Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court in
a 5-4 in decision accused the Congress that enacted the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), along with then President Clinton
who signed it into law, and all those who supported DOMA as acting in malice …
to disparage and to injure same-sex couples. The majority of Justices concluded that the
motivation for DOMA was to ‘demean,’ to ‘impose inequality,’ to … brand gay
people as ‘unworthy,’ and to ‘humiliat[e]’ their children. The decision was declared a victory for those
who believe that equality should be extended to homosexuals who wish to
marry. And that’s pretty much all we
heard about. Most heard
little-to-nothing of Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent where he said, “I am sure
these accusations are quite untrue. To
be sure (as the majority points out), the legislation is called the Defense of Marriage Act. But to defend traditional marriage is not to
condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any
more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to condemn,
demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans
this institution.”
Here’s the essence of Scalia’s
warning: “In the majority’s judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond
the pale of reasoned disagreement. To
question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to
act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to ‘disparage,’ ‘injure,’
‘degrade,’ ‘demean,’ and ‘humiliate’ our fellow human beings, our fellow
citizens, who are homosexual. All that,
simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage
that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence—indeed, had
been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human
history. It is one thing for a society
to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging
those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.”
Marvin Olasky of WNS wrote last Friday (28 June), “Now
that the Supreme Court has blessed the gay lobby’s tendency to declare anyone
who does not toe the line is a straight consumed by hate, it will seem
perfectly proper to take away the tax exemption of churches and schools that
stand by Scripture. (How can a church or
school be serving the public interest if it is degrading, demeaning, and
humiliating others?) It will seem proper
to deny Pell Grants or other financial help to students attending colleges that
stand by Scripture … Churches and schools that have become entangled with
government—that’s just about all of them—should immediately start planning for
the time they’ll either have to give up those connections or give up the Bible.
Pastors and teachers who say anything
negative about homosexuality should think through how they’ll react if hauled
into court: That’s already happened in
other countries, and it can happen here.”
Scalia’s prophecy: “It takes real
cheek for today’s majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a
constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is
not at issue here—when what has preceded that assurance is a lecture on how
superior the majority’s moral judgment in favor of same-sex marriage is to the
Congress’s hateful moral judgment against it. I promise you this: The only thing that will
confine the Court’s holding is its sense of what it can get away with.”
If this doesn’t drive more
Christians to pray for our country, nothing will. Some will also head for the hills, but
remember: God’s still in charge and fully capable of changing hearts. Let’s take a clear-eyed look at the realities,
work hard, and pray hard for revival and reformation.
Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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