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Supreme Court vs. Supreme Authority
Townhall.com ^ | June 24, 2013 | Matt Barber

Posted on 06/24/2013 8:47:37 AM PDT by Kaslin

“I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”– Martin Luther King Jr.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected any day to release opinions on two landmark cases (Hollingsworth v. Perry and U.S. v. Windsor) that, should the court overstep its authority, threaten great violence to the age-old institution of marriage – society’s fundamental cornerstone.

Also at stake is the high court’s already fragile legitimacy.

Lest there be any doubt as to where the Bible-believing Christian community stands, scores of Christian leaders and clergy – Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant alike – have released a statement in anticipation of these rulings entitled:“We Stand in Solidarity to Defend Marriage and the Family and Society Founded Upon Them.”I was honored to have my name included among the list of signatories that, collectively, represent tens of millions of Christians.

The Marriage Solidarity Statement was drafted jointly by Deacon Keith Fournier, editor of Catholic Online and chairman of Common Good Alliance, and Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel Action. It was then vetted and approved by dozens of the aforementioned signers. Personally speaking, I have never seen a document that better captures and illustrates the certainties of legitimate marriage and family, as well as the inevitable consequences of tampering with either. (Go toMarriageSolidarity.comand add your name to the Marriage Solidarity Statement.)

The central reality behind the statement is this: Marriage is what marriage is, has always been and always will be. Marriage predates civil government. Mankind can no more transmute marriage to something it is not than can we reverse the earth’s rotation or gravitational pull. Despite an evidently contagious delusion to the contrary, not even the United States Supreme Court is capable of overruling the laws of moral and biological physics. Any attempt to do so is illegitimate. It’s moral alchemy. “Like other natural laws or laws of physics that govern our lives, marriage predates government, and civil institutions have no authority to redefine marriage,” observes the statement. “Marriage cannot be redefined into something it is incapable of being. …”

“If the Supreme Court were to issue a decision that redefined marriage or provided a precedent on which to build an argument to redefine marriage, the Supreme Court will thereby undermine its legitimacy,” it notes. “The court will significantly decrease its credibility and impair the role it has assumed for itself as a moral authority. It will be acting beyond its proper constitutional role and contrary to the Natural Moral Law which transcends religions, culture, and time.”

Indeed, according to the unequivocal precepts of moral truth – reflected explicitly throughout both the Old and New Testaments – homosexual behavior is sin. Sin is evil. Homosexual behavior is the central, defining characteristic of so-called “gay marriage.” Therefore, “gay marriage” is evil.

To be sure, Christians are obligated to avoid sin – to “do no evil.” Any Christian who desires to remain faithful to biblical truth and obedient to Christ must not – indeed cannot – pretend, along with the world, that things illegitimate are somehow legitimate; that things inherently evil can, on a whim, be made good.

Still, perhaps the greater evil lies swathed amid the absurd notion that six men and three women have anything to say about the definition of marriage whatsoever. It requires a rare degree of pride and hubris to presume that mankind can somehow redesign that which mankind never designed in the first place.

TheMarriage Solidarity Statementacknowledges “that marriage and family have been inscribed by the Divine Architect into the order of creation. Marriage is ontologically between one man and one woman, ordered toward the union of the spouses, open to children and formative of family. Family is the first vital cell of society; the first church, first school, first hospital, first economy, first government and first mediating institution of our social order. The future of a free and healthy society passes through marriage and the family.”

The statement likewise affirms that religious liberty and counterfeit “gay marriage” cannot coexist in harmony: “Experience and history have shown us that if the government redefines marriage to grant a legal equivalency to same-sex couples, that same government will then enforce such an action with the police power of the State. This will bring about an inevitable collision with religious freedom and conscience rights. We cannot and will not allow this to occur on our watch. Religious freedom is the first freedom in the American experiment for good reason.”

The statement closes with the following: “As Christians united together in defense of marriage, we pray that this will not happen. But, make no mistake about our resolve. While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the true common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross.”

This is not the first time the church has faced the specter of persecution as the unjust consequence of refusing to violate her collective conscience. Neither will it be the last. Matthew 22:21 admonishes, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”

The same folk who presume to deconstruct natural marriage are usually the first to quote this verse out of context. They are also the first to beat believers about the head and neck with the deliberately misapplied “separation-of-church-and-state” billy club.

Know this: Marriage belongs unto God, not unto Caesar. That the Supreme Court might even think itself capable of redefining “the pre-eminent and the most fundamental of all human social institutions” represents an intolerable commingling of state and church. It’s the Supreme Court encroaching upon the Supreme Authority.

“Separation of church and state” indeed.




TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: barber; faithandfamily; homosexualagenda; marriage; mattbarber; religion; supremecourt; traditionalmarriage

1 posted on 06/24/2013 8:47:37 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

As far as I am concerned, the majority of what we call our Supreme Court were neither nominated in sovereign faith, nor confirmed in the faith of the US Constitution.

They were nominated by would-be tyrants and confirmed by sychophants and self-aggrandizing puppet Senators not even worth the paper they wipe their bums with.

I’m hoping for a national “Mulligan” and being given the chance to start over without pandering to the useless in our society.


2 posted on 06/24/2013 8:52:22 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Kaslin
“I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”– Martin Luther King Jr.

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." -- Thomas Jefferson

3 posted on 06/24/2013 8:56:06 AM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: Kaslin
should the court overstep its authority, threaten great violence to the age-old institution of marriage – society’s fundamental cornerstone

Government does not have to power to add or detract from the legitimacy of marriage.
What they are addressing is the government's position for legal purposes of homosexual so-called "marriages" which are really civil contracts.

4 posted on 06/24/2013 9:07:40 AM PDT by oldbrowser (We have a rogue government in Washington)
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To: Gaffer

The Supreme Court was never meant to be Partisan.

Perhaps it has always been partisan, but it wasn’t meant to be that way.

It was meant to be made up of the best Judicial minds who could rule neutrally on the justice of laws and their abidance to Constitutional law.

Unfortunately it has become a joke.

It was bad enough when it was divided, but now it has become owned by blackmail and the appointment of liberal Lesbians, to the court.

It is no longer a Branch of the Checks and Balances it has become owned by a foreign president set on creating some sort of Socialist State .

Personally I have no faith that they will rule correctly on this or any other matter. Our country as we know it is coming to a screeching halt, unless we start radically changing it back to what it was.


5 posted on 06/24/2013 9:09:38 AM PDT by Venturer
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To: Kaslin

Might is Right.

Not morally right, but that is how the world works.

He who is willing to do the most violence wins. Our government enforces its will using the threat of violence. The Second Amendment is about the threat of violence in return.


6 posted on 06/24/2013 10:19:02 AM PDT by CodeToad (Liberals are bloodsucking ticks. We need to light the matchstick to burn them off. -786 +969)
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To: Kaslin; All

Regarding the title of the referenced article, as a consequence of parents not making sure that their children are taught the Constitution and its history, many citizens evidently do not understand that the Supreme Court is not the end of the road with respect to its interpretation of the Constitution for controversial issues.

More specifically, when state lawmakers actually knew the Constitution that they swear to protect and defend, they knew that they could effectively overturn a given Supreme Court decision by appropriately amending the Constitution. In fact the 11th, 16th and 19th Amendments are examples of the states doing so.

Regarding marriage, if children were taught the Constitution and its history they would be able to tell us the following about the constitutonality of gay marriage. The Founding States had made the 10th Amendment to clarify that the Constitution’s silence about issues like marriage means that government power to address such issues is automatically reserved uniquely to the states, or to the people. So in euthanasia cases like Terri Schiavo and state eminent domain cases like Kelo v. New London, Constitution-ignorant citizens who followed those cases unsurprisingly didn’t understand that the Supreme Court respected 10A protected state powers is those cases even though pro-big federal government activist justices probably don’t like talking about 10A.

Sadly, if activist majority justices usurp 10A protected state power to address marriage and decide in favor of gay marriage, I think that Constitution-ignorant state lawmakers will be clueless to ratify an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting gay marriage.


7 posted on 06/24/2013 10:25:23 AM PDT by Amendment10
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To: Kaslin

‘Know this: Marriage belongs unto God, not unto Caesar. That the Supreme Court might even think itself capable of redefining “the pre-eminent and the most fundamental of all human social institutions” represents an intolerable commingling of state and church. It’s the Supreme Court encroaching upon the Supreme Authority.’

Amen!


8 posted on 06/25/2013 6:38:11 PM PDT by ReformationFan
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