In addition to being the editor and a contributor to Godfather Politics, I also serve as president of American Vision, a Christian ministry that deals with biblical worldview issues.

American Vision has been involved in issues like same-sex marriage, politics, economics, education, ethics, atheism, creation and evolution, apologetics, and many other contemporary topics that affect our nation.

In addition to my work with American Vision, Joel McDurmon has also published a great deal of worldview material that is pertinent to today’s liberal cultural takeover.

Recently he has published material from an amicus brief filed by the U.S. Justice Institute.

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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, reagarding 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. — Joel McDurmon

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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 Genesis 2:24; 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 amici submit 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]

Notes:

[1] Petitioners’ brief invokes Lawrence 26 times.

[2] See, e.g., M. Novak, On Two Wings (Encounter: 2002), pp. 5-47.

[3] Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union (Gov’t Printing Office, 1927), p. 295.

[4] Id. at 296.

[5] Ezekiel 33:1-7.

[6] Ex parte State of Alabama ex rel. Alabama Policy Institute, at 89.

[7] Id. at 89-90.

[8] Id. at 24.

[9] http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/03/11/catholic_ charities_stuns_ state_ends_adoptions/.

[10] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/05/29/catholic-adoption-agency-will-shut-down-instead-of-letting-gaycouples-adopt/.

[11] See Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 877 (1990).

[12] The Ninth Circuit upheld the statute which prohibits the “saying [of] certain words … [b]y labeling such speech as ‘conduct’….” See Pickup v. Brown, 740 F.3d 1208 (9th Cir. 2014) (O’Scannlain, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 134 S.Ct. 2881 (2014).

[13] See King v. Governor of New Jersey, 767 F.3d 216 (3rd Cir. 2014).

Read the rest of the article at American Vision.