We have some truly encouraging news from Alabama on the same sex mirage front, but before getting to a defense of all that, I would like to dispatch the developing meme that this is just the desegregation battle all over again.
Here’s a quick rundown of what happened. A federal judge struck down Alabama’s same sex mirage ban, and yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court denied Alabama’s request to have that action put on hold. The Supremes are due to hear arguments in a couple of months about same sex mirage nationwide. So after this latest outrage, at the urging of the chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court, Roy Moore, the majority of Alabama counties are refusing to comply with this tyrannical order.
So, a generation ago, there was a showdown between Alabama and the Feds over segregated schools, when Alabama leaders defied federal orders to desegregate their schools. And the meme is that this is just “history repeating itself.”
But strip away all the additional complicating factors, which are always there, a generation ago Alabama was being pressured to quit doing the wrong thing. Now they are being pressured to quit doing the right thing. A generation ago, the Feds had the moral high ground. Now the Feds are actively campaigning for the normalization of sexual perversion, which is not, you might take care to note, the moral high ground.
Right? Wrong? These are odd words, stranger. You new around here?
Look. Racial bigotry is a sin. Sexual perversion is a sin. The fact that the respective players in these two battles were and are Alabama and the Federal Government is completely beside the point. Those who glibly point to that as though it settles everything are like those who think that a son who once participated in an intervention over his mother’s alcoholism has thereby earned the right, twenty years later, to pressure her into committing tax fraud. No, no. Let’s go over this carefully. Drunkenness is a sin. Fraud is a sin. They are both sins. Whoever is championing the sin is the sinner.
Now, that settled, we should make a point of applauding the heroic resistance being mounted against our tyrants, who, not content with being perverts themselves, want to promulgate their licentiousness with a club. Nine counties in Alabama have complied. The majority of counties, 46, have gone on strike, refusing to issue any marriage licenses at all. Twelve counties are refusing to issue licenses to same-sex parodies.
Madison, in Federalist 47, said this about tyranny:
“The accumulation of all powers, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
The essence of tyranny is not found in goose-stepping soldiers, missile parades, or dictatorial mirror glasses. The essence of tyranny is found in consolidated and arbitrary power. That power has taken shape in our grasping and overweening federal government, and once tyranny has gotten to these levels, the only way to deal with it is by means of active resistance.
We should want to choose the point of resistance carefully, and this situation in Alabama seems almost ideal for it. All the issues of right and wrong should be immediately graspable by ordinary people. There should be defined lines of resistance. There should be lesser magistrates who are willing to uphold the law, resisting the subversion of law from above. And once we have those elements, there should be simple defiance, sweet defiance. Just say no. Try and make us.
So I would encourage Christians all over the country to support what is going on there, actively, openly, and energetically. Start by dismissing those who say that Roy Moore is a “firebrand.” Not at all. He is just a free man, and we don’t see many of them anymore. We are not sure what they are supposed to look like any more.
And as you mediate on these things, here is a little Orwell for you. “In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
I’m certainly not a deep southerner, but this almost makes me want to move to Alabama.
In the instant SCOTUS case, the dissent underscores the fact that this is not a regional (that is, solely a negative tooth-to-tattoo holding from the “Republic of Singlewide”) issue:
“Today’s decision represents yet another example of this Court’s increasingly cavalier attitude toward the States.” (Justice Thomas)
We hire judges to interpret the Constitution. We hire theologians to interpret the Bible. Doug’s real complaint is that judges are doing the job they were hired to do, rather than the job he thinks they should do instead. It would be wrong for judges to apply the Bible to their interpretation of the Constitution for precisely the same reason it would be wrong for a theologian to apply the Constitution to his interpretation of the Bible.
Eric: Your premise concerning judges is false. We hire judges to sit in judgement of the law, among other things, and in order to do so they must appeal to some standard – why is the law right or wrong? If it isn’t the Bible that is used as the standard than it is something else, but there must be a standard and therefore the judges must appeal to it, making part of their job interpreting the Bible (or other standard). If it is wrong for the judges to apply the Bible to their interpretation which standard should they use… Read more »
“It would be wrong for judges to apply the Bible to their interpretation of the Constitution for precisely the same reason it would be wrong for a theologian to apply the Constitution to his interpretation of the Bible.”
Not since the Constitution, as well as all other kings, principalities, magistrates et al are subordinate to the Word of God. And since it is subordinate, then all legalities are subject to the law of God.
Lex Rex.
Ted, and RFB, maybe someday you’ll succeed in getting the theocracy you yearn for (though if you ever actually did you’d probably be mortified at the result), but for the time being, the standard is the Constitution. The question judges are asked to decide is: “Does this law comply with the Constitution?” That’s the question they’ve been hired to answer.
If you don’t like the answer, you are free to try to amend the Constitution. But don’t dump on judges for doing the job they’ve been hired to do.
Let’s all rally around Eric’s idea! He’s right! Judges should not use the Bible to interpret law. They should use… uh… public opinion. Yeah. That’ll work. As long as we can get enough public opinion to agree to that standard. But then, we’re applying the standard before we agree to it. So I guess that leaves it to the individual judge’s opinion. And if that judge is a Bible-believing evangelical? Well then she uses the Bible to interpret the law. And if she’s agnostic? Then she might use the “as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else” standard. And where… Read more »
EtR, the case in my home state of Alabama actually rests on the interpretation of the Constitution. Roy Moore is saying that, constitutionally speaking, the lower federal courts lack the authority to force county probate judges to issue same-sex mirage licenses. He might be interpreting incorrectly, but that’s not what you are arguing.
They’re actually supposed to use the Constitution, or whatever other next-higher law is available
Thank you God and thank you Alabama.
Eric,
Not only is he right to interpret the constitution through his worldview, he is honest. The only reason you are mad is because you want pastor Wilson and the rest of us to interpret everything through your worldview.
Tim, as best as I can tell, neither public opinion nor “as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone” have much to do with the Constitution. Wesley, as much as I disagree with Judge Moore, I actually do have some respect for him for basing his position on the Constitution rather than just arguing that judges should just enforce his religious beliefs. The thing is, though, that under any system of government, there has to be some entity that has the final word; that was true under the Old Testament judges as well. Under our system, that entity is the Supreme… Read more »
Carole, I’m not mad. Why should I be? My side is winning.
Eric, aren’t the judges interpreting the Constitution? If so, what basis are they using to interpret it? The Constitution doesn’t guarantee a right to abortion, that had to be extrapolated from a right to privacy which had to be extrapolated from the 14th Amendment statement on due process. That’s not just asking what the Constitution says, that’s interpreting it and applying it in some very sophisticated ways.
So again, what basis do we expect our judges to interpret the law under? The best you got is public opinion at this point.
Not an American, but my understanding is that the role of the Supreme Court is referee: to ensure that Congress & the President do not overreach the powers granted them by the Constitution, not to interpret it or rule on whether rules are moral (that’s Congress’s job). Current practice seems to put SCOTUS in the role of non-figurehead monarch.
But then there are those of us who render unto “your side” what is theirs and render unto God what is His.
You see Eric, our loyalty and lives belong to God, not to your precious little supreme court or your ‘laws’. We have fought this fight before–against tyrants worthy of the name; ‘your side’ doesn’t stand a chance. I suggest you surrender while you still can.
Andrew: Your summary of what the Supreme Court’s role ought to be under Article III, versus its current practice, is right on. Justice Scalia, dissenting in the case of Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428 (2000), put the point quite pithily in calling the Court a “nine-headed Caesar, giving thumbs-up or thumbs-down to whatever outcome, case by case, suits or offends its collective fancy.”
Regarding the Federal jurisprudence issue, the idea that SCOTUS can declare itself sole arbiter (which it did in Marbury v Madison) is farcical. Imagine another separate but equal branch doing the same thing.
Mr. Dehart provides some historic relief to the subject. (Paul R. DeHart is an associate professor of political science at Texas State University.) Per Madison (who would arguably be a Constitutional authority) “…“an unwarrantable measure of the Federal Government” may well rightly (to wit, constitutionally) meet with the “refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union”…”
http://tinyurl.com/n8mn3kj
Oh Eric, you forget we know how this story ends…
Matthew 16:26
Eric the Red,
“My side is winning.”
The tomb was empty. Your side already lost. If you’re bothering to read this you know it is true. If you’re able to read this it is not too late for you.
It isn’t, any judgement of the Supreme Court can be overridden by a Constitutional amendment.
Finally a state takes a stand against SCOTUS. May other states follow.
@RFB
That was an interesting read, thank you for the link.
It was mildly humorous to see so many prominent democrats taking the opposite side of Eric’s position.
“Whoever is championing the sin is the sinner” makes perfect sense to me. But we ought not be too hard on the “Supremes”. There is plenty of blame to go around. The constitution is not much help on this issue and an appeal to the law written on our hearts isn’t very efficacious in a country of dull, calloused, and seared consciences. (For what it’s worth, long before I was a Bible thumping Christian, I knew that homosexuality wasn’t right. The Bible merely confirmed what God had already written on my heart.) The people still have quite a bit of… Read more »
I support Chief Justice Moore’s actions, however they are apparently not as far reaching as it might seem, as (I read) even the district court who earlier ruled in favor of homosexual marriage in Alabama has said that the probate judges can’t be held in contempt because they weren’t a party to the original action–so with some more legal actions the position of the lower-level judges will be different than it is right now (sadly, I suppose they will cave in)–right now they appear to be acting under constitutional law as it has been (sometimes mis)interpreted by the courts. As… Read more »
Ian, you are correct that the words “abortion” and “gay marriage” do not appear in the text of the Constitution. Neither do the words “Air Force” or “President’s cabinet” but I seriously doubt that anybody is going to make the claim that either of those are unconstitutional. See, the writers of the Constitution knew up front that they weren’t able to give us a Constitution that anticipated every possible contingency, so they wrote in broad, sweeping language and left it to future generations to work out the details as the need arose. What does “cruel and unusual punishment” mean? The… Read more »
Eric,
Your representation of my position is a bit a straw man, I am not arguing for a theocracy and I certainly don’t want one. What I want is for our civil rulers to have a moral backbone. Backbones are made out of hard stuff, I want them to have a moral backbone made out of hard stuff, like a standard. Since you didn’t answer my question the first time I’ll ask again: If it is wrong for the judges to apply the Bible to their interpretation which standard should they use instead?
Tim, you really think public opinion is how the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution? Because I can name lots of Supreme Court decisions without even having to think about it that inflamed public opinion rather than were based on public opinion: The decision that burning the flag is protected by the First Amendment, Roe v. Wade, ordering an end to segregated public schools, ordering an end to bans on inter-racial marriage, ending prayer and Bible study in public schools, tossing criminal convictions of some fairly loathsome criminals because the police violated their Fourth, Fifth or Six Amendment rights. You seriously… Read more »
Ted Ryan, I agree with you that judges need to have moral backbones. Under our polity, judges do not decide whether laws are “right” or “wrong”. They decide whether laws are constitutional, or unconstitutional. If a law is constitutional, it will be enforced, no matter how misguided, stupid or wrongheaded a particular law may be. The late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, in fact, once wrote an opinion that boiled down to, “Wow, this law is really stupid, but it’s also constitutional.” Likewise, no matter how wise or good public policy a particular law may be, it if violates the… Read more »
Our President used to say he opposed yag egairram due to his faith:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398324/was-obamas-gay-marriage-stance-noble-lie-or-cynical-opportunism-charles-c-w-cooke
” If a law is constitutional, it will be enforced, no matter how misguided, stupid or wrongheaded a particular law may be.”
By what separate but equal branch?
For the sake of your argument, it is the Executive. Well then, what if that equal branch says something like: “well, you (the SCOTUS) have made your decision, go ahead and enforce it”?
Friends: Instead of wasting time debating Eric the Lost, please consider 1. Prayer 2. Contacting any Christian or church with whom you have a connection and encourage them to encourage their faithful lesser magistrates, 3. Flood the comment sections of AL.com and every other online news outlet with you wit, wisdom and words. 4. Write Judge Moore a nice handwritten note of thanks. 5. Encourage 5 others do to the same.
My above suggestions were intended to be directed to efforts in Alabama but it would be great if each of us could help to create a politicsl culture where we live where the doctine of the lesser is pervasive. Uncortunately, Gov Bentley folded like a cheap tent and failed to take a principled stand. If he thinks the feds are acting illegally, fight it. There is no more of a constitutional right to marry a person of the same sex than there is for a man to marry five wives or a man and his adult niece. Roy Moore for… Read more »
Just a quick riff on the segregation=marriage “inequality” issue.
As far as I am concerned, when the culture asks me to declare that two persons of the same sex may engage in holy matrimony, it is asking me to commit the exact same sin that my forebears committed when they said Jim Crow was okay.
That is to say, to overthrow Scripture in favor of the cultural zeitgeist. I refuse.
“Ian, you are correct that the words “abortion” and “gay marriage” do not appear in the text of the Constitution. Neither do the words “Air Force” or “President’s cabinet” but I seriously doubt that anybody is going to make the claim that either of those are unconstitutional. See, the writers of the Constitution knew up front that they weren’t able to give us a Constitution that anticipated every possible contingency, so they wrote in broad, sweeping language and left it to future generations to work out the details as the need arose. What does “cruel and unusual punishment” mean?”—-I think… Read more »
to do things a certain way*
shouldn’t use*
The Republicans don’t have the will to overrun anything the Scorus does because the national leadership is not Chrisian. They are economic centrists who have to pander to Chrisitans. That needs to change
Ian, you are correct that marriage is traditionally a state function. That does not mean, however, that a heavily Catholic state could pass a law that says that only marriages performed by Catholic priests are valid, or that a secular state could pass a law refusing to recognize any marriages performed by members of the clergy. State functions still have to be performed in a way that doesn’t violate the US Constitution. As far as the standard for determining how to interpret a Constitution that doesn’t speak to every possible situation, the presupposition is in favor of liberty and the… Read more »
Eric, Your straw men grow more numerous by the minute; its like you have no base, no rest, no foundation but words and wind. We the People belong to God, not to man. You and your court have a problem; we will not be ruled by your ‘law’ as it is no law at all. Do not mistake the noble and mature attempts to work within the confines of existing law by Christians for surrender to it. While I think their efforts are ultimately in vain given the character of you, your people and your precious state, I applaud them… Read more »
@Robert wrote: The Republicans don’t have the will to overrun anything the Scorus does because the national leadership is not Chrisian. We know from scripture that historically God removes all hope but Him; in my opinion, He is doing that, today, in America; ‘the great sifting of men’ . In my opinion, there will be no recourse from law or politics, God will make (has made) that clear. My opinion–hunch really–is that Judge Moor knows this and is acting as a Christian first; sounding a clear trumpet as it where–using what tools he can; it makes my heart sing to… Read more »
Timothy, you have this notion that it’s tyrannical for Christians to be told that they can’t impose Biblical law on non-Christians. If that’s your idea of persecution, then perhaps you should spend some time in parts of the world where Christians really are persecuted. Nigeria might be a good place to start. Or anywhere currently under the control of ISIS. But if all you have to complain about is that you’re no longer being permitted to run your neighbors’ lives, then perhaps you could grow up and stop whining.
Hi Eric, Leaving aside for a moment the poor argument that places gay marriage in the same ontological bin as race, you have asked recently, and at previous times on this blog, about the harm that gay marriage would do. Of course, when people have told you about that harm, you have quite glibly dismissed this. Well, my question to you would be related to the people such as the Christian baker who are quite literally being forced under threat of fines and loss of their livelihood to make wedding cakes for celebratory services that are completely alien to their… Read more »
I wrote their but I should have written they’re. Geesh.
Doug, Is this meant as a specific rebuke of those struggling with homosexuality in your congregation?
Problem with the baker argument is that it’s separate from gay marriage. That is, you can be for gay marriage and against making it a crime for bakers to abstain from making cakes for gay weddings.
Eric, you wrote: As far as the standard for determining how to interpret a Constitution that doesn’t speak to every possible situation, the presupposition is in favor of liberty and the state must articulate a rationale every time it infringes on liberty. Remind me again where we get our right to liberty from? How can we be endowed with certain rights from our creator, and then argue that since there is no creator, we should be able to do whatever we want? He gave us rights, and He gave us limits. Who decided we could pick and choose the rights… Read more »
@eric – “Maybe if your side could tell us exactly what social damage gay marriage causes”
Here you go: The Consequences of Redefining Marriage: Eroding Marital Norms
And here: Why Marriage Matters
But the ones hurt most of all are children
@EtR wrote:
You resort to this rhetorical trope quite a bit; its not working; it has never worked. Do try upping your game; materialists can be soooooo boring.
David, Matt beat me to it. If a change in the law is needed to protect the free speech rights of bakers, then fine, change anti-discrimination laws accordingly. But that’s a separate subject than gay marriage. And on the merits, I would support such a change in the law. I think anti-discrimination laws are necessary for things like employment and housing because those are necessities, and entire groups of people shouldn’t be shut out of the economy because of other people’s prejudices. But in the case of the baker or florist or photographer, such services are not necessities in the… Read more »