the Court’s own language to explain the limited reach of the ruling. While the Court ordered the federal government to recognize all state-recognized marriages (including same-sex relationships), the Court declared that “the definition and regulation of marriage has been treated as being within the authority and realm of the separate States.” The states remain free — and should continue — to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Indeed, Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized the limits of the majority’s opinion. He made clear that neither the holding nor its logic required redefining state marriage laws. And Justice Samuel Alito made clear the actual constitutional status of marriage laws.

Alito framed the debate as a contest between two visions of marriage — what he calls the “conjugal” and “consent-based” views. Alito cited my book, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, as an example of the conjugal view of marriage: a “comprehensive, exclusive, permanent union that is intrinsically ordered to producing new life.” He cited Jonathan Rauch as a proponent of the consent-based idea that marriage is a commitment marked by emotional union.

Alito explained that the Constitution is silent on which of these substantive visions of marriage is correct. And, so, Alito said, the Court should defer to democratic debate.

At the same time, we should be clear-eyed about what’s coming next. The courts seem intent on disregarding the democratic process and usurping authority away from citizens and their representatives. But the Court will be less likely to usurp the authority of citizens if it is obvious that citizens are engaged in this democratic debate and care about the future of marriage. This is what Justice Scalia predicted: The Court will do whatever it thinks it can get away with. And as recent events in the lower federal courts suggest, judges seem to think they can get away with a lot.

We must, therefore, rally in support of our constitutional authority to pass laws defining marriage truthfully. We must make clear that Court-imposed same-sex marriage via a Roe v. Wade–style decision will not settle the marriage debate any better than it has settled the abortion debate.

TWO. Defend Our Form of Government and Our Liberties

Whatever happens at the Court will cause less damage if we vigorously advance the arguments for a classically liberal form of limited government and highlight the importance of religious liberty. Even if the Court were to one day redefine marriage, governmental recognition of same-sex relationships as marriages need not and should not require any third party to recognize a same-sex relationship as a marriage. Protecting religious liberty and the rights of conscience does not infringe on anyone’s sexual freedoms.

Indeed, a regime of free association, free contracts, free speech, and free exercise of religion should protect citizens’ rights to live according to their beliefs about marriage. And yet, a growing number of incidents show that the redefinition of marriage and state policies on sexual orientation have created a climate of intolerance, intimidation, and even government coercion for citizens who believe that marriage is the union of a man and woman and that sexual relations are properly reserved for marriage. State laws that create special privileges based on sexual orientation and gender identity (dubbed SOGI) are being used to trump fundamental civil liberties such as freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion.

Under such laws, family businesses — especially photographers, bakers, florists, and others involved in the wedding industry — have been hauled into court because they declined to provide services for a same-sex ceremony in violation of their religious beliefs.

Conservatives, indeed all Americans, must work to prevent the passage of such laws and to call our fellow citizens to embrace the best of the classically liberal form of government. Although Americans are free to live how we choose, we should not use government to penalize those who think and act differently.

Private actors should be free to make reasonable judgments and distinctions — including reasonable moral judgments and distinctions — in their economic activities. Not every florist need provide wedding arrangements for every ceremony. Not every photographer need capture every first kiss. Competitive markets can best harmonize a range of values that citizens hold. And there is no need for government to try to force every photographer and every florist to participate in every marriage-related event.

Likewise, we must help our neighbors see the importance of religious liberty in particular. Protecting religious liberty and the rights of conscience fosters a more diverse civil sphere. Tolerance is essential to promoting peaceful coexistence even amid disagreement.

When he “evolved” on the issue, President Obama insisted that the debate about marriage was a legitimate one and reasonable people of good will were on both sides. Obama explained that supporters of marriage as we’ve always understood it “are not coming at it from a mean-spirited perspective” but “because they care about families.” He added that “a bunch of ’em are friends of mine . . . you know, people who I deeply respect.” And yet, in a growing number of incidents, government hasn’t respected the beliefs of Americans.

Respecting religious liberty for all those in the marketplace is particularly important. After all, as first lady Michelle Obama put it, religious faith “isn’t just about showing up on Sunday for a good sermon and good music and a good meal. It’s about what we do Monday through Saturday as well.”

In addition to blocking bad policy, such as SOGI provisions, policymakers should pursue good policy. Policy at the federal level should prohibit the government from discriminating against any individual or group, whether nonprofit or for-profit, based on their beliefs that marriage is the union of a man and woman or that sexual relations are reserved for marriage. Policy should prohibit the government from discriminating against such groups or individuals in tax policy, employment, licensing, accreditation, or contracting.

States need similar policy protections, starting with broad, across-the-board protections provided by state-level Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs). States must protect the rights of Americans and the associations they form — both non-profit and for-profit — to speak and act in the public square.

THREE. Make the Case for Marriage

These religious-liberty protections are more likely to be respected if the underlying view about marriage is at least understood. Much of the opposition to Arizona’s recent religious-liberty legislation wasn’t directed at religious liberty per se but at misunderstood — sadly, at times intentionally misrepresented — concerns about being forced to celebrate same-sex relationships as marriages.

We will be most successful in protecting our rights to free speech, contract, association, and exercise of religion if we also make the reasonable case for marriage. Even if the Court or political powers force the redefinition of marriage, much of the future hinges on public opinion.

The key question is whether those who favor marriage redefinition will view — and thus treat — their dissenting fellow citizens as, in the words of Justice Scalia, “enemies of the human race,” or instead treat us as they do the pro-life movement. While liberal elites disagree with the pro-life position, they can at least understand it. And they can understand why a pro-life citizen holds the views she does and why government thus shouldn’t coerce citizens into performing or subsidizing abortions.

We therefore must do the work to make our fellow citizens at least understand why we believe what we do about marriage. Even if they continue steadfast in their convictions, they may at least see the reasonableness of ours. For too many of our neighbors, our beliefs about marriage are equated with the late Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist infamy. If he’s the only voice they’ve heard on the issue, it’s hard to blame them. We must work harder so that they hear our voices.

All of us must be engaged in making the case for marriage. Roughly two years ago, Sherif Girgis, Robby George, and I finished working on the book that Alito cited, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense. In that book we argued that there were two competing views of what marriage isthat were in play in our national debates, and we made a philosophical argument that the conjugal view of marriage was correct, and the revisionist view false.

The conjugal view of marriage, we argued, has long informed the law — along with the literature, art, philosophy, religion, and social practice — of our civilization. So understood, marriage is a comprehensive union. It unites spouses at all levels of their being: hearts, minds, and bodies, where man and woman form a two-in-one-flesh union. It is based on the anthropological truth that men and women are distinct and complementary, on the biological fact that reproduction requires a man and a woman, and on the sociological reality that children benefit from having a mother and a father. As the act that unites spouses can also create new life, marriage is especially apt for procreation and family life. Uniting spouses in these all-encompassing ways, marriage calls for all-encompassing commitment: permanent and exclusive.

The state cares about marriage because of marriage’s connection with children and its ability to unite children with their mother and father. After all, whenever a baby is born, there is always a mother nearby: That is a fact of reproductive biology. The question for law and culture is whether a father will be involved in the life of that child and, if so, for how long. Marriage increases the odds that a man will be committed both to the children that he helps create and to the woman with whom he does so. Marriage, rightly understood, brings together the two halves of humanity (male and female) in a monogamous relationship. Husband and wife pledge to each other to be faithful by vows of permanence and exclusivity. Marriage provides children with a relationship with the man and the woman who made them.

The revisionist view, on the other hand, has informed certain marriage-policy changes of the past several decades and is embodied in much of Hollywood’s productions. On the revisionist understanding, marriage is essentially an emotional union, accompanied by any consensual sexual activity the partners may desire. Such romantic unions are seen as valuable while the emotion lasts. The revisionist view informs some male-female bonds, not just same-sex ones, as both involve intense emotional bonding, so both can (on this view) make a marriage.

But comprehensive union, we argue, is something only a man and woman can form. For this reason, enacting same-sex marriage would not expand the institution of marriage, but redefine it. Finishing what policies like “no-fault” divorce began, and thus entrenching them, it would finally replace the conjugal view with the revisionist emotion-based account. This would multiply the marriage revolution’s moral and cultural spoils, and make them harder than ever to recover.

Most Americans are unaware that there are two competing visions of marriage on offer in this debate, but my experience on dozens of college campuses during the past year suggests there is hope here. On almost every campus I visited, including such elite law schools as Stanford and NYU, students came up to me afterward to say that they had never heard a rational case for marriage. Christians would say that they always knew marriage was between a man and a woman, but never knew how to defend it as a policy and legal matter — that they knew what the Bible revealed and the church taught, but lacked a vocabulary for articulating what God had written on the heart. Now they could better explain how faith and reason went together; how theology and philosophy, the Bible and social science all pointed to the same truth.

Reassuring these students is crucially important. Simply preventing those who do affirm that marriage is the union of a man and a woman from internalizing doubt, from cowering in shame in the face of aggressive opposition, or ultimately from caving is essential.

So, too, is helping those who haven’t made up their minds see that this is a debate with competing reasonable positions. Some are genuinely on the fence, and we should do what we can to keep them from coming down on the wrong side. Indeed, my co-authors and I have received dozens of notes over the past year from people who decided to come down on the right side because of some aspect of our case for marriage.

While we may not be able to convert the committed advocates for same-sex marriage, we should seek to soften their resolve to eliminate us from polite society. Indeed, on campus after campus, students who identified as liberal would admit that this was the first time they had heard a rational case for marriage. They would tell me that they respected the argument — and frequently weren’t sure why it was wrong, even when they continued to insist that it was wrong. Winning over these students so that they will at least respect our religious-liberty rights is essential. We do that, in part, by explaining the reasons for our beliefs about marriage.

And yet there are naysayers who claim that rational arguments never convince anyone. There is something perverse in conservatives’ thinking that ideas have consequences but that good ideas can’t persuade. They can, if only we are willing to present them in a winsome manner. In the long run truth wins out.

FOUR. We Must Diversify and Strengthen Our Efforts

Truth needs a messenger. We must be bolder, better organized, and more strategic, and exercise greater foresight when engaging on this issue. The number of LGBT advocacy groups is remarkable. And their success in mainstreaming their cause has meant that every liberal institution — think tank, university, studio, network, etc. — is advancing the ball. We need conservative intellectual forces — think tanks, scholars, religious leaders, and politicians — to actively engage the issue of marriage.

Here we should emulate the success of the free-market movement. In the past half-century, citizens committed to economic freedom put their money where their mouths are, and built a network of well-funded free-market think tanks and advocacy groups, university programs and scholarship competitions, media groups and marketing campaigns. While social conservatives have made great strides, we still have a ways to go. We must continue to build a network on social issues.

Of course, many conservative elites are simply not with us on social issues generally, and on the marriage issue in particular. Even the conservative press gives short shrift to these issues.

And what’s true for the news media is even worse for the cultural media. Keep in mind that Fox is the network that aired Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, and now Glee — each of which has done its part to undermine a healthy vision of marriage and human sexuality. But what is the conservative alternative to Glee? We need more concerted financial commitments to advancing sound culture.

There is opportunity here. Roger Ailes famously described himself as a media genius for discovering a niche market that ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC were all ignoring: half of the American population. What was true for the market in news consumption is just as true for entertainment more broadly. Enterprising entrepreneurs who can create television networks or film studios that produce high-quality family-friendly content not only perform good deeds, but will likely make a nice profit. There is an audience for high-quality entertainment that doesn’t undermine the values that parents are trying to impart to their children.

Those of us with vocations in policy and the academy need to encourage those with vocations in the artistic realm to continue their important work. It’s not that we need fewer natural-law philosophers or appellate litigators; it’s that we need more of everything. There’s work for everyone, for artists and musicians, for pastors and theologians, for statesmen and lawyers, for scholars and activists.

FIVE. The Church has a Central Role to Play

No matter what, the church will play a central role in shaping opinions on marriage. If it chooses to remain rather silent, it will shape opinion by default. On the other hand, it can rise to the occasion in developing a compelling response to the sexual revolution. And it alone possesses the only fully satisfying response.

This will require at least four major components. The first is simply to present a contemporary case for Biblical sexuality that is appealing and that engages the best of modern thought. This should present the virtue of chastity and lifelong marriage as the most humanly fulfilling choices one could make.

The second will be particular ministries to those who experience same-sex attractions and to those who experience gender-identity conflicts. Both the truths that we are created male and female, and that male and female are created for each other, are being challenged in ways that they never have been before. The church will need to think through these issues and develop pastoral plans that truly meet people where they are with the truth of Christ that can set them free.

The third task for the church will be to defend religious liberty in the public square and to help conscientious Christians understand their moral obligations to bear witness to the truth and to act in accord with the truth.

And then the fourth will be for Christian communities to simply live out the truth of marriage. Husbands and wives must be faithful to one another through thick and thin, till death do them part. Mothers and fathers must take their obligations to their children seriously. The unmarried must prepare now for their future marital lives, so they can live out the vows they will make.

Some argue that the church should soften its stance on so-called controversial issues. That in order to be evangelists, the church needs to be seeker friendly. They’re wrong. While no one should be bombastic, uncharitable, or imprudent, it is precisely the counter-cultural witness to what St. Paul called the more excellent way that will bring people to Christ.

SIX. We Must All Take the Long View

Whatever happens, it is essential to take the long view, and to be ready to bear witness to the truth even if law and culture grow increasingly hostile. There are lessons to be learned from the pro-life movement.

Consider the pro-life movement in February 1973, just weeks after Roe v.Wade. Public opinion was against them, by a margin of two to one. With each passing day another pro-life public figure — Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, Bill Clinton — evolved to embrace abortion on demand. The media kept insisting that all the young people were for abortion rights. Elites ridiculed pro-lifers as being on the wrong side of history. The pro-lifers were aging; their children, increasingly against them.

But courageous pro-lifers put their hand to the plow, and today we reap the fruits.

My generation is more pro-life than my parents’ generation. A majority of Americans identify as pro-life, more today than at any other point. More state laws have been enacted protecting unborn babies in the past decade than in the previous 30 years combined.

What happened?

Academics wrote the books and articles making the scientific and philosophical case for life. Statesmen like Henry Hyde, Ed Meese, and Ronald Reagan crafted the policy and used the bully pulpit to advance the culture of life. Activists and lawyers got together, formed coalitions, and devised effective strategies. They faithfully bore witness to the truth.

And the Christian community woke up — the Southern Baptists at the time, we sometimes forget, were in favor of abortion rights and supported Roe. Today they are at the forefront of the cause for life. This should caution us not to write off those who today might be on the wrong side of the marriage debate.

Everything the pro-life movement did needs to happen again, but on this new frontier of marriage.

At one point in American life, virtually every child received the great gift of being raised to adulthood in the marital bond of the man and the woman — the mom and the dad — whose union gave them life. Today, that number is under 50 percent in some communities, and the consequences are tragic. Same-sex marriage didn’t cause this, but it does nothing to help it, and will only make things worse. Indeed, it will lock in the distorted view of marriage as an institution primarily concerned with adult romantic desires, and make the rebuilding of the marriage culture much more difficult.

After all, redefining marriage to make it simply about emotional companionship sends the signal that moms and dads are interchangeable. Redefining marriage undercuts quite directly the rational foundations for the marital norms of permanence, exclusivity, and monogamy. It places the principle into law that if justice requires redefining marriage to include the same-sex couple, so too it could one day demand recognizing the “throuple”and quartet.

Whatever the law or culture may say, we must commit now to witness to the truths about marriage: that men and women are distinct and complementary, that it takes a man and a woman to bring a child into the world, and that children deserve a chance to grow up with a mom and a dad.

Too many of our neighbors haven’t heard our arguments, and they seem unwilling to respect our rights because they don’t understand what we believe. It’s up to us to change that perception. We will decide which side of history we are on.

— Ryan T. Anderson is the co-author of What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense and the William E. Simon Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

This article was originally posted at the Heritage Foundation blog.

Mock ‘Marriage’ and the Death of Freedom

While poorly decided U.S. Supreme Court cases are a dime a dozen, prior to Wednesday, two stood alone as the most wretched and constitutionally groundless in American History. First was the 1857 Dred Scott decision. Among other things, it robbed African-Americans of both their U.S. citizenship and their dignity.

Next came the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade. It has robbed over 55 million U.S. citizens of their very lives. For the first time in American history, the high court imagined a phantom constitutional right for women to dismember alive their own pre-born children.

Both of these cases are blights on American history. Fortunately, the first, Dred Scott, has been officially relegated to the dustbin of judicial disgrace, while the second, Roe v. Wade, continues to be used as justification for mass genocide. With each passing day, the bodies of the innocents pile-up like God’s chosen at Auschwitz.

Tragically, this past week we hit the unholy trifecta. A third precedential abomination was added to the mix. On Wednesday, the high court handed down two cases concerning the pagan left’s abjectly bizarre efforts to redefine the age-old and immutable institution of marriage (Hollingsworth v. Perry and U.S. v. Windsor). The more egregious of the two opinions, Windsor, presumes to invalidate Section 3 of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), granting limited federal recognition to sin-centric and sodomy-based same-sex “marriage.”

Not only did this 5-4 decision effectively deconstruct the institution of legitimate marriage, removing all ethical and legal justification for barring similar such perverse “marriage” amalgamations as “gay marriage” (i.e., multi-party or incestuous nuptials) – it also laid the groundwork to force the 37 “marriage reality” states to join the remaining 13 in a corporate “marriage equality” delusion. This is not just judicial activism; its judicial tyranny – a potentially fatal self-inflicted wound to the high court’s yet waning legitimacy.

Still, while much will be written about Windsor from a legal standpoint, for now, let’s focus on another of the decision’s inevitable outcomes: Anti-Christian persecution. If, through judicial fiat, “gay marriage” ultimately becomes the law of the land, tens-of-millions of Christians (as well as Jews and Muslims) will be forced to choose between obedience to God and obedience to Caesar – between fidelity to conscience and government oppression.

Millions of us have already made that choice.

As we’ve now seen in states that fancy mock “gay marriage,” for instance, the only way to force Christian individuals and business owners – such as bakers, photographers, innkeepers and florists – to lend their talents to sin-centered “gay weddings” is through the power of the police state. This amounts to a systemic, immoral and profoundly unconstitutional trampling of the First Amendment.

What follows will be a deviant-sexual-behavior-based “LGBT” suspect minority class with all the associated trimmings. In the eyes of government, Bible-believing Christians will be treated as modern-day racists. Any outward expression of the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic will be trumped by newfangled “gay rights” and deemed verboten. For all intents and purposes, Christianity will be criminalized. This is not mere speculation. It’s been the plan all along.

Case in point: Chai Feldblum, President Obama’s EEOC commissioner – a lesbian activist who supports “plural marriage” – has promised as much. She admits that progressives “want to revolutionize societal norms” and believes that “gay sex is a moral good.” She calls the clash between religious liberty and “sexual liberty” a “zero-sum game,” meaning someone wins and someone loses. Guess who loses? Feldblum has “a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

Even so, Wednesday, after the offending high court opinions were announced, I was reminded by a close friend and fellow Christian attorney that, “God is in control, and that has to be more than a slogan at times like this.”

Since, no doubt, the Obama NSA has already read our entire email exchange, I thought I’d go ahead and share excerpts with you as well. My colleague’s insights are profound. I found them encouraging. I hope you do, too.

“Amen,” I replied. “At the risk of sounding a bit apocalyptic, I’m fully convinced that this is part of His divine plan – perhaps to begin separating the wheat from the chaff. We have arrived: ‘As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.’ Matthew 24:37.”

“I agree with you,” he responded, “and that conviction makes all this much easier. What depresses me is the astonishing disconnect and irrationality that sin so easily produces, and how quickly it spreads; we are truly sheep and fully as stupid without a Good Shepherd.

“In my 35 years as a Christian, I never seriously believed we might end up in prison for our faith – except, perhaps, for something like a pro-life demonstration. This is the first time it seriously occurs to me that the trajectory of the nation is such that it is possible in five to 10 years. Oddly, this thought does not discourage or scare me; in fact, it’s almost a joyful thought that we might have the privilege to suffer for our faith. Rejoice greatly when men revile and persecute you for my name’s sake, for your reward is great in Heaven (a rough paraphrase of Matthew 5:12).

“It may be that the truly toughest tests we had were earlier in our lives,” he continued, “before we got fully engaged and in the movement. … Now we’re part of networks with support from like-minded people, and we’re largely insulated from what the opposition can do to us. The real heroes are our clients who speak up at the risk of losing their livelihood, getting thrown out of school, or getting death threats from the tolerance crowd. I feel now like my faith costs me less than when I was in private practice before hostile judges and antagonistic media hit-men.”

“You nailed it,” I replied. “What an honor that our Creator chose us before time began to be part of a Gideon’s army of truth-tellers and defenders of the faithful. It’s an amazing time to be alive. But, as you mentioned, although we’re on the front lines, we also have tremendous support. It’s quite liberating to be written-off by the world and, consequently, free to speak and behave in a way that reflects the reality that we couldn’t give a rat’s behind what the world thinks of us. Those we represent rarely have that luxury.

“Whether it’s one day or hundreds of years,” I continued, “I really believe we are living in the last days (in the total scheme of time and space). I just hope that when and if the time comes, the Holy Spirit gives me the strength of character to not only refuse to deny His Truth, but to be like our martyred brothers and sisters who walked up and kissed the stake before being burned alive on it.

“Anyway, that’s enough trying to cheer each other up for now,” I joked. “Keep on keepin’ on, my friend.”

Do I really believe American Christians will be burned at the stake over counterfeit “gay marriage”? No. Do I believe Christians will face real persecution, such as loss of livelihood, civil penalties, physical abuse or even jail? Absolutely.

Still, come what may, we Christ followers must always remember this admonition from Romans 12:12: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, [and] faithful in prayer.”

In other words, mock “marriage” or not: Keep on keepin’ on, my friend.

(Go to MarriageSolidarity.com to pledge no surrender on marriage).

New HHS Rule on Abortion Mandate ‘Inadequate’

Written by Michael Foust

The Obama administration proposed a rule change Friday it says will appease the concerns religious organizations have about the abortion/contraceptive mandate, but legal groups who defend religious liberty called the proposal inadequate and said it fell far short of what is needed.

Religious groups had hoped the Department of Health and Human Services would announce that all religious organizations — universities, hospitals and charities — are exempt from the mandate, which requires employers to carry health insurance plans covering contraceptives and drugs that can cause chemical abortions. Churches, for example, are exempt from the mandate. Instead, HHS issued a rule it says allows for employees to obtain contraceptives and abortion-causing drugs without the religious employer taking part in the process. Religious liberty groups say employers still will be involved.

The proposal also does nothing to help businesses such as Bible publisher Tyndale House or Christian-owned Hobby Lobby or any other for-profit whose owners have religious objections to contraceptives and/or abortion-causing drugs.

“Having reviewed this proposed rule, we … have to say we’re extremely disappointed,” Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said in a conference call with reporters. Becket Fund has helped lead the legal charge against the mandate. More than 40 lawsuits have been filed against the mandate. Duncan called the proposal “radically inadequate.”

According to an HHS website, under the proposal, the religious employer “would not have to contract, arrange, pay or refer for any contraceptive coverage to which they object on religious grounds.” Employees “would receive contraceptive coverage through separate individual health insurance policies, without cost sharing or additional premiums.” The insurance company would be required to offer the drugs for free, HHS said.

Religious organizations that are self-insured would have to contact a third party administrator, which would “work with a health insurance issuer to provide separate, individual health insurance policies at no cost for participants.”

Religious liberty groups had multiple objections to the proposal. First, the groups said, religious organizations still will be required to carry an insurance plan that is tied to coverage of contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs. Second, religious employers — particularly those who are self-insured — will be acting as “conduits” with health providers to ensure their employees can obtain the drugs. Third, it’s unclear who is paying for the “free drugs.” As some religious commentators were suggesting: Will insurance companies simply raise rates — and thereby pass the cost for the abortion-causing drugs on to the religious organization?

Duncan said religious organizations are “going to have to carefully consider whether this accommodation really doesn’t change the moral landscape at all. It’s going to be up to them to make that determination. We believe they’re going to have some serious concerns about remaining unacceptably involved in the provision of these drugs and devices.”

Alliance Defending Freedom senior legal counsel Matt Bowman said the proposal still infringes on religious liberty.

“Religious non-profits will, in fact, be forced to provide an insurance plan with a provider that gives the religious group’s employees abortion-pill coverage in direct connection with that plan, the coverage is definitely not free, and the coverage is imposed ‘automatically’ even against the objection of many employees who don’t want free abortion-pill coverage for themselves or their daughters,” Bowman said.

To qualify for the proposal, an organization must self-certify that it “holds itself out as a religious organization,” according to HHS. Ironically that could mean that many of the nation’s leading pro-life organizations — despite being non-profits — won’t qualify for the accommodation because they’re technically not religious organizations.

The HHS announcement did nothing to change the coverage by for-profits. Hobby Lobby, the arts and crafts store whose Christian owners say they will not follow the mandate, apparently will face fines of more than $1 million each day if a federal court does not step in. Its owners always have made their faith a central part of their business. Their stores play Christian instrumental music and are closed on Sundays. Hobby Lobby contributes to Christian organizations and runs full-page ads in newspapers during the Easter and Christmas seasons with Gospel-centered messages.

The good news for Christian for-profits is they are winning in court, having seen 10 wins and only four losses. Hobby Lobby, though, is one of those losses. The issue likely is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The administration fails to understand,” said Gene Rudd of the Christian Medical Association, “that many employers and individual Americans, regardless of a religious label or not, maintain strong conscience objections to participating in any way, shape or form in a plan that promotes pills that the FDA says can cause the demise of a living human embryo — a developing baby in her earliest stage.”

Covered under the mandate are emergency contraceptives such as Plan B and ella that can kill an embryo after fertilization and even after implantation. Pro-lifers consider that action a chemical abortion.

The mandate was announced by HHS in August 2011 as part of the health care law championed by President Obama. Although the Supreme Court upheld the health care law last June, the justices’ ruling did not deal with the religious liberty issues surrounding the abortion/contraceptive mandate. That means the nation’s highest court could yet strike down what has been for religious groups and some business owners the most controversial part of the law.

Michael Foust is associate editor of Baptist Press. Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook (Facebook.com/BaptistPress ) and in your email (baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP.asp).

SCOTUS Healthcare Ruling Endangers Freedom

As you know by now, in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled today to uphold the core provisions of President Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPAC). By their decision, we now face an egregious threat to American liberty.

This federal legislation contains a highly controversial and unpopular Individual Mandate, which, if not repealed, will force Americans to “buy” federally approved or sponsored healthcare plans or pay a penalty for non-compliance. Contrary to their promises to Congress as well as to the general public, proponents of the PPAC have succeeded in arguing to the Supreme Court that the Individual Mandate will function as a federal tax. We are very concerned that this will set a dangerous precedent for federal mandates.

We believe this law is a threat to personal liberty, religious freedom and family choices. It gives government bureaucrats alarming power over individual citizen’s healthcare decisions and will lead to future conflicts of conscience. Americans will be forced to choose either to comply and abandon their religious beliefs or resist and be fined for exercising their deeply held beliefs.

The PPAC includes provisions for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilizations, and tax dollars will subsidize many types of abortions. By advancing taxpayer funding of abortion, the PPAC is an attack on religious freedom and individual liberty.

We urge our national lawmakers to repeal the PPAC, and rather than rushing through an expansive overhaul, Congress needs to take a reasonable approach to reforming what’s wrong with healthcare. The federal reach into the lives of each and every American citizen is of grave concern. And the accompanying threats to freedom of conscience challenge the very concept of liberty.

We hope and pray that this monumental decision will be the catalyst to awaken and unite American voters – especially people of faith – this November. It should also serve to remind believers that we should be praying for true revival and the spread of the Gospel. As my friend Pastor James McDonald of Morton, Illinois pointed out on his Facebook page, “Do we understand that the One who orchestrates the end, orchestrates the means, and the means He uses is our faithful witness? Rise up, O Church of God!”

And here’s what others are saying:

“Today’s Supreme Court decision will do serious harm to American families. Not only is the individual mandate a profound attack on our liberties, but it is only one section among hundreds of provisions in the law that will force taxpayers to fund abortions, violate their conscience rights, and impose a massive tax and debt burden on American families.

“The Obama administration has created, for the first time in American history, new federal regulations that toss aside the constitutional right to religious freedom by forcing religious institutions and employers to pay for abortion-causing drugs, contraceptives and sterilizations.

“It’s now time to replace those leaders who disregarded the constitutional limitations of their authority and the deeply held religious beliefs of their constituents, voting for the government takeover of healthcare. We must repeal this abortion-funding health care law and restore the Constitution to its rightful place.”  ~ Tony Perkins. President of the Family Research Council

”We are outraged to see the Supreme Court ignoring the constitutional limits the Founders put in place to constrain the federal government’s power over us. Shame on them!

With this decision they have given a blank check to the federal government, forever altering the constitutional concept of checks and balances that has been so crucial throughout our history.

We wholeheartedly believe we must strive to make health care more affordable for all Americans. But it is inconceivable to believe we must infringe on our constitutional rights in order to achieve that.

Women will be especially hurt by today’s decision. As we have seen with the contraception mandate, the politicization of so-called women issues by the left leaves the majority of women extremely vulnerable to the exploitation of a few radical groups that exert much political influence in Congress and the White House.  ~ Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America

“This is a stunning decision to uphold ObamaCare as a tax. Congress relied upon the Commerce Clause, not the Taxing and Spending Clause. The Court ignored the intent of Congress, which did not intend the mandate to be a tax but rather a penalty. Rulings like this on ObamaCare undermine the confidence of the people in the competency of the Supreme Court to follow the rule of law. Today’s decision damages the image of the Supreme Court and is bad for America.”  ~ Mat Staver, Founder and President of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law

“The ‘individual mandate’ was just one problem with the law. Our tax dollars are still being used to subsidize abortion and our Catholic institutions are still being forced to violate our beliefs.

“Congress must act immediately to fix the critical flaws in the health care law and begin to replace them with measured, sensible reforms. At the very least, they should not allow any tax dollars to be used to implement the law while remedies are decided. We encourage them to focus their energy on improving our nation’s health care system in a way that respects all stages of life, protects our consciences, and avoids negatively impacting the economic conditions of Americans.” ~ Matt Smith, President of Catholic Advocate

“It is astonishing that the majority of the justices did not see the bill for what it really is: a blatant violation of the personal freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution and perhaps a mortal blow to the concept of federalism… “When a government begins forcing citizens to purchase what it thinks is important or necessary, that government takes a dangerous step away from the freedom-embracing, democratic model.”  ~ Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“The president’s health care law is hurting our economy by driving up health costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire. Today’s ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety. What Americans want is a common-sense, step-by-step approach to health care reform that will protect Americans’ access to the care they need, from the doctor they choose, at a lower cost. Republicans stand ready to work with a president who will listen to the people and will not repeat the mistakes that gave our country ObamaCare.”  ~ U.S. House Speaker John Boehner

“President Obama’s health care law stands as one of the largest tax increases in American history, it will be paid for by young Americans, whose dreams and plans for the future have already been derailed by failed policies that have denied their access to full-time, meaningful jobs in their chosen career paths. Young adults know they will pay the true costs of President Obama’s legislation — over a trillion dollars more in federal spending, more waste and fraud, increased American debt, and the inability to keep or choose healthcare plans that best suit their needs as individuals. Elections have consequences, and young adults will be organizing themselves far more actively than some might assume — they will not settle for leadership that ignores their concerns, limits their freedoms, and continues to bankrupt their futures.” ~Paul T. Conway, president of Generation Opportunity, Chief of Staff for the U.S. Department of Labor

” Today’s Supreme Court 5-to-4 decision upholding the individual mandate in ObamaCare was surprising. The court rejected the Obama Administration’s main argument that the individual mandate was constitutional based on the Commerce Clause. It rejected the administration’s second argument that the mandate was constitutional under the Necessary and Proper Clause.

“However, five justices, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the majority opinion, concluded that the mandate was constitutional under Congress’ power to tax. As Roberts wrote in his opinion, “Simply put, Congress may tax and spend.”

“That’s the problem in Washington, isn’t it? There’s already way too much spending, and ObamaCare won’t help that. And it is a huge tax increase — $500 billion over the next ten years.” ~Gary Bauer, American Values