Give Him 15 is joining a 40-day national call to prayer before the 2018 Midterm Elections. Here is today’s Focus:
Day 20 – Courts and Human Sexuality
“In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.” (Romans 1:18-32; Jude 1:7; KJV)
In June 2015, the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling redefined marriage for every American state to include persons of the same sex, including 31 states whose constitutions included amendments to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
FRC’s Director for the Center for Religious Liberty, Travis Weber, outlines how the Court erred (these are excerpts):
- The Court improperly took on the role of social problem-solver by reading the right to same-sex marriage into the Constitution.
- The Court entrenched itself in an erroneous notion of “substantive due process: a subjective idea of liberties that allows the court to call anything a liberty, thus diminishing the real freedom of people to govern themselves and act through their legislatures in ways that cannot be struck down by Court in the name of “liberty.”
- The Court exercised naked political will by overlooking gaping differences between this case and its prior marriage cases. It overlooked huge logical gaps throughout its use of precedent and case law on marriage.
- The Court largely discarded any notion of higher authority as informing human affairs. Early 19th Century Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story referred to man’s “responsibility to [God] for all our actions.” Imagine if such reasoning was applied to the marriage decision? (Read Weber’s entire summary HERE, including excerpts from the dissenting opinions from Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito.)
Obergefell, like Roe, strikes at the core of God’s creative order. While the Bible and the U.S. Constitution promise life, Roe gave death to millions, enabling millions to believe that taking their baby’s life was authorized by the highest authority in the land. While Obergefell promises liberty, it has brought the entire nation into bondage – both the homosexuals who believe their lifestyle has been authorized by the highest authority in the land, as well as those who reject the ruling because of their religious faith who are punished when they live out their faith by refusing to participate in a same-sex wedding or refusing to affirm same sex marriage when commanded to do so by a military commander or employer. The Court has elevated some by sanctifying their sexual practices, while making pariahs of those who maintain fidelity to their religious faith.
This is being played out in a thousand places in hundreds of ways today: when Texas pastors had their sermons subpoenaed to see what they said about homosexuality; when Georgia’s chief fireman was terminated for the chapter he wrote in a Sunday School text; when a newly hired health official was fired because it was learned that he gave a biblical sermon about homosexuality as a lay pastor in California; when bakers, florists, photographers, and wedding managers have been harassed, fined, sued and run out of business for refusing to participate in a same-sex wedding; when military chaplains were passed over for promotion, even summarily dismissed for counseling from the Bible regarding same-sex marriage. And not to mention the increasing incidents of suicide and other health risks among homosexuals as a result of being encouraged by the courts and other civil officers.
Points for Prayer:
- May God send Christian revival which alone can cleanse the hearts and heal those damaged physically, mentally and spiritually by their Supreme Court-encouraged, self-destructive behaviors. Only God can transform those whose personalities have been altered by their involvement in dangerous behaviors. May He send such a revival!
- May God guide our President, who has been ambiguous in his posture toward LGBT matters, into all Truth. May he appoint pro-biblical and traditional marriage justices to the Supreme Court and judges to our federal courts.
- May God’s people be given faith to believe that the wrong decisions our courts have made and the problems they have created can be reversed, just as the horrific Dred Scott decision was reversed.
- May Life, Marriage, and the God of Creation and His created order be yet again wholly respected by the vast majority of Americans and honored in American life and law!
By Pierre Bynum
Family Research Council
See FRC’s “A Critical Analysis of Obergefell v. Hodges, by Travis Weber.
See FRC’s Issue Analysis: “Filling Justice Scalia’s Seat and Beyond.”