The fifth anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges is coming up this year.
Five years ago, five bad lawyers in black dresses decided that somewhere in the United States Constitution, there is a right for two men or two women to marry.
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| It takes a family, and a family takes one man and one woman. |
The truth is that the four clearly liberal justices and the one swing justice (no pun intended) named Anthony Kennedy decided to draw up a new right out of nowhere and impose it on the country.
First of all, let's cut through all the haze, smoke, and fog. There is no such thing as a "right to marriage".
Marriage is a sacrament, an institution, a covenant. I do not have the right to demand that a woman marry me. She has to consent to that marriage. There is a fundamental understanding when it comes to consent, that it requires maturation, the attainment of majority, i.e. adulthood.
Children should not be getting married, and if a seventeen and a sixteen year old do want to marry, in many states in the United States they must obtain the consent of their parents.
Just five years later, and there is massive cultural and moral fallout in the United States. MassResistance sounded the alarm on the damage that the travesty of same-sex marriage would have on the country as soon as the Massachusetts Supreme Court shoved false marriage onto the Commonwealth.
Folks, the stakes could not be higher. We need to take a firm stance against false marraige. It's about one man and one woman, not two men, not two women, not any other relic of barbarism.
Check out the commentary in this latest USA Today editorial:
The transformation of our legal system as to marriage was rapid and
top-down. Changes in law brought changes in culture, and they're not all
rainbows.
There are no rainbows in the LGBT movement, simple as that. The Rainbow is God's promise to the world that He would never again wipe out the world in a flood. The LGBT movement has a six-colored band.
A decade ago, President Barack Obama affirmed that marriage unites a
man and woman. So did 45 states and the federal government. The only states to
redefine marriage had done so through activist court rulings or, in 2009,
legislative action. At the ballot box, citizens had uniformly voted against
redefinition. A majority agreed with Obama.
Yes indeed. The public declared clearly that marriage is for one man and one woman. In North Carolina, 65% of voters made it very clear that they would not accept any redefinition of marriage. That amendment passed the same year that Obama got re-elected, by the way.
Then, in 2012, Obama “evolved,” and the Supreme Court took cases
involving marriage law. Nothing in the Constitution answered the actual
question at hand: What is marriage? The court should have left the issue to the
people. But in 2013, it struck down the federal definition of marriage as a
male-female union in a 5-4 ruling.
Shameful.
The court also punted on a challenge to a state definition of marriage
adopted in a 2008 constitutional referendum by which a majority of Californians
— yes, Californians — overturned an activist court. Only in 2015 did the
Supreme Court, breaking 5-4 again, redefine marriage for the nation, provoking
four irrefutable dissents.
I voted for Prop 8 in 2008. I was so glad to do that. I know lots of people who voted to retain the definition of marriage as the eternal institution, the union of one man and one woman.
Same-sex marriage advocates told the public that they sought only the
“freedom to marry.” Same-sex couples were already free to live as they chose,
but legal recognition was about the definition of marriage for all of society.
It was about affirmation — by the government and everyone else.
Homosexuals were free to live together, but perhaps we need to start having the discussion about why sexual perversion between two men or two women had been decriminalized. There is no reason for this. There is no right to sexual predation, degradation, or sodomy in the United States Constitution.
It’s unsurprising that once a campaign that used to cry “live and let
live” prevailed, it began working to shut down Catholic adoption agencies and
harass evangelical bakers and florists. This shows it was never really about
“live and let live” — that was a merely tactical stance.
This movement was never about "Live and Let Live." Homosexual activists were crystal clear early on that
Family, marriage — redefined
While these were the early effects of redefinition, the more profound
consequences will be to marriage itself. Law shapes culture; culture shapes
beliefs; beliefs shape action. The law now effectively teaches that mothers and
fathers are replaceable, that marriage is simply about consenting adult
relationships, of whatever formation the parties happen to prefer. This
undermines the truth that children deserve a mother and a father — one of each.
It's time for us to shape the law. It's time for the laws of nature to push back against the corruption of the natural law, the natural rights of individuals, and natural marriage itself.
It also undercuts any reasonable justification for marital norms. After
all, if marriage is about romantic connection, why require monogamy? There’s
nothing magical about the number two, as defenders of “polyamory” point out. If
marriage isn’t a conjugal union uniting a man and a woman as one flesh, why
should it involve or imply sexual exclusivity? If it isn’t a comprehensive
union inherently ordered to childbearing and rearing, why should it be pledged
to permanence?
Marriage is about much more than feelings. It is a covenant, a commitment to the truth, that God designed man and woman to be united in a marriage covenant, or to live in singlehood.
Marriage redefiners could not answer these questions when challenged to
show that the elimination of sexual complementarity did not undermine other
marital norms. Today, they increasingly admit that they have no stake in
upholding norms of monogamy, exclusivity and permanence.
Once the definition is shifted in one way, then anything goes. Of course, marriage and family advocates had long pointed this out.
Same-sex marriage didn’t create these problems. Many in America had
unwisely already gone along with the erosion of marital norms in the wake of
the sexual revolution — with the rise of cohabitation, nonmarital childbearing,
no-fault divorce and the hookup culture. It was no surprise that many would
then question the relevance of the male-female norm. Legal redefinition is a
consequence of the cultural breakdown of marriage.
True.
Monogamy is old news
But same-sex marriage is a catalyst for further erosion. Already, we
see respectable opinion-makers mainstreaming “throuples,” “ethical nonmonogamy”
and “open relationships.” This was predictable; we and others predicted it.
FYI: Told you so!
Something we didn’t predict are the headlines about transgender and
nonbinary “identities.” A decade ago, few Americans had given much thought to
the "T" in "LGBT." Today, transgender identity seems to
dominate the discussion of sexuality and sexual morality.
MassResistance predicted this. They talked about what happened in Massachusetts shortly after the imposition of false marriage on the state. Transgenderism became a growing, rampant reality very quickly in the Commonwealth.
There’s a logic here. If we can’t see the point of our sexual
embodiment where it matters most — in marriage — we’ll question whether it
matters at all. Hence the push to see gender as “fluid” and existing along a
"spectrum” of nonbinary options.
Hence Drag Queen Story Hour has become a "thing." We need to resist this perverse program, and then at length stand up to the whole LGBT agenda.
There’s a deeper logic, too. Implicit in the push for same-sex marriage
was body-self dualism — the idea that we’re actually nonphysical entities
inhabiting physical bodies, or ghosts in machines. That’s why the
"plumbing" in sexual acts seemed not to matter.
Of course, it does. We are not mere beings, but beings whom God designed as male or female.
True one-flesh union, the foundation of conjugal marriage, was thought
illusory. What mattered was emotional union and partners’ use of their bodies
to induce desirable sensations and feelings. Of course, two men or two women
(or throuples or even larger sexual ensembles) could do that. But the logic
didn’t stay with marriage. If the body is mere plumbing, then sex matters less
than identity.
This recognition of complementarity is profound. Indeed, the pro-family lawyers who were arguing to retain marriage, i.e. between one man and one woman, for some reason refused to discuss the biological as well as the psychological and sociological implications.
The pro-family movement, for lack of a better label, has never really been interested in fighting to win. They want to be liked, they want to appear respectable, they want to gain the favor of the media (which will never happen), and they don't want to fight back hard.
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| Marriage is for one man and one woman |
Yet that does not work. It never works, in fact. The LGBT lobby has been hardcore in their demands. They don't, they won't take "No" for an answer. The behaviors which undergird this whole agenda are unceasing. There is no peace, there is no real consumation. It's a perversion, it's destructive, and it communicates a lie which no one can make right, real, or true.
This has had tragic consequences, especially for children.
Children burdened by our mistakes
Nearly unthinkable a decade ago, certain medical professionals tell
children experiencing gender dysphoria that they are trapped in the wrong body,
even that their bodies are merely like Pop-Tarts foil packets, as one expert
explained.
Transgenderism was the inevitable result to this destruction, dissimulation of true marriage, of natural marriage. This is hurting children. Whatever happened to doing what is best for boys, for girls?
Some doctors now prescribe puberty-blocking drugs to otherwise healthy
children struggling to accept their bodies. They prescribe cross-sex hormones
for young teens to transform their bodies to align with their gender
identities.
This is child abuse, and it is time to take a stand against it. The good news is that more states are looking at legislation which will make it a crime to transition children from their sex at birth. We need to affirm for boys and girls that they are just fine in their bodies. There is no need for them to change, and there is no need for them to take medications or undergo harmful surgeries. They need to be trained to accept the truth of their bodies.
As part of a government grant-supported study, doctors even performed double
mastectomies on adolescent girls — including two 13-year-olds.
Evil.
These changes weren’t grassroots movements. They’ve come from people
wielding political, economic and cultural power to advance sexual-liberationist
ideology. The change has been top down — from Hollywood’s portrayal of LGBT
characters to business executives boycotting states over religious-freedom
laws. Having lost at the ballot box over and over — even in California —
activists found new avenues: ideologically friendly courts, federal agencies,
big corporations.
Yes, but thankfully the Left is losing the courts. Now it's time to go after the corporations which insist on pushing these agendas through economic bullying. We as consumers have the power to decide "I am not going to buy this product or seek this service" if the company insists on pushing a destructive, false ideology onto others. What do we do about federal agencies, though? President Trump is removing all references to protecting so-called "sexual minorities." He has removed all protections for these behaviors from the different executive branches, too. He has even ordered state departments and embassies not to fly the six-colored LGBT flag. These are profound, welcome victories.
And there are more coming.
Having secured a judicial redefinition of marriage, they pivoted to the
“T,” with the Obama administration redefining “sex” to mean “gender identity”
and imposing a new policy on all schools.
President Trump is rolling back this nonsense. He also forbade "transgender" troops from serving in the military. This decision was long overdue. As Governor Mike Huckabee declared: "The military is not a social experiment. They exist to break things and kill people." Done.
And having won government support, activists turned to eliminating
private dissent. Former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke wants to yank the
tax-exemption of noncompliant churches. Megadonor Tim Gill vows to spend his
fortunes to “punish the wicked.” Who are “the wicked”? Those who refuse to
accept the new sexual orthodoxy.
Tim Gill is wicked. His time is coming. Thankfully, perverted former elected officials like Beto (male) O'Rourke did not make it into office, either as US Senator or as President. They got taken down on the chopping block, and no doubt they would not have had a discernable chance of getting elected.
All of us, including those identifying as LGBT, are made in God’s
image, are endowed with profound dignity and thus deserve respect. It’s because
of this dignity and out of such respect that the institutions serving the human
good — like the marriage-based family — should be supported, not undermined or
redefined. That basic rights like religious freedom ought to be upheld, not
infringed. That a healthy moral and physical ecology — especially for children
— must be preserved.
Those who "identify" as LGBT are called to be restored to God's image. Let's be Biblically accurate. We are all God's creatures, but it takes the Spirit of Adoption for us to call God "Daddy" (Romans 8:15), and thus to be restored to God's image.
When we understand that love has been perfected among us, then we can declare: "As He is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4:17).
Still, it's worthwhile that more writers, editors, and academics are pointing out that LGBT behaviors, the forced imposition of false marriage is hurting the essential dignity which God wants for all people. Let's continue to push for this revelation to grow into the greater revelation of others!
The “progress” of the past decade has exacted steep costs.
It's not progress.
Final Reflection
After five years, the rampant costs of false marriage beyond forced on the United States is breaking out for all to see. Marriage cannot be redefined, no matter what any overreaching court has declared.
What is needed now is concerted activism. It is essential that grassroots activists fight back at the lcoal, state, and federal level against this fraudulent, deceptive agenda. We cannot allow the cultural, corporate, and government elites to dictate to the world that marriage can be anything that anyone wants it to be.
God's will, nature's design, general recognition of the truth will never abide allowing marriage to be anything but the union of one man and one woman. This is what is best, this is what is true, and this is what is essential to any country, to any culture, to any community.
Ryan T. Anderson is the William E. Simon senior research fellow at The
Heritage Foundation, and the founder and editor of Public Discourse, the online
journal of the Witherspoon Institute. Follow him on Twitter: @RyanTand
Robert P. George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and
director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at
Princeton University. Follow him on Twitter: @McCormickProf
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