An examination of the Supreme Court’s recent same-sex
ruling.
By Rev. Mario Gonzalez Jr., Esq., J.D.
A Fairytale
In 1837 Danish author, Hans Christian Andersen, penned the
fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” about cunning swindlers who concocted a
scheme to defraud a vain emperor. The emperor was duped into buying a garment
hailed as being made from a valuable fabric invisible to anyone either unfit
for his position or “hopelessly stupid.” The June 26, 2015 decision,
Obergefell v. Hodges,
came as a result of the use of the same deceptive technique by the LGBT
lobby, duping the American public, the media, and now the U.S. Supreme Court
into buying a fantasy to our collective shame as a nation.
Contrary to popular belief, marriage equality was not
achieved by this ruling. Even before this decision, everyone in America could technically
marry. What this ruling actually did was obliterate the definition of marriage,
an institution held sacrosanct for thousands of years. It defined the term into
meaninglessness. As a result of the ruling, same-sex couples can now enter into
an as yet undefined social compact which has no gender limitations and soon
will have no empirical limitation, as limiting marriage to two people will be
legally problematic based on the legal logic used in this holding.
Government is God
Through this decision the Supreme Court has unilaterally
overridden the legislative will of over thirty (30) states. And as in the
Obamacare decision that preceded it, the Court here unequivocally solidifies its
new standard that words no longer have a definite legal meaning. Words now mean
only what SCOTUS says they mean. Based on this opinion, the Court has not only
established itself as the Supreme Court of the land, but as a Supreme entity. It
is no longer limited to merely interpreting the laws of the several States in
light of the Constitution, but can now apparently confer dignity on what or who
it sees fit, making moral what religion deems sinful, finding value in what
nature manifests as wasteful, and praising a behavior that historically has
served as a consistent marker for impending societal collapse.
Justice Kennedy’s
“Newspeak.”
Justice Kennedy gives lip service to the virtues of marriage
by saying, “It is fair and necessary to say these references [to marriage] were
based on the understanding that marriage is a union between two persons of the
opposite sex.” And that “…reasonable and sincere people here and throughout the
world still hold this view of marriage.” But his soliloquy makes this
irrelevant, as he ultimately uses the Court’s newly found divine authority to label
these “reasonable” people as both wrong and biased. In this context he makes an
ominous statement:
“Many
who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent
and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their
beliefs are disparaged here. But when that sincere, personal opposition becomes
enacted law and public policy, the necessary consequence is to put the
imprimatur of the State itself on an exclusion that soon demeans or stigmatizes
those whose own liberty is then denied.”
This statement essentially excludes people whose opinions
are forged by their moral and religious ideals from involving themselves in the
legislative process and further proscribes the application of their beliefs to democratically
influence public policy. He ‘touts’ religious freedom apparently believing
religious communities to be comprised of legal idiots when he says,
“Finally,
it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious
doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by
divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment
ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as
they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to
their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the
family structure they have long revered.”
So basically, religious people can constitutionally believe
and teach whatever they want to [even if this Court has deemed it bigoted], so
long as they don’t put their beliefs into practice, a right portentously
excluded from this statement. Justice Thomas’ response to this ruse is
significant, characterizing the majority’s assumption that government confers
“dignity” through marriage as nonsensical:
“Slaves
did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the
government allowed them to be enslaved... [a]nd those denied governmental
benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them
those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it
away.”
He calls out Kennedy’s attempt at deception, quoting
portions of the above excerpt and adds,
“Religious
liberty is about more than just the protection for ‘religious organizations and
persons… as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central
to their lives and faiths’. Ibid. Religious
liberty is about freedom of action in matters of religion generally, and the
scope of that liberty is directly correlated to the civil restraints placed
upon religious practice.”
What About Marriage Equality?
Chief Justice Roberts, in his vehement dissent, states, “The majority’s decision [to announce a new
civil right] is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has
no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent.” A person does not
find their identity and gain "civil rights" by a pattern of willful
behavior. Behaving or feeling a certain way is an aspect of our human
experience and does not in itself establish an inherent immutable
characteristic. To be “immutable” something must be permanent – unchanging.
Being black, for example, is a legitimate constitutional immutable
characteristic. Even using the amicus brief actually quoted by Justice Kennedy
in support of this Court’s mistaken contention that “sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic,” (yeah, I read
it), said “… fully 88% of gay men and 68%
of lesbians reported that they had ‘no choice’ [about their sexual orientation]
at all.” Based on this Court's own supporting briefs from which it draws
its irrational conclusion, 12%, or 1-2 out of 10 self-professed homosexual men and
over 1/3 of professed lesbians in the studies feel they have a choice as to
their sexual orientation. These numbers do not an “immutable” characteristic
support.
That said, the question was never one of equality. The
question always was whether an alleged committed
relationship between two same-sex parties could legitimately be called a
“marriage” and who should decided whether this is so. According to Justice
Kennedy, a man who just two years ago in the infamous United States v. Windsor
case wrote an opinion that concluded, “[R]egulation
of domestic relations is an area that has long been regarded as a virtually
exclusive province of the States,” and then went on to write, “[T]he Federal Government, through our
history, has deferred to state-law policy decisions with respect to domestic
relations,” he now has completely reversed his opinion and feels that it is
the Federal Government through the divine Supreme Court that should decide what
a marriage actually is.
The Court has now unfortunately legally codified a false narrative. Based on strained studies engineered to push an agenda bent on establishing a bogus "civil right" where such a right does not constitutionally exist, we are now faced with a “new” civil right for a non-existent and non-discrete class of people. As a result, people of faith will suffer greatly because of the tsunami of litigation that will follow against those who will dare to refuse to “bow to Baal” (figuratively) by not compromising their deeply held religious convictions. Justices, Judges and City Clerks will likely be fired all around the country if they do not perform same-sex ceremonies they find repugnant to their faith. Religious schools and organizations may also soon be sued and may well loose public grants and ultimately their tax-exempt status as a direct consequence of this ruling, a ruling purportedly aimed only at guaranteeing “equality” for a burdened class.
Chief Justice Roberts issued this chilling warning of
impending attacks against people of faith,
“Today’s
decision, for example, creates serious questions about religious liberty. Many
good and decent people oppose same-sex marriage as a tenet of faith, and their
freedom to exercise religion is—unlike the right imagined by the majority—
actually spelled out in the Constitution (First Amendment). Respect for sincere
religious conviction has led voters and legislators in every State that has
adopted same-sex marriage democratically to include accommodations for
religious practice. The majority’s decision imposing same- sex marriage cannot,
of course, create any such accommodations. The majority graciously suggests that
religious believers may continue to “advocate” and “teach” their views of
marriage. The First Amendment guarantees, however, the freedom to “exercise”
religion. Ominously, that is not a word the majority uses.”
In the end, this decision had little to do with equality or
the U.S. Constitution and everything to do with a social agenda aimed at
vilifying and ultimately mortally wounding all who look upon the sexual
behaviors in question as morally wrong. Like the fairy tale, it is all about
forcing the American people to recognize and laud a non-existent civil right
fancifully displayed by a largely immoral Court. This time it’s America that
has no clothes.
