The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), SJRCA 75, has reared its ugly head once again in Illinois and your state representative needs to hear from you right away.

The Illinois General Assembly voted down the ERA thirteen times in the 70’s and 80’s. Since then, the sponsor files the bill and works the legislature to gather additional support. The support is too close for comfort.

Take ACTION: Please CLICK HERE to contact your state representative to ask him/her to vote AGAINST the ERA, SJRCA 75. It’s essential for us to let our state representatives know that this amendment harms women, their families and our society.

Your calls and emails are vital tools for fighting this outrageous proposal. You can also call your state representative to ask him/her to vote NO to SJRCA 75 by calling the Capitol switchboard number at: (217) 782-2000.

No one is opposed to “equal rights,” but the ERA is not about “equal rights” as proponents want you to believe. The ERA will remove all legal distinctions between sexes in at least 800 federal laws. This is according to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her report titled Sex Bias in the U.S. Code.  (For more information please click HERE.)

In other words, all federal, state and local laws, policies and regulations favoring women would be ruled unconstitutional under ERA. Laws including marriage, divorce, family-property law, child custody, adoptions, abortions, alimony, some criminal laws, age limits for marriage and the age of consent, gender specific bathrooms, single-sex private schools, prison regulations, lower insurance rates for women, veterans benefits, boy and girl scouts, and tax exemptions for single-sex schools are just a few laws that would be challenged if the ERA is passed.

SJRCA 75 passed the State Senate on May 22^nd, 2014, with a vote of 39 – 11 – 6.  State Representative Lou Lang (D-Skokie), the sponsor in the Illinois House, may call it for a vote as early as Wednesday.  He claims he’s very close to having the votes.

This lame duck veto session is scheduled to run through Thursday December 4^th. Please take a few minutes to make a call or send an email message to your state representative today to urge a NO vote on ERA.

Today many Americans are celebrating Giving Tuesday, a national event calling Americans to take action to better the lives of others.  This is a great way for us to celebrate the work and ministry of Illinois Family Institute. On this national day of giving, would you be willing to make your most generous tax-deductible contribution? Please donate to IFI today – on National Giving Tuesday..

Note: now that rogue and renegade federal judges have struck down amendments that protect natural marriage in Mississippi and Arkansas, passed with 86 percent and 75 percent of the vote respectively, it’s time once again to review the solution: courageous governors.

There is one and only one short range solution to a runaway judiciary on the issue of sodomy-based marriage: a governor with the testosterone to stand up and just say no.

Governors take an oath of office to uphold the federal constitution and the constitution of their own state. Any governor in any state with a marriage amendment as a part of his constitution has the right, nay, the duty, to refuse to comply with any judicial order to recognize same-sex marriage.

The Constitution is utterly silent on the topic of homosexuality and marriage, which means, according to the Constitution the Founders gave us, this is an issue reserved exclusively to the states.

Any ruling from any federal court that imposes domestic policy on a state is by its very nature unconstitutional, and no governor has any obligation to obey it. In fact, quite the opposite. He must refuse to comply with it, for to comply would mean he must violate his own sacred oath of office.

A governor’s oath is to defend the Constitution of both the federal government and his own state. Defending something by definition means protecting it when it is under attack, regardless of where that attack comes from — even if the attack comes from a federal judge, a federal court, or the Supreme Court itself.

Governors have been meekly capitulating to judicial tyranny, one after the other, and timidly abandoning their posts.

Americans have no understanding of how little power the federal judiciary actually holds. It was designed by the Founders to be the least powerful branch of the federal government, with its jurisdiction limited to settling matters of dispute between individual states and matters of international controversy. The Supreme Court met in a closet for the first several decades of its existence, a sign of the lowly stature it occupied under the Constitution as written.

But the federal judiciary has mutated into a gargantuan beast, looming over liberty, freedom and the Constitution itself, and imposing its own benighted and twisted version of morality on the entire country with no legal, statutory, constitutional or moral authority.

But it has no police force it can order to arrest or detain anyone. If its unconstitutional rulings are ignored, what will the Supreme Court do? It can issue an arrest order, I suppose, but if a governor will not allow it to be executed, what can the Court do? The answer is nothing.

President Andrew Jackson once said, of a decision handed down by the chief justice of his day, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”  What happened in the face of this defiance from a co-equal branch of government? Precisely nothing.

The truth is the federal judiciary is impotent apart from the good will of the American people. Once the American people realize that the Supreme Court is a co-equal branch of government, not the superior branch of government, they can get back to governing themselves rather than deferring to black-robed oligarchs to make all the important decisions for them.

For a governor to stand up and refuse to cower to a federal court would not be civil disobedience at all. It would be constitutional obedience — obedience to the Constitution and its provisions in the ninth and 10th amendments, obedience to his own state constitution, and obedience to the oath he took before Almighty God.

Governors do not take an oath of allegiance to the Supreme Court. They take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution. It’s time they started acting like it.

Randy Sharp, director of special projects for the American Family Association, explains that the homosexual lobby has launched a major petition drive to convince The Learning Channel (TLC) network to drop the show “19 Kids and Counting,” one of the most successful programs the cable channel has ever had.

“But in reality this isn’t a message about the homosexual activists trying to silence a Christian family,” he says. “This is a homosexual activist group that’s trying to silence the Word of God.”

The anti-Duggars petition accuses the family of “fear mongering against gays and transgendered people” for opposing a “civil rights” ordinance passed in mid-August by the Fayetteville (Arkansas) City Council. The ordinance, which is now facing a special-election repeal vote on December 9, would in part permit transgendered people to use public restrooms of their choice.

Leading up to the August decision, Michelle Duggar – in a recorded robocall – urged residents of Fayetteville to stand against the ordinance, stating: “I don’t believe the citizens of Fayetteville would want males with past child predator convictions [who] claim they are female to have a legal right to enter private areas that are reserved for women and girls.” That precipitated the online petition blasting the Duggars and calling for them to be removed from TLC’s lineup.

Sharp goes on to say that the Duggars speak the truth, the Bible – and contends that activists cannot effectively challenge what is very plainly spoken in scripture: that homosexuality is an abomination to God.

“They can’t attack the message, therefore they attack the messenger,” says the AFA spokesman. “The Duggars are everything that’s right with America. They’re everything that’s right with the family. They’re everything that’s right with living out a Godly lifestyle. The homosexual lobby doesn’t like truth.”

TAKE ACTION:  AFA has launched a petition drive of its own to convince TLC that many Americans would be terribly disappointed to see “19 Kids and Counting” forced off the air by homosexuals. The pro-family group hopes to gather one million signatures by Christmas.

The next several years are going to be messy for Christians. We already know that some who claim to be within our fold will continue to challenge the historic, orthodox teaching about sexuality, marriage, and the essence of what it means to be made in the image of God. But even those of us who agree that marriage is what the church has always thought it was, will disagree on how best to move forward in a culture hell-bent on denying it.

Case in point: Over at First Things, a premier publication of Christian thought, Ephraim Radner and Christopher Seitz have offered what they refer to as “The Marriage Pledge,” calling clergy of all stripes to no longer sign government documents of civil marriage. To be a “clear witness,” they have decided they “will no longer serve as agents of the state in marriage” because to do so would be to “implicate the Church in a false definition of marriage.”

This is an idea that has been kicked around for some time. Past First Things articles have suggested it, as has my friend S. Michael Craven in his guest contribution to my recent book “Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God’s Design for Marriage.” Among those who have signed The Marriage Pledge are the clergy of my own church here in Colorado Springs. And Anne Morse, one of our terrific writers here at the Colson Center, has praised these clergy for distancing themselves from American lawmakers who are “increasingly making nonsense of marriage.”

Because Anne worked closely with Chuck Colson for decades, I hesitate to disagree with her. No doubt, as Anne writes, Chuck “would have been proud of these ministers” and their commitment to stand on their convictions. In that respect, they exemplify at least part of what he hoped to accomplish with the Manhattan Declaration.

However, I do not think that he would have agreed with this pledge. Neither do I.

Before I go into my reasons, let me first clarify that those who disagree on whether or not to sign this Pledge do not disagree about the nature, definition, or importance of marriage. Rather, we disagree about what to do, now that the state has denied the clear definition of marriage.

I should also make clear that I do not think—not in the least—that any clergy who have signed the Pledge, or anyone—like Anne Morse—who thinks clergy should sign, has “compromised” in any way. (And, I hope they do not think that of me or any of others—like Ryan Anderson, Douglas Wilson,Russell Moore, or Edward Peters—who disagree). My own clergy members who signed the pledge, and who have graciously and vigorously engaged with me on this topic, have more than earned their stripes by standing for marriage in a church that famously, over the last several decades, became neo-pagan. They fought hard before re-organizing under a different denominational identity.

No, ours is a disagreement of strategy and timing, not of faithfulness.

There may very well come a time when the church must take this step. It is quite conceivable that church officials will be forced out of the civil marriage business and not even given the option of being an agent of the state. But my view is that we’ll know when that time comes—because we’ll have been forced out. But let them do it to us. Let’s not leave before then.

This conversation reminds me of 2012. Remember when Louis Giglio stepped down from praying at President Barack Obama’s second Inauguration? The four years between the first and second Inaugurations had made quite a difference. Rick Warren was allowed to pray at the first, despite having vocally spoken out for marriage that same year during California’s Proposition 8 battle. But the critics were far less tolerant of Giglio four years later, even though the only evidence they could find of his so-called homophobia was nearly twenty years old. In light of the controversy, Giglio decided to graciously back out.

I think Giglio made a mistake—not because he was gracious, but because he backed out. I think he should have graciously stayed in. There’s a world of difference between being disinvited and backing out, and one can be gracious either way. I understand Giglio’s reasoning, but in a culture that needs to know where the church stands on things like sexuality and marriage and sin and the Gospel, it was the wrong strategy at the wrong time.

In my view, “The Marriage Pledge” commits the same strategic mistake, only on a much larger scale. We may, in fact, get disinvited from marrying people, and perhaps we’ll even be forcibly removed from this part of the public square. But let’s not leave of our own accord. We can be just as gracious one way as the other, with handcuffs or without.

And clergy can still marry people without compromising the biblical view. As Edward Peters notes, there is nothing on a civil marriage license itself that requires clergy to say marriage is something that it is not. But by refusing to proclaim to the state that those the church chooses to marry are indeed married, we are missing an opportunity to proclaim in the public square what marriage, in truth, is. R. R. Reno suggests that by having a separate church wedding and refusing to sign the state’s marriage license, the church is claiming marriage for itself, and we won’t let it be confused with what the state is now calling marriage. Perhaps, but that assumes people are listening. The boy who takes his ball and goes home isn’t playing anymore, and pretty soon is forgotten.

It could come across from that analogy that I think the state is the one defining the game. Not at all, or at least not any more than players define baseball. Underneath my point is this reality: Marriage is not created by the state, nor is it created by the church. Marriage precedes both church and state, and both are responsible to recognize it wherever it happens. When the church recognizes a marriage, it also proclaims it to the state. This we should continue to do.

By backing out of the civil marriage business, we risk reinforcing the growing opinion that our views on marriage are valid only to us and belong only in the private, religious recesses of our culture. We also risk perpetuating the very troubling myth that marriage is something that government defines, instead of something it recognizes. If we are still in the business, we can remind them. If not, we can’t.

Of course, whether the church can be a legitimate agent of the state without compromise is a valid question. But keep in mind that the church is not an agent of the state per se; it only serves as one in this matter. And don’t agents of the state who demonstrate and proclaim their loyalty to a higher authority have a stronger witness than someone who is not an agent of the state at all?

I’ve already heard of, and even met, several justices of the peace who have either resigned or who now refuse to marry anyone because they may be asked to marry same-sex couples. I understand the dilemma, but to them I say, “Stay in the game! Keep your post, but refuse to render to Caesar authority that does not belong to him. Get fired! Get censured! Get sued! Be nice and kind, but firm; keep the witness as long as you can.”

I realize, of course, that it is easy for me to say this to a justice of the peace from this side of the keyboard. I won’t face that sort of trouble for simply writing a book on the issue. I may get some angry tweets, but that’s not much to worry about. But, with apologies for my cushy position, I still think it’s the right thing to do. It’s what I would try to do if I were in that person’s place.

Clergy members are like justices of the peace, but with a much more protected position because of our religious freedoms, such as they currently are. So they have even more reason to stay in the game. And since the more troubling cultural problem is the precipitous decline of marriage rates in general, taking our exit now would be tantamount to saying that people who really are legitimately married for us are not married for the state.

“But we are marrying them—in a church wedding,” the response might be. True, but because marriage is a creational reality, not a church one, I can’t see how we ought to recognize it in the church while not also proclaiming to the state (and everyone else) that “these two are now one flesh” in a way that others are not. In this way, the church has the unique role of simultaneously being an agent of and a messenger to the state. When it plays this role, it reminds the state of whose world this really is.

Of course, the moment that clergy are asked to marry same-sex couples, they ought flatly to refuse. Period. End of story. And at that point, we’ll have to decide our next step. But let’s not step too soon out of the marriage game happening in the public square.

This brings up two other arguments against “The Marriage Pledge,” neither of which originates with me. First, the document suggests that the couple being married by the church should go off on their own to claim the benefits of civil marriage bestowed by state. But if it is wrong for clergy to be involved with the state on marriage, how is it less wrong for the laity to be involved?

This is a real problem, and creates more problems. For example, if we are to consider church marriage different from civil marriage, by what means will the church enforce its understanding of marriage and divorce to those married by the church? Why should anyone listen?

Even more, if same-sex marriage demands our separation from civil marriage, aren’t we late to the game? Why didn’t we take this step when no-fault divorce made marriage vows a mockery, and children the victim of a parent’s “right to be happy”? Shouldn’t we have done this a long time ago?

Well, we didn’t, and I argue we shouldn’t have. Instead, we should have been more serious about what it means to be married. We should have displayed a little more courage in the matter of whom we married and whom we did not, as well as how we handled those we married that violated their vows. But we didn’t, because that would have “gotten in the way of the Gospel,” or something like that.

In our book “Same-Sex Marriage,” Sean McDowell and I suggest that in this brave new world we’ll need to be more creative. As a model, we point to Daniel, who was faced with two options: Eat the king’s meat or be killed. But Daniel came up with a third option, which allowed him to honor his commitment “not to defile himself with the king’s food” and still stay in the game and influence the power center of Babylon.

Have we really exhausted all of our other options? Have we even thought of all of our options? I don’t think so. Let’s stay in a while longer, pray for strength and wisdom, stand our ground on our convictions, and see what happens. When it’s time to go, we’ll know by the pushy state arm that will be squarely in the center of our backs.

John Stonestreet is a speaker and fellow of the Colson Center and, along with Eric Metaxas, host of BreakPoint Radio.  This article was originally posted at the BreakPoint.org website.

Written by Rev. Mark H. Creech

Chuck Swindoll tells that great story about the fellow who fell in love with an opera singer. He didn’t know her, nor had he ever seen her any closer than the third balcony and with a pair of binoculars. But he was absolutely convinced life would be grand married to a woman with a voice like hers. He was certain her mezzo-soprano vocals would take them through whatever might come. After a whirlwind romance and a quick wedding ceremony, the two were off for their honeymoon.

As she prepared for their first night together, the man’s mouth flew wide-open in total shock. She took out her glass eye and placed it in a container on the nightstand. She then pulled off her wig, ripped off her false eyelashes, popped out her dentures, unstrapped her artificial leg, and donned a smile at him as she slipped off her glasses that hid her hearing aid. Completely horrified, the man gasped, “For goodness sake, woman, sing, sing, SING!” [1]

During the last election, two more states, Alaska and Oregon, approved by referendums the legalization of recreational marijuana. The District of Columbia also approved a voter initiative that is subject to the review of Congress. Colorado and Washington had previously passed similar ballot measures legalizing cannabis in 2012. It may take a while, time enough for the full import of their decision to be felt, nevertheless, it’s inevitable these states will discover the legalization of pot didn’t turn out as they expected.

A common argument in favor of legalizing marijuana is that the Prohibition of Alcohol was a complete failure. Thus it’s argued that Prohibition of Marijuana can only result in the same.

But was the Prohibition of Alcohol in our nation a total flop? Hardly!

Kevin A. Sabet, in his excellent book, Reefer Sanity, cites a professor of criminal justice at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Mark H. Moore. Moore researched the question of whether Alcohol Prohibition was actually the misguided policy people have been led to believe. His findings provide a better understanding of that period in American history.

He notes:

• “Alcohol consumption did decline significantly during Prohibition, one indication being that the rate of cirrhosis deaths for men, which had been 29.5 per 100,000 men before Prohibition, fell to just 10.7 deaths per 100,000 during the ban.
• “State mental hospital admissions for alcoholic psychosis also underwent a dramatic decline, falling from 10.1 per 100,000 persons to less than 5 at the height of Prohibition.
• “Arrests for disorderly conduct and public drunkenness fell by half.” [2]

Sabet also points to a recent example of the success of Prohibition in Barrow, Alaska. In that city, residents were weary of the crime and other deleterious effects of alcohol. So in 1994 they banned it within the city limits. The results?

• “Crime decreased 70 percent within the city.
• “Alcohol-related emergency room visits went from 123 the month before the ban to only 23 the next month.
• “Once the ban was lifted and alcohol became available in the city again, local detoxification centers filled with patients and alcohol-related murders were on the rise again.” [3]

Sabet concludes that what happened in Barrow, Alaska, is a microcosm of what actually happened during the fourteen years national Prohibition was in effect – the public health improved. Moreover, he says that he isn’t arguing for the return of Prohibition, but only seeks to show that whenever a drug is illegal, public health is better “since the drug is neither commercialized nor as normalized as it would be if it was legal.” [4]

A recent major review in the scientific journal Addiction makes it abundantly clear the adverse effects of cannabis use on mental and physical health. Key conclusions from Professor Wayne Hall of the World Health Organization include:

• “The risk of car crashes double if marijuana users drive while intoxicated. The risk increases substantially if the users are also drunk.
• “1 in 10 regular marijuana users will develop dependence. The rate is 1 in 6 for those who begin using during adolescence.
• “Regular marijuana users double their risk of experiencing psychotic symptoms and disorders, especially if they have a personal or family history of psychotic disorders, and if they begin using during their mid-teens.
• “Regular marijuana use in adolescence doubles the risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia or reporting psychotic symptoms in adulthood.
• “Regular adolescent marijuana users have lower educational attainment than non-users and are more likely to use other illicit drugs.
• “Regular marijuana use that begins in adolescence and continues through adulthood impairs cognitive development.
• “Regular cannabis smokers have a higher risk of developing chronic bronchitis.” [5]

Professor Hall’s report is the result of twenty years of marijuana research. Add these problems to the Mount Everest of troubles from alcohol use and abuse – health issues, drunk driving, underage drinking, crime, broken families, etc. God help us!

Somebody say, “For goodness sake, America, sing, sing, SING!”

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

Earlier this year, I told you about some of the challenges in reaching Millennials for Christ, that is, young adults aged roughly 18 to 33. While 55 percent of Baby Boomers say they’re religious, only 36 percent of Millennials do. “Today,” University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox notes, “fully 29 percent of Millennials consider themselves religiously unaffiliated, a record postwar high. They are also much less likely to describe themselves as ‘religious’ compared with earlier generations of Americans.”

Well, how is this rising generation connecting to the Bible? In a word, poorly. According to a new study by the Barna Group, “Non-Christian Millennials hold ambivalent and sometimes extremely negative views about the Bible.”

How negative? The first thing to know is that a full 62 percent of non-Christian Millennials have never even read the Bible. Friends, that’s the kind of world in which we live—one with tremendous ignorance of God’s Word. It’s no wonder that the nation has gone so far downhill, so fast, because we can’t expect people to live like Christians if they aren’t Christians, and especially if they don’t even have a passing acquaintance with the Scriptures.

Non-Christian Millennials’ unfamiliarity with the Bible, however, has not kept them from forming an opinion on it—an extremely negative one. Barna says that nearly half believe “the Bible is just another book of teachings written by men that contains stories and advice.”

The most common words they use to describe the Bible are “story,” “mythology,” “symbolic,” and “fairy tale.” Fully 30 percent of Millennials allow that it’s a useful book of moral teachings, but nearly as many—27 percent—agree that the Bible is “a dangerous book of religious dogma used for centuries to oppress people.”

Almost one in five say the Bible is “an outdated book with no relevance for today.” I don’t know about you, but those numbers kind of make me want to weep.

Although we obviously have a long way to go to overcome this prejudice, I’m glad to say that the survey gives us some pointers on how to do it—and how not to do it.

First, how not to do it: Barna suggests reading your Bible around a non-Christian Millennial is not likely to spark much spiritual interest—the opposite, in fact, is more likely to be true. According to Barna, “When they see someone reading the Bible in public…they assume the Bible reader is politically conservative…; that they don’t have anything in common with the person…; that the Bible reader is old fashioned…or that [he or she is] trying to make a statement or be provocative….Fewer than one in 10 non-Christian young adults indicate any kind of positive response.”

So what is a more effective approach among this group? According to Barna, “personal interactions” with people who have benefited from the Bible tend to bear the most fruit.

As we’ve said before, Millennials value relationships. We don’t need to be Bible scholars—although of course there’s nothing wrong with that. But we do, however, need to practice what the Bible preaches, and be neighborly.

And there’s more good news. The survey suggests that Millennials are fully capable of holding orthodox views about the Bible and the Christian faith. Nearly all self-identified Millennial Christians who attend church at least once a month and who describe their religious faith as very important to their lives believe the Bible contains everything a person needs to know to live a meaningful life and that it’s the actual or inspired word of God.

So when it comes to Millennials and the Bible, is the glass half full, or half empty? It all depends on us.

From ChristianPost.com

Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore and megachurch pastor Rick Warren, both speaking at a Vatican conference Tuesday, warned that Christians should not succumb to the current sexual revolution or waver on the Biblical truth about sexuality and marriage.

“Western culture now celebrates casual sexuality, cohabitation, no-fault divorce, family redefinition, and abortion rights as parts of a sexual revolution that can tear down old patriarchal systems,” said Moore in a prepared statement given during the “Complementarity of Man and Woman” colloquium convened by Pope Francis.

“The Sexual Revolution is not liberation at all, but simply the imposition of a different sort of patriarchy,” he continued. “The Sexual Revolution empowers men to pursue a Darwinian fantasy of the predatory alpha-male, rooted in the values of power, prestige, and personal pleasure … We see the wreckage of sexuality as self-expression all around us, and we will see more yet. And the stakes are not merely social or cultural but profoundly spiritual.”

Moore, who is the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, argues that every culture has recognized that there is something about sexuality that is “more than merely the firing of nerve endings” and that there is “something mysterious here, the joining of selves.”

“In the evangelical Christian perspective, this is because there is no such thing as a casual sexual encounter at all, when we are speaking in spiritual terms,” he said.

Warren, who said he agreed with much of what was said from the many speakers before him during the three-day conference, focused his message on action steps for the church.

“In many ways, the debate over the definition of life, of sex, and of marriage is, in reality, a question of leadership,” said Warren, the author of The Purpose Driven Life—What On Earth Am I Here For? He continued (in his notes forwarded to The Christian Post) by asking, “Who is going to lead? Will the church follow the crowd, or will the church lead the crowd?”

He explained, “The church cannot be salt and light in a crumbling culture if it caves in to the sexual revolution and fails to provide a counter-culture witness. It is a myth that we must give up Biblical truth on sexuality and marriage in order to evangelize.”

Pope Francis declared during the conference on Monday that marriage is by definition a union of man and woman, defying past claims by some that the Church was considering a change in its views on same-sex unions and sexuality.

“It is fitting that you have gathered here in this international colloquium to explore the complementarity of man and woman,” stated the pontiff. “This complementarity is at the root of marriage and family, which is the first school where we learn to appreciate our own and others’ gifts, and where we begin to acquire the arts of living together.”

Francis also stated in his remarks at the colloquium that “marriage and the family are in crisis.”

Additional excerpts from speeches below.

Russell Moore: Many would tell us that contemporary people will not hear us if we contradict the assumptions of the sexual revolution. We ought to conceal, or at least avoid, the conversation of what we believe about the definition of marriage, about the limits of human sexuality, about the created and good nature of gender, and speak instead in more generic spiritual terms. We have heard this before, and indeed we hear it in every generation. Our ancestors were told that modern people could not accept the miraculous claims of the ancient church creeds, and that if we were to reach them “where they are,” we should emphasize the ethical content of the Scriptures—the “golden rule”—and deemphasize the scandal of such things as virgin births and empty tombs and second comings. The churches that followed this path are now deader than Henry VIII.

It turns out that people who don’t want Christianity don’t want almost-Christianity. More importantly, those churches that altered their message adopted what Presbyterian theologian J. Gresham Machen rightly identified as a different religion. The stakes are just as high now. To jettison or to minimize a Christian sexual ethic is to abandon the message Jesus handed to us, and we have no authority to do this. Moreover, to do so is to abandon our love for our neighbors. We cannot offer the world the half-gospel of a surgical-strike targeted universalism, which exempts from God’s judgment those sins we fear are too fashionable to address. Full transcript here.

Rick Warren (Notes): Paul explained it this way: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her – to make her holy… and to present her as beautiful bride to himself, a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or blemish, but holy and pure.

“In this same way, husbands must love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds it, and cares for it, just as Christ does his church– for we are members of Christ’s body! It is for this reason that man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and his church! So, each of you must also love your wife as your love himself, and you wife must respect your husband.” Eph. 5:23-33 (NIV)

THIS is the deepest meaning of marriage! THIS is most profound purpose of marriage! THIS is the strongest reason marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

No other relationship, including the parent-child relationship, can picture this intimate union. To redefine marriage would destroy the picture that God intends for marriage to portray.

We CANNOT cave on this issue!

Yet another study is showing that the traditional family within the confines of a committed marriage is best for children and for society.

The study conducted by the American Enterprise Institute suggests that a couple who marries, stays married, and has children is providing a special blessing to those children. “One big reason ordinary families are struggling is that fewer families are headed by married parents,” says the study in commenting on just one of six reasons intact families have an effect on “the American dream.”

Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, author of Children at Risk and Marriage Matters, has taken a close look at the research.

“This study from American Enterprise Institute adds to the accumulation of 40 years of data that the children of parents who are married are wealthier, they end up better educated, and they’re better able to hold a job,” she comments. “And this is just wonderful news because this is a problem that is costing not just individuals but the whole country.”

The bottom line, according to the AEI study, is that all Americans – whether conservative or liberal – “should be concerned about the health of the American family.”

Crouse points out that for a long time Christians have been saying that family structure – biblical marriage – is the key. Society, she says, has paid a price in steering away from that.

“You look at all the other types of families and those kids face very definite risks for early pregnancy, experimenting with alcohol and drugs,” she laments. “They are far greater at risk in terms of truancy and dropping out of school and so many of the problems that no parent wants to see their children get involved in.”

And she stresses that there’s no question that a person’s faith adds a needed dimension to families – i.e., a commitment to one another – and helps to provide a spiritual foundation for solidifying the marriage and the children’s future.

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

Finally, some common sense from appellate court judges.  In a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that state laws in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee that define marriage as the union of one man and one woman do not violate the Constitution.

What is the government’s interest in marriage?

Homosexuals assert that marriage is constituted solely by love and has no inherent connection to sexual differentiation or the children who may result from conjugal coupling. Further, homosexuals believe that it is the presence of love that not only makes a union a marriage but that justifies government involvement in it.

But is that true? Has the government ever been involved in marriage because of marriage’s inconsistent connection to love? Has the government ever had a vested interest in the subjective feelings of those who seek to marry?

Judge Jeffrey Sutton writing for the majority in the Sixth Circuit Court’s decision states that “One starts from the premise that governments got into the business of defining marriage, and remain in the business of defining marriage, not to regulate love but to regulate sex, most especially the intended and unintended effects of male-female intercourse.”

If marriage were constituted solely by love and the government were in the odd business of recognizing and affirming love, then why not recognize and affirm all forms of love by granting marriage licenses even to those in loving non-erotic relationships? What possible relevance to the government is inherently sterile erotic activity? What is the relevance of private, subjective, romantic feelings and inherently sterile erotic activity to any public purposes of marriage and therefore to the government’s involvement with marriage?

When “progressives” argue that marriage is constituted solely by love and commitment and that it has no inherent connection to procreation, then they have to explain why two brothers should not be permitted to marry. Why shouldn’t five people of assorted genders (or no gender) who love each other be permitted to marry? Why shouldn’t the non-erotic relationship between BFF’s be considered a “marriage”?

Dissenting judge liberal Martha Craig Daughtrey argued that in the nineteen states where homoerotic unions are now recognized as marriages “‘it doesn’t look like the sky is falling in.’” So, that’s her legal rationale? As long as legal change doesn’t result in a rapid, dramatic atmospheric calamity, it’s hunky dory? One wonders if Daughtrey thinks the sky would fall in if plural or incestuous unions were to be legalized.

Liberals can’t appeal to history, tradition, or children in their defense of marriage as inherently binary, or non-consanguineous, or related to erotic activity, because they have already shredded the notions that history, tradition, or procreation have any relevance to marriage.

But if reproductive-type sexual activity (i.e., coitus) is irrelevant to government interest in marriage then surely non-reproductive-types of erotic activity are equally irrelevant. And if all sexual/erotic activity is irrelevant to the government’s interest in marriage, then logically those in relationships constituted by any and all forms of love must be permitted to “marry.”

As homosexuals continually and rightly assert, men and women are objectively and substantively different, and those differences are anatomical, biological, emotional, and psychological. A homoerotic union is as different from a heterosexual union as men are from women. A heterosexual union is different from a homoerotic union in objective ways pertaining to the procreation, needs, and rights of any children that may result from the type of sex act in which only men and women can engage. This type of union matters to government.

When conservatives argue that the government is involved in marriage because of the connection between male-female coitus and procreation, the Left says, “Aha, but infertile couples and those who intend to remain childless are allowed to marry.” What they’re saying is that the government neither compels procreation nor attempts to ascertain fertility. This liberals see as a flaw in conservative arguments. They believe that the government’s establishment of general objective marital criteria as opposed to intrusive government involvement in individual relationships is a weakness as opposed to a strength.

But what about the Left’s revisionist view of marriage as being constituted only by love? Are liberals similarly troubled by the fact that the government will never demand proof of the presence of love or attempt to compel couples to love one another? Will the unwillingness of the government to demand proof of love suggest a flaw in liberal arguments for redefining marriage?

Do governments create marriage?

According to the homosexual newspaper the Washington Blade, “When state attorneys made the arguments that bans on same-sex marriage had a rational basis because the purpose of marriage was procreation, Daughtrey took them to task, repeatedly asking them why excluding same-sex couples from the institution was necessary when opposite-sex couples can procreate with or without marriage.”

Daughtrey reveals both her ignorance and her liberal view that government creates reality.

A man and woman who engage in reproductive-type sexual activity (i.e., coitus) and conceive a child are in reality married because the central defining features of marriage are sexual differentiation and coitus. Marriage has a nature that predates the existence of formal legal institutions. Opposite-sex couples aren’t married because the government issues them a license. The government issues them a license to formalize marriage, which becomes actualized through conjugal unions—not through inherently sterile mutual masturbatory activity. Couples who engage in conjugal activity prior to acquiring a marriage license are in reality married. It isn’t the government that creates marriage. Government merely recognizes and regulates a type of union that in reality exists. We call that type of union marriage.

Since government does not create marriage, it cannot un-create it or recreate it. Thus, legally allowing two people of the same-sex to “marry” does not mean they’re married in anything other than a legal (de jure) sense. They are not married in reality because in reality marriage has a nature central to which is sexual differentiation, and without which a union is not marital.

If some silly government officials decided to issue dog licenses to cats because both dogs and cats have fur and four legs, some citizens—it is hoped—would recognize that dogs are in reality not cats because cats have natures that don’t change because the government issues a license.

Harm to children

The Left claims that children are “harmed” by not having their same-sex parents married. Since the Left worships at the woefully unstable altar of social science research, have liberal judges asked attorneys for homosexual couples to provide conclusive, incontrovertible sociological research demonstrating the ways these children are measurably harmed. Are children being raised by unmarried homosexual parents scoring lower on standardized tests? Are they abusing drugs and alcohol at higher rates than are children whose homosexual parents are married? What are the statistics on mental illness? Are their peer relationships more unstable?

If there is research demonstrating that these children suffer, have researchers controlled for all the factors that may contribute to their suffering? Is it the legal marital status of their parents that causes the harm or might it be the absence of either a mother or a father? Even President Barack Obama has publicly stated that both mothers and fathers are critical to children’s lives, and all children have both a mother and a father—even though some children are being deprived of relationships with them through the purchase of their DNA. Does it make sense that the marital status of homosexual parents would cause harm but being denied either a mother or father would not?

Some homosexual couples appeal to the self-consciousness their children feel about their parents not being legally married as evidence that same-sex “marriage” should be legalized. What does it mean then when children being raised by homosexuals feel self-conscious about not having a mother or a father?

Ironically, while the Left has been effective in selling the redefinition of marriage by asserting that marriage has nothing to do with procreation, William Harbison, attorney for the Tennessee same-sex couples in the Sixth Circuit Court case, complained that traditional marriage laws exclude “same-sex couples from anything related to procreation.” So, procreation matters in marriage law but only in so far as it satisfies the procreative desires of those who choose to be in inherently non-procreative relationships. While arguing that marriage is solely constituted by love and has nothing to do with procreation, “progressives” then use children’s needs, desires, and rights as a justification for changing the legal definition of marriage.

Let’s follow the logic of this revised revisionist view of marriage. If it’s love, commitment, and the presence of children (though not the begetting of children) that constitute “marriage,” then plural unions, incestuous unions, or any relational contexts in which children are being raised must logically be recognized as marriages.

Once the public becomes persuaded that love is all there is when it comes to marriage, they will start clamoring for the legalization of plural and incestuous unions. Once the notion that any adults raising children are entitled to have their relationships recognized as “marriages,” then judges will be obliged to find legal rationales to jettison requirements regarding monogamy and consanguinity from the legal definition of marriage—oh, unless doing so would cause the sky to fall in, which we won’t know until decades after platonic, plural, and incestuous marriages are legalized.  Once marriages are no longer restricted to erotic/sexual unions, the minimum age requirement too becomes irrelevant.

And at long last, we will arrive at the end game for the far Left: the destruction of marriage. Once society concludes that marriage is wholly a social construct with no objective nature, and once all criteria that define marriage are jettisoned so that any persons or number of persons can “marry,” marriage ceases to exist. Once marriage is anything, it’s nothing, with no relevance to the public good.

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As the American people prepare to vote on marijuana ballot measures in three states and the District of Columbia, measures which would make the mind-altering substance more freely available, more bad news keeps coming for the well-funded pothead lobby.

In a major terrorism-related case, a participant in the cover-up of the Boston Marathon bombing conspiracy, Robel Phillipos, claimed the drug had so many bad effects on his brain that he lied to federal agents.

The key question, however, is whether the major media will ever start reporting on the substantial evidence linking “cannabis” and mental illness, violence and terrorism.

The “reefer madness” defense for Phillipos, a close friend and associate of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev, would be laughable were it not for the fact that the Boston bombings killed three people and injured hundreds. Martin Richard, the eight-year-old boy killed in the bombing, had been photographed holding a sign that said, “No more hurting people. Peace.”

The pothead defense clearly didn’t work out the way his radical left lawyers had planned; Phillipos has now been found guilty by a jury of lying to the FBI, “despite his claim that he was too high to remember what he had done,” as The Atlantic magazine described the unusual defense.

The son of an Ethiopian immigrant, Phillipos knew that two other Tsarnaev friends removed a backpack containing evidence of the terrorist crime from his college dorm room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. But he lied about it to federal agents.

His attorney, Susan Church, and her co-counsel, Derege Demissie, had argued that “he smoked marijuana about a half-dozen times that day, and was simply unable to reconstruct his actions during a series of high-pressure interviews with federal agents,” The Boston Globe reported. The Globe said legal analysts were divided over whether the “I forget because of marijuana” defense would work.

Well, it didn’t.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, between April 19, 2013 and April 26, 2013, federal investigators interviewed Phillipos five times about the bombing and during each of those interviews Phillipos lied. He blamed marijuana for all of these memory “lapses.”

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said, “In the wake of one of the most significant events in this city’s modern history—an event which left two young women and a child dead, and many more injured —thousands of ordinary citizens assisted law enforcement in identifying and locating the perpetrators.” However, she said that Phillipos did just the opposite. “He lied to agents when he could have helped. He concealed when he could have assisted,” she said.

He faces eight years in prison for each of the two counts of lying, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 for each charge.

Incredibly, former governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic nominee for president Michael Dukakis testified on his behalf and said he and his wife had taken him to the 2004 Democratic National Convention as a “special guest.” Dukakis said, “We watched him grow up.”

Based on the defense of his crimes offered by his lawyers, it appears that he grew up into a zombie willing to lie about his knowledge of the worst terrorist incident in Boston history because marijuana clouded his memory.

This provocative legal theory came, not surprisingly, from the far-left. His attorney Susan Church previously served as co-chair of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, and regularly conducts “know your rights” seminars at community centers and various immigrant advocacy groups.

Her bio neglects to point out that the National Lawyers Guild was once identified as a Communist Party front. Her co-counsel, Derege Demissie, is a member of the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.

Church focuses on “immigration law and criminal defense,” and “advocates for immigrants with criminal convictions facing deportation and immigrants seeking immigration benefits in the United States.” She received the “Detention Panel Attorney of the Year” award from the Political Asylum Immigrant Representation project.

Leave it to the ACLU and the far-left National Lawyers Guild to offer marijuana as a defense for lying about terrorism.

The “high out of his mind” defense, though ultimately unsuccessful, does add to the questions about marijuana’s role in the crime, since Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev was a heavy marijuana user and dealer. His older brother, killed in a shoot-out, was implicated in a triple murder involving marijuana being thrown on three dead bodies whose throats were slit.

To add to the intrigue, a sister of the Boston Marathon bombers who goes by the name of Bella Tsarnaeva is also facing a marijuana charge.

The Bergen County, New Jersey, Record reported that Tsarnaeva was arrested after police responded to her home on a domestic violence report and found marijuana. The paper said both Tsarnaeva and her boyfriend, Ahmad Khalil, were indicted on April 10 for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

The number of people associated with the bombers and/or the conspiracy has led to speculation that it grew out of a marijuana smuggling operation, possibly with foreign ties. The Tsarnaev brothers were born in the former Soviet Union.

It has long been known that terrorist groups operating in drug-producing regions of the world such as Afghanistan, Colombia and Peru, have been heavily involved in the drug trade.

Despite Phillipos’ failure to blame pot for his lies, Reuters news agency noted that his lawyers called one expert, Dr. Alan Wartenberg, who said that marijuana can “impair memory” and “impair executive functions,” as well as judgment and other brain functions. Wartenberg said younger men’s brains are “more prone to cognitive impairment from marijuana” than those in older men.

Many studies back up the testimony. One study from Northwestern University found that teenagers who were heavy marijuana users had “abnormal changes in their brain structures related to working memory and performed poorly on memory tasks.”

But while the drug can have an extremely negative effect on the brain, the idea that smoking marijuana on a constant basis gets you off the hook for lying about crimes of terrorism has now been rejected by a jury.

Still, how many more “stoners” will be produced if the marijuana ballot measures pass on November 4? The stakes are so high that the Brookings Institution is calling them the “Marijuana Midterms.”

The dope lobby is heavily funded, with much of the money coming from groups associated with billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis. Other funds are supplied by the marijuana business, which generates repeat customers dependent on the weed.

One analysis shows that in Oregon, the marijuana lobby is spending $2 million on a prime-time TV ad campaign, while opponents have raised a mere $168,000. In Alaska, dopers have raised $867,000 while opponents have only raised $97,000.

In states like California, Washington and Colorado, where marijuana has been legalized, experts are now warning about edible marijuana products disguised as candies, cookies and brownies falling into the hands of kids. The Washington Poison Center warns that, of the reported cases of pediatric marijuana exposures in Washington State, 27 percent were cases involving children from one to three years old.

While drugging kids with marijuana appears to be on the rise, the media seem to be treating these cases as harmless pranks.

The dope lobby, meanwhile, is extremely upset over my previous column examining a connection between high-profile cases of Islamic terrorism and violence and marijuana addiction. One critic called my column “offensive,” saying, “I hope that all TWB readers contact him and let them know what they think of his reefer madness.”

TWB stands for “The Weed Blog,” devoted to all things marijuana-related. It features “marijuana books,” cannabis recipes, and even “grower tips.” It is typical of the consuming passion for the drug that characterizes heavy users.

The editors and administrators are identified by the names “Johnny Green” and “Jay Smoker,” which are obviously pseudonyms for marijuana users and activists. They are determined to portray marijuana addiction in the best possible light.

This is typical of the marijuana mentality that gripped the Boston bombers and their collaborators, until one of them, Phillipos, got caught by the feds and lied. Then he decided he had to blame pot for his mental problems in order to avoid prison.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

Liberals have given us some silly ideas over the years. Gun-free zones. Public-sector unions. Socialized medicine. On and on. The list is extensive, but one of the dumbest ideas to emerge from the intellectual vacuum known as modern liberalism has to be the concept of Multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism is the silly idea that all cultures are equally worthwhile. It posits that cultural worth isn’t something which can be objectively measured or assessed, but is instead a matter of subjective perspective. Multiculturalism dovetails very nicely with moral relativism, the idea that morality is just a matter of opinion. So if an action or cultural practice isn’t inherently Good or Bad, then it follows that the global contributions of that culture cannot be deemed worthwhile or worthless, but must be viewed through the context of that culture itself. Or so the argument goes.

This is why you will never hear a true blue bleeding-heart speak dismissively of Islamic culture. Rational beings would look at the paucity of civil rights held by women in Islamic communities, coupled with the forcible denial of religious freedoms to any non-Islamic minorities, and find Islamic culture to be less worthy of emulation or adoption than more liberal options.

Not liberals. They can’t articulate a judgment between two cultures, because that would force them to admit that there is an objective means to measure actions and practices; and that would open up a can of worms which squirm more than relativists trapped by their own illogic.

Of course, this unwillingness to form an objective judgment at a cultural level will never prevent liberals from castigating Israel from sun-up to sun-down for being a blood-thirsty people who prey on innocent victims. (Don’t think too long on that contradiction. They certainly haven’t…)

Nope, all cultures are equally valid and no aspects of any one culture should be favored over another!! Since all cultures are equally valid, it’s wrong (no contradiction there) to break down the boundaries of cultural adherence. In fact, the perception among multiculturalists is that encouraging cultural assimilation is rapacious and dictatorial. No longer should we seek to be a “melting pot” which creates a bouquet of cultural flavors in one united American fondue. Instead we’ve become that OCD kid who won’t eat his dinner if a french fry grazes his mac-and-cheese, demanding a separate plate to keep each segment of his meal completely segregated. The result is social balkanization, increased tribalism, and a deteriorating cultural fabric. By giving each culture a participation trophy, Multiculturalism isn’t strengthening society. It’s weakening us by inhibiting cohesion, cooperation, and communal development.

Imagine running a company with this mentality. What if each department of General Motors was celebrated for the unique way they designed and produced their portion of the automobile? If the parts are produced in a manner incompatible with each other, we’d blame the disparate departments who are operating independently of each other. And when the cars get recalled by the million, due to faulty design and incompatible workmanship, the blame could be placed squarely on the policy which suggested that incompatible diversity would make better cars. Mind-numbingly stupid, isn’t it? The celebration of something simply because it is different, irrespective of worth or validity, is idiocy.

“When Europeans first discovered paper and printing from China, they did not “celebrate diversity”, they stopped giving themselves writers’ cramp from copying scrolls and started letting the printing presses do the work. When American Indians saw horses for the first time after Europeans brought them here, they did not “celebrate diversity”, they started riding off to hunt instead of walking.”

– Thomas Sowell

Multiculturalism is cultural socialism. Those in power pick winners and losers, with the losers usually being the most productive or the most successful, historically. Just like political socialism, in multiculturalism, the population is strong-armed into ideological adherence instead of allowed to choose the best of the options available to them.

And just like political socialism, in a multiculturalist society, free-market principles are not allowed to exert their purifying influence as they are in the “melting pot” model. If we think back to when America’s culture was its most vibrant and influential, we can readily recognize the distinct and powerful themes which different cultures brought to the American table; not because every culture in America had something worthwhile to offer, but because (for the most part) we incorporated what worked and ditched what didn’t. This is how any entity gets stronger and builds greater cohesion among its parts.

The ideal that the ancient Greeks sought in their time was “university”. The original meaning behind this phrase was not an institution of higher learning, but the presence of unity within diversity. This paradox taps into the strengths of both phenomena and promotes stability. When we are at our strongest and healthiest is when we channel our natural diversity into our national unity. Multiculturalism, as is the case with most leftist ideas, stands this on its head by demanding diversity at the cost of unity.

The heavy hand of misused government power is getting heavier by the day.

Given the Obama Administration’s vast abuses of executive power, it’s not surprising that lesser lights are following the Chief Executive’s example and waging “lawfare” on their opponents.

In Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, a pastoral couple who own a wedding chapel are facing a 180-day jail term and a $1,000-per-day fine if they continue to refuse to “marry” homosexual couples. The city says the couple are violating the local anti-discrimination law, which includes “sexual orientation.” Religious freedom? Not so much.

In Houston, it probably seemed like a good idea to Mayor Annise D. Parker, an activist lesbian, for city attorneys to serve five pastors with subpoenas ordering them to turn over all sermons, e-mails, and other communications involving a petition drive against a transgender statute that she had championed.

After all, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, Cuba’s Raul Castro, and Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner routinely misuse the law to crack down on opponents.

Wait. This is America. This is Texas, land of the Alamo, where the U.S. Constitution is supposed to restrain would-be tyrants.

Faced with a hurricane of a backlash, the mayor backed off, sort of, reducing the demand to the content of sermons. Let me translate: “Here’s a gun to your head, pastor. Turn your remarks over – or else. By the way, God bless America.”

What should happen swiftly is her removal from office and civil damage lawsuits filed by the targeted pastors. Jesus said to turn the other cheek when faced with insult, but that does not mean stepping aside and allowing bullies to go on to their next victims. By standing up to anti-religious bigotry and unlawful lawfare, the pastors fight for all of us.

As Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said recently, “Caesar has no jurisdiction over the pulpit, and when you subpoena one pastor, you subpoena every pastor.”

The mayor, who misused her power to block a referendum a few years ago that would have curbed the city’s lucrative use of red-light revenue cameras, is not exactly an outlier. Liberals across the land reflexively reach for the big gun or gavel when someone disagrees with their agendas. They live to use government power to force their morals, or lack thereof, on everyone else.

The targets include anyone standing in the way of their imagined utopia of pansexuaity, windmills, bureaucratic supremacy, political correctness and a cowed populace dependent on government handouts.

When judges overturn voter-approved state constitutional amendments protecting natural marriage in the law, they know full well that they’re unleashing the legal equivalent of the hounds of hell on millions of Americans who are punch-drunk from repeated outrages committed by judicial tyrants. Increasingly, people are asking what has happened to our self-governing republic and how do we get it back?

In Wisconsin, a vindictive, partisan state district attorney, John Chisholm, has engaged in lawfare to harass conservative groups working with Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Agents have raided people’s homes and offices, looking for evidence that groups violated campaign finance laws by advocating for policies favored by the governor. A court has since ruled against Mr. Chisholm and halted the witch hunt, but not before it had the intended effect: frightening away contributors to Mr. Walker and conservative groups while Mr. Walker faces a tough re-election against a public-union-backed Democrat.

The tactic is similar to the Internal Revenue Service’s well-documented harassment of Tea Party groups, such as multiple. punitive audits of True the Vote, its founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, and her family’s business, and piling on by other Obama-run federal agencies like OSHA.

Back in Texas, the Travis County prosecutor’s office got a grand jury to indict Republican Gov. Rick Perry on two felony counts in September because he vetoed funding for a statewide public integrity unit run by Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg. She had refused to step down after being convicted of drunk driving. The governor thought, not unreasonably, that this disqualified her as an “ethics” officer. The ludicrous charges against the governor will at some point be dismissed, but that doesn’t matter. The idea is to get the media to portray Mr. Perry, a possible Republican presidential candidate, as damaged goods.

The Travis County office is good at this. It’s the same unit that took out Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (TX) when hyper-partisan Democrat Ronnie Earle filed bogus money-laundering charges in 2005. Although Mr. DeLay finally was exonerated in September 2013, Earle’s use of lawfare removed one of the most effective Republican leaders and fundraisers for several years.

In Alaska, two partisan federal prosecutors withheld exonerating evidence and managed to get Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens convicted of making false statements about a home renovation just days before the 2008 election. This cost Mr. Stevens, who died in a plane crash in 2010, his long-held seat and elevated Mark Begich, who gave Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate through which Majority Leader Harry Reid rammed Obamacare.

This year, Mr. Begich’s re-election campaign, unaided by lawfare, is counting on the power of his main message: “Obama Who?”

Elections have consequences, and so should misuse of the legal system by unscrupulous politicians who wage lawfare.

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

Written by Kevin DeYoung

From the Book of Common Prayer:

Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this Congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honorable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence, and first miracle that he wrought, in Cana of Galilee; and is commended of Saint Paul to be honourable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be enterprized, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.

First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy name.

Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body.

Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined. Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.

If Christians are to accept gay so-called marriage, they must accept that our liturgies and our services, our pastors and priests, our forefathers and foremothers have been for centuries wrong about the meaning of marriage. What they heard, what the pastor read, what their grandparents knew to be true was wrong as rain. And not just a little wrong, but fundamentally mistaken about the most essential elements of marriage. If gay marriage is right, then there is almost nothing in the old Book of Common Prayer that is right.

• Marriage is not the joining together of a man and a woman uniquely, naturally, biologically, and by divine design fit one for the other, but the joining together of any persons who wish to commit themselves to each other in a state sanctioned ceremony.
• Marriage is not a pre-political entity instituted by God, but a social construction which can be defined by personal desire and judicial mandate.
• Marriage does not signify the mystical union of Christ and the church, which requires the differentiation of male and female, but a commemoration of professed commitment and modern notions of equality.
• Marriage was not ordained for the procreation of children and therefore does not require two persons whose one flesh union can, by the nature of the differentiated sexes becoming one, produce offspring unless age or infirmity prohibit.

We are often told that we are only being asked to make little a tweak here or there to the Christian understanding of marriage, that gay marriage is just about more marriage for more people. But if the wisdom of the church through the ages tells us anything, it’s that the only way the Christian can accept gay marriage is by believing something different about marriage altogether.

Originally posted at The Gospel Coalition.

Written by Michael Medved

Insistent media messages claim surging and overwhelming public support for redefinition of marriage but recent numbers from major surveys and the Census Bureau tell a very different story.

In late September, a Pew Center poll found less than half of respondents – 49% to be exact – saying that they “favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally” – a sharp five point drop since February. Without the biased wording of the question, gay marriage might have received even weaker public backing: if a survey asks you if you want to “allow” other people to do something they say they ardently desire, you’d have to be deeply committed to traditional matrimony to say no. Had Pew asked “Do you want your government to redefine marriage so that male-male and female-female couples are treated identically to traditional marriages?” the response to sweeping change could have been still less favorable.

That’s particularly obvious in light of another surprising result in the poll: a full 50% of respondents agreed with the statement that “homosexual behavior is a sin,” including 77% of black Protestants and a crushing 82% of white Evangelicals. Moreover, the overall percentage of those viewing homosexuality as “sinful” has been soaring, not declining: it’s up from 45% in May of 2013. Considering the demographics in the 31 states that have so far resisted the nationwide push for gay marriage, it’s tough to imagine that these electorates, with their heavy concentration of Evangelicals and blacks, will endorse government sponsorship of same sex couples at any time in the near future.

Supporters of gay marriage consider such resistance irrelevant and cite the “tidal wave” of same sex couples who have already legalized their unions in the nineteen states that have changed their laws to back what sloganeers call “marriage equality.” In fact, the Census Bureau recently agreed to begin counting same sex unions as official marriages in their new figures of married vs. single people, and many experts predicted that these freshly minted gay couples would give the institution of matrimony a visible boost. Alas, the incidence of homosexual wedlock remains so rare that the overall percentage of adults who are married continued to decline –to 50.3%, an all time low –according the 2013 American Community Survey. At the same time, “same-sex cohabiting partners made up an even smaller share of 2013 households than in 2012.”

The official government figures suggest that 252,000 households were headed by same-sex married couples in 2013 –less than one-half of one percent of the overall figure of 56,000,000 marriages counted by the Census Bureau. Despite the fact that a majority of the US population and an overwhelming majority of the gay population now live in states that authorize same sex marriage, the numbers suggest that well below 4% of gay adults are currently married. That compares to slightly more than 50% of straight adults – an indication that the nation remains a long way from “marriage equality.” The heavily-hyped gay marriage tidal wave remains in actuality little more than a trickle.

One more aspect of the Pew Center survey similarly suggests that the march toward same sex marriage may not prove as inexorable as its boosters suppose. The pollsters posed the question: “At the present time, do you think religion as a whole is increasing its influence on American life or losing its influence?” Some 72% believed they saw declining influence for religious faith, but by an astonishing margin of 4 to 1 they identified this trend as a “bad thing” rather than “a good thing.” In other words, the American public sees religion with a diminished role in our national culture but they overwhelmingly prefer to see its old power restored or enhanced.

As recently as November, 2001, the figures on religious influence amounted to a virtual mirror image of their status today: in the aftermath of 9/11 and the “turn toward God” that many observers discerned,  Americans saw faith increasing its impact rather than reducing it by a lopsided edge of 78-12%. That advantage quickly evaporated along with the popularity of the Bush administration, while the relentless push toward gay marriage fed the growing perception that traditional faith had lost its clout. The same way that a few big events in the early years of the new century, and shifting political trends since that time caused radical reverses in attitudes toward religion’s role, it’s hardly inconceivable that public impressions could change again.

A few victories for supporters of traditional marriage, in court rooms or at the ballot box, could well convey the idea of resurgent religiosity. A clear majority of church-going Americans, after-all, currently affiliate with denominations that passionately oppose redefining marriage: Catholics, white and black Evangelicals, Eastern Orthodox, Mormons, Muslims, and Orthodox Jews. The great bulk of such believers tell pollsters they want a more vigorous role in public debates for their churches, synagogues and mosques. Just under half of all Americans already oppose gay marriage, 50% consider homosexuality sinful and close to 80% think it’s a bad thing for religion to lose its influence. With those figures in mind, it’s wildly premature to herald the movement to redefine matrimony as a sweeping and unstoppable force, and to write off all resistance as a futile gesture.

This article was originally posted at the TruthRevolt.org website.

Written by Michael Medved

A recent Washington Post piece acknowledges that “children with married parents are better off” but simultaneously claims “marriage isn’t the reason why.” The report cites research at Brookings Institution suggesting that higher family income, more educated parents, and better parenting skills help explain the so-called “marriage advantage,” not the institution of matrimony itself.

It’s well known that people with more financial success and more preparation for parenthood are much more likely to marry, so the piece argues that it’s these qualities—not the marital bond—that makes the difference for kids. What this logic ignores is the way marriage changes adults, not just children. Marriage trains people in patience, consideration, sharing, deferred gratification and goal-oriented hard work—just those qualities that make for more financial success and better parenting.

Living as a committed and stable couple serves to shape better adults even before they get a chance to parent better kids.