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12 Reasons homosexual marriage will wreck the nation

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12 Reasons homosexual marriage will wreck the nation

The following statement and reasons come verbatim from a “friend of the court” brief filed by the U.S. Justice Institute, along with a legal firm which includes my friend Herbert W. Titus (who brought this to my attention), and others, on behalf of several legal and religious institutes, regarding the pending homosexual marriage case, Obergefell v. Hodges. While dozens of amicus curiae briefs have been filed for this case, I have found this one outstanding in its boldness as a biblical witness.

The entire brief can be read here. What follows is the section which serves as a powerful prophetic warning to the nation.—JM

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Forcing Homosexual Marriage on the States and on the People Would Do Grave Harm to the Nation.

Just a dozen years ago, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, concurring specially in Lawrence, assured the States that this Court’s decision striking down the Texas sodomy law would not mean that Texas did not have a “legitimate state interest [in] preserving the traditional institution of marriage.” In his majority opinion, Justice Kennedy likewise observed that Lawrence “does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter.” In spite of that, courts across the nation, relying primarily upon Lawrence,[1] have stumbled over each other to be the first to overturn state laws and constitutions affirming the law of the Creator that marriage is limited to the lawful covenant union of one man and one woman as it was from the beginning of time immemorial. See Genesis2:24; Matthew 19:4-6.

Today, the American people are being told that the institution of marriage cannot constitutionally be based upon a divinely revealed moral foundation, but only according to the secular reasons of men. The nation was not so founded. The Declaration of Independence, the nation’s charter, grounded our nation on the Biblical “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” embracing the principle that all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” putting its case for liberty before “the Supreme Judge of the world,” and acting in “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence….”[2] Today’s secular message would startle America’s founders who drafted and ratified the Constitution. Ben Franklin — perhaps the least religious leader of the founding generation — called the constitutional convention to prayer, because: “God Governs in the affairs of men.”[3] Drawing on the “sacred writings,” Franklin continued, “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it,” and he then counseled “I firmly believe … that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel….”[4]

This case before this Court is this nation’s tower of Babel. At issue is whether we as a people are going to continue to conform the institution of marriage to the one created and established by God, or instead will reform the most sacred of human institutions into something else chosen by an elite set of jurists. Unlike Lawrence — the impact of which was limited to the rarely enforced crime of sodomy — any decision to require State recognition of “same-sex marriage” will have repercussions of titanic proportions. To the end that this Court be forewarned,[5] these amicisubmit the following:

1. Wholesale Revision of Every State’s Family Law, and Related Matters.

The Alabama Supreme Court decision upholding traditional marriage makes clear the far-ranging implications of changing the meaning of the word:

“marriage” so as to make it mean [or apply to] something antithetical to that which was intended by the legislature and to the organic purpose of [Alabama law] would appear to require nothing short of striking down that entire statutory scheme.[6]

Indeed, the “entire edifice of family law [would be] wipe[d] away … with a wave of the judicial wand.”[7] The laws that would be affected include:

inheritance … distribution of estates, … postmarital support, custodial and other parental rights as to children, adoption of children, dissolution of marriages, testimonial privileges … certain defenses in the criminal law, interests in land, the conveyance and recording of such interests … loss of consortium.[8]

2. Closure of Christian and Other Religious Adoption Agencies.

Already, Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley and leaders of Catholic Charities of Boston announced that the agency will end its adoption work, rather than comply with state law requiring homosexual adoption of children.[9] The same has already happened in Chicago.[10] If homosexual marriage were sanctioned, parents would be precluded from using religious agencies to place their children in families who share their religion and values.

3. Preaching Against Homosexuality and Counseling of Homosexuals Likely Would Be Prohibited.

Pastors would be monitored by atheist and liberal groups to ensure that there be no teaching that homosexual behavior is sin. Even websites which offer information about withdrawing from homosexual behavior would be banned as “hate speech.” All persons would be prohibited from the free exercise of religion, including “proselytizing”[11] others that their behavior constitutes sin, but that the penalty for their sins has already been paid through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I Cor. 15:1-4.

In California, it is already a crime to counsel minors with respect to “sexual orientation change efforts,” that is, any practices by mental health providers “that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation.”[12] New Jersey passed a similar statute, which was recently upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.[13]

4. Churches and Others Would Lose Exemption from Federal Income Tax.

The newly established constitutional right to homosexual marriage would be adjudged more important than the “free exercise” right of para-church ministries, Christian schools and colleges, and even churches. These entities would be placed in jeopardy of losing their federal tax-exempt status.[14] Loss of federal income tax-exempt status could lead to loss of contribution income, and forfeiting of church properties to pro-homosexual charities. In addition, criminal penalties might be imposed on church leaders. In Idaho, two pastors recently were threatened with fines and jail time unless they performed homosexual marriages at their wedding chapel.[15]

5. Legalization of Multiple-Partner and Incestuous Marriages.

Based on “privacy rights,” federal District Judge Clark Waddoups has already invalidated a Utah “cohabitation” law used against religious polygamists, while leaving in place the ban on bigamy, thereby permitting sister wives, with only one wife being the state-recognized lawful wife.[16]Currently, in Arizona and Utah, there are a number of colonies of polygamous families, where the first wife is legally recognized, and the other wives are registered as single mothers with the government as welfare recipients, to the tune of millions of dollars at the taxpayers’ expense.[17]Additionally, the door would be wide open for three women[18] or three men[19] to marry and, if they can marry, then why not an uncle and a niece as in New York,[20] or a step-brother and sister, as illustrated by Direct TV’s new show, “Billy & Billie”?[21]

6. People of Biblical Faith Would be Driven from Public Office.

Requiring homosexual marriage would force state officials to participate in wedding ceremonies which would be sinful for Orthodox Jews, conservative Catholics, and Evangelical Christians. In North Carolina, numerous judges already have resigned to avoid criminal prosecution for refusing to perform gay marriages.[22]

7. A Coarsening of Civil Society.

Most persons have sufficient respect for others that they regulate their sexual behavior to avoid compelling others, especially those who are sensitive or young, to observe their activities. Sadly, there is a significant element among homosexuals who have proven to be wholly insensitive to the sensibilities of others. They refuse to allow Roman Catholics to Celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, without demanding the opportunity to celebrate their sexual difference from Catholic doctrine. Gay Pride parades have included nudity, sado-masochism, nuns in drag led by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and other displays of homosexual behavior designed to shock “straight” people. Indeed, San Francisco’s 2012 ban on public nudity is waived for the San Francisco Pride Parade.[23] Television no doubt will become even more pro-homosexual, making it more difficult for persons adhering to traditional values to live their lives and raise their children in an increasingly debased culture.

8. Mandates on Businesses to Cater to Homosexual Couples.

Using statutes originally and primarily designed to protect blacks from discrimination,[24] activist homosexuals have targeted bakers, photographers, and florists, seeking to force all of them to promote a marriage that they believe to be immoral. In Washington state, a judge ruled that a florist violated the state’s anti-discrimination laws when she referred a longtime customer to another florist for the wedding flowers for his homosexual marriage.[25] In New York, a husband and wife shut the doors to their business hosting weddings on their family farm, after a court fined them $13,000 for refusing to host gay marriages in their home.[26] In Colorado, a baker faced jail time[27] and stopped baking wedding cakes entirely, after a court ruled that he discriminated against a gay couple when he refused to bake them a cake for their wedding.[28] In Oregon, a court found similarly against another baker, and he may be forced to pay a homosexual couple up to $150,000 as penalty.[29] The New Mexico Supreme Court held that a photographer violated the state’s anti-discrimination statutes by refusing to photograph a gay wedding.[30] Newspapers likely will be forced to publish homosexual wedding announcements, in violation of their existing editorial control over what they publish.

9. Professional Licensing Requirements to Serve Homosexual Couples.

In this brave, new, homosexual-friendly world, every licensed professional would be required to embrace the new orthodoxy, to bow down to the idol of “non-discrimination,” or be cast out of his profession. People who first claimed only to only want tolerance of their behavior will allow no toleration for other views. Will a physician be forced to perform an artificial insemination for a lesbian couple?[31] Will a lawyer be forced to take a case defending gay marriage? Lawyers are already losing their “traditional prerogative to exercise absolute discretion in the selection of clients….”[32] Provisions designed to advance the homosexual agenda have been incorporated into many state ethics codes. In California, for example, it is unethical to “discriminat[e] on the basis of … sexual orientation [in] employment … or [client] representation….” State Bar of California, Rules of Professional Conduct: Rule 2-400B.[33]

10. Undermining the Created Male-Female Order.

The Holy Scriptures reveal that God created mankind, male and female, in the image of God.Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:4-6. Homosexual sex and homosexual marriage are a repudiation of God’s created order.[34] Nature itself reveals that God fashioned the male penis and the female vulva/vagina as complementary sex organs. One homosexual testified to this obvious truth when he reported that homosexual sex is “a poor substitute for intercourse with a woman….”[35]

In stark contrast to the created order, today one’s “sex” is defined as “a person’s biological status,”[36] while “gender” is “a person’s private sense and subjective experience,”[37] and “sexual orientation” a person’s “emotional and sexual attraction to a particular sex or gender.”[38] In short, “sex” is who you are, “gender” is how you feel, and “sexual orientation” is who you like.

Not too long ago, sexual orientation was delineated into heterosexual (straight) and homosexual (gay/lesbian or “queer”). To that was added “bisexual” (attracted to both men and women), “pansexual” or “omnisexual” (attraction to all genders), and “asexual” (not attracted to anyone).[39] In 2014, Facebook added more than 50 gender options to its users’ profiles and now allows custom options.[40] In order to be considered “tolerant” and “understanding,” one presumably must have a Ph.D. in gender studies. In the mid-1980s, and for a time, “LGB” was settled upon. Then, by the mid-1990s, “LGBT” was used. But even that did not prove inclusive enough, prompting group after group to be “outraged” and to demand “full inclusion” of all. The current accepted vernacular is said to be “LGBPTTQQIIAA+,” standing for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, intergender, asexual, ally and beyond.”[41]Indeed, some consider pedophilia to be a legitimate sexual orientation,[42] returning us to the pagan pederasty of ancient Greece.[43] Requiring homosexual marriage will contribute mightily to the sexual confusion of the nation, sexualizing children and young adults, encouraging them to experiment with sin.

11. Loss of Liberty.

John Adams warned “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”[44] Today, “the distinctive features of modern European political thought, including … its particular notion of individual rights … and its embrace of religious toleration,” are attributed to the “process of secularization” — but that view “puts things almost exactly backward.”[45] In fact, rejection of Judeo-Christian thought inevitably leads to a neopagan world view. In support of striking down laws against abortion, Justice Blackmun pointed out:

abortion was practiced in Greek times as well as in the Roman era, and … “it was resorted to without scruple”…. Greek and Roman law afforded little protection to the unborn…. Ancient religion did not bar abortion.[46]

Like abortion, homosexuality constitutes:

a reversion to pagan ways of thinking. Most obviously, homosexuality was accepted among the ancient Greeks and supplies the premise of Platonic discussions about the nature of love. Similar views prevailed in Babylon, Egypt, and imperial Rome. All of this was unequivocally condemned by the religion of the Bible. As cogently argued by Dennis Prager,[47] the current effort to relegitimize homosexuality is thus an attempt to turn Western culture back to pagan attitudes and behaviors.[48]

Such pagan ways of thinking did not respect individual rights, diversity, or tolerance, or envision government to be limited in power, but rather were reflected in acceptance of abortion, infanticide, “exposure” (abandonment) of children, widespread slavery, and governments with totalitarian powers, and even the divinity of political leaders.[49] The choice for the country is clear:

[t]he classical way of thinking led inexorably to untrammeled power in the state, and to subjugation of the individual. The biblical model leads to limitations on that power, and hence to freedom.[50]

12. God’s Judgment on the Nation.

Should the Court require the States and the People to “ritualize” sodomite behavior[51] by government issuance of a state marriage license, it could bring God’s judgment on the Nation. Holy Scripture attests that homosexual behavior and other sexual perversions violate the law of the land, and when the land is “defiled,” the people have been cast out of their homes. See Leviticus 18:22, 24–30. Although some would assert that these rules apply only to the theocracy of ancient Israel, the Apostle Peter rejects that view: “For if God … turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly.” 2 Peter 2:4-6. The continuing application of this Levitical prohibition is confirmed by the Book of Jude: “Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” Jude 7 (emphasis added).

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