What road are we heading down now?

--> Thoughts on the Supreme Court’s Unwise and Unconstitutional Decision Redefining Marriage, being a varied collection of everything on my mind these past couple of momentous days, published on Tuesday, June 30, 2015, as the Final Word in our family’s monthly newsletter
 

I

Some years ago I started reading a book by David Kupelian published in 2005 entitled The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom.

An overview of the book states that “Americans have come to tolerate, embrace and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents’ generation—from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion-on-demand to ex­treme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade-schoolers. Does that mean today's Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says vet­eran journalist David Kupelian. But they have fallen victim to some of the most stunningly brilliant and compelling marketing campaigns in modern history.

“The Marketing of Evil reveals how much of what Americans once almost universally abhorred has been packaged, perfumed, gift-wrapped and sold to them as though it had great value. Highly skilled marketers, playing on our deeply felt national values of fairness, generosity and tolerance, have persuaded us to embrace as enlightened and noble that which all previous generations since America's founding re­garded as grossly self-destructive—in a word, evil.”

I stated that I had started the book. I did not finish it. After reading a couple of chapters—one about the elimination of prayer and religion from schools specifically and the public square generally, the other about making the unspoken evil of homo­sexuality standard and acceptable—I became so agitated, worked up, and disgusted that I could not continue. It was something like playing in a sewer.

The two topics I did read about—the assault on religion and the normalization of homosex­uality—are of course related. And we’ve seen them coming to full fruition in this generation as our country be­comes ever more secularized and drifts further from the spiritual moorings that this nation was founded upon.

II

The Book of Mormon, which was written for our day, contains numerous warnings about what led to the downfall and eventual destruction of at least two previous civilizations that existed on this continent:

“And now,” wrote the prophet Moroni near the end of the Book of Mormon record, “we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity” (Ether 2:9).

Nearly 400 years earlier, as Mosiah was giving the Nephite nation a new form of government, he warned prophetically, “And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land” (Mosiah 29:27).

And, sadly, just six decades later, we read, “For as their laws and their government were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted” (Helaman 5:2).

This is not just interesting history. These are warnings intended specifically for our day.

III

When I was a grade schooler in Idaho in the early 1960s, we began each school day by reading from the Bible. I do not remember that we prayed at school.

When the first school prayer cases were decided, President David O. McKay said, “By making that [written prayers formulated by the New York state board of regents] unconstitutional, the Supreme Court of the United States severs the connecting cord be­tween the public schools of the United States and the source of divine intelligence, the Creator him­self” (“Parental Respon­sibility,” Relief Society Magazine, Dec. 1962, 878).

Six months later, just after the Supreme Court’s decision forbid­ding Bible reading in public schools, President McKay said, “Recent rulings of the Su­preme Court would have all reference to a Creator eliminated from our public schools and public offices.

“It is a sad day when the Supreme Court of the United States would discourage all reference in our schools to the influence of the phrase ’divine provi­dence’ as used by our founders of the Declaration of Independence.

“Evidently the Supreme Court misinterprets the true meaning of the First Amendment, and are now leading a Christian nation down the road to atheism” (Church News, June 22, 1963, 2).

President McKay was not a lawyer. He was not a judge. But he was a prophet of God, a seer and a revelator. He could see the path we were beginning down and knew where it would lead. We are well along that path now.

There is silliness about (that’s my kind word, per­verseness would be more accurate) that the United States is not a Christian nation. America was founded as a Christian nation. Our founding documents, to­gether with reliable rhetoric from the remarkable men who founded this country, were that God’s hand was in the enterprise. Our laws were based in the Judeo-Christian morality taught in the Bible. Our belief, until quite recently at least, was that America was something special in the world, a city upon a hill, a beacon for the rest of humanity that stood against the forces of tyranny and evil and oppression.

IV

And that brings us down to this last week, when on Friday morning, June 26, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 split vote re­leased its ruling on so-called same-sex marriage. Five justices, elected by no one, legislated that same-sex marriage would now be legal in all 50 states. From my van­tage point, the Supreme Court got this one supremely wrong on at least two counts: as a moral issue and as a legal issue.

V

First, as a moral issue. Modern prophets have taught, “Man’s laws can­not make moral what God has de­clared immoral” (Dallin H. Oaks, “No Other Gods,” Ensign, Nov. 2013, 75) and “Sin, even if legalized by man, is still sin in the eyes of God” (Russell M. Nel­son, “Decisions for Eternity,” Ensign, Nov. 2013, 108).

The scriptures and the teachings of modern prophets and apostles are clear that homosexual behavior is a sin, just as fornication and adultery and various other corrupt practices that are commonly tolerated in our society are sins. Sin is sin. God defines that; I do not.

Now that probably sounds very bigoted. Those who know me at all know that I haven’t got a bigoted bone in my body. I am simply stating what should be obvious and self-evident. I know people who are gay. I may not agree with them, but I still respect them. I do not hate or mock or belittle them. I respect their rights, including now in every jurisdiction their right to marry. I do not disparage what they have been through or what they have had to contend with. God is the judge; I am not.

“Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense” (attributed to Rick Warren, an American evangelical Christian pastor).

It goes with saying, although unfortunately it does need to be said, that no true disciple of Jesus Christ should ever persecute another person for his or her beliefs or actions. As Elder Oaks has taught, “On the subject of public discourse, we should all follow the gospel teachings to love our neighbor and avoid contention. Followers of Christ should be examples of civility. . . . Though we may disagree, we should not be disagreeable.”

Elder Oaks continued, “The Savior taught that contention is a tool of the devil. . . .

“The most important setting to forgo contention and practice respect for differences is in our homes and family relationships. Differences are inevitable—some minor and some major. As to major differences, suppose a family member is in a cohabitation rela­tionship. That brings two important values into conflict—our love for the family member and our commitment to the commandments. Following the Savior’s example, we can show loving-kindness and still be firm in the truth by forgoing actions that facilitate or seem to condone what we know to be wrong” (Dallin H. Oaks, “Loving Others and Living with Differences,” Ensign, Nov. 2014, 27).

There is a freeway billboard sign in Salt Lake that proclaims, “God loves gays.” Well, of course He does, but implied in that message is that He accepts illicit or sinful behavior, which He clearly does not. To think otherwise, is simply cheap theology and deceitful, devious doctrine.

From the beginning of time, across cultures and centuries, the definition of marriage has been a union be­tween a man and a woman. A Supreme Court deci­sion cannot change that. They may extend the bene­fits of marriage to those of the same sex, but they can­not say a cat is a dog simply because a lot of cats wanted to be dogs and felt bad that they couldn’t be. Sometimes I think we must be in a dream, an absurd night­mare of the sort that Alice experienced in Won­der­land.

A statement by the Church that same Friday morning said, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints acknowledges that follow­ing today’s rul­ing by the Supreme Court, same-sex marriages are now legal in the United States. The Court’s decision does not alter the Lord’s doctrine that marriage is a union between a man and a woman ordained by God.”

VI

And now second, as a legal issue. Last Friday morn­ing I read the majority opinion and the four dissent­ing opinions (all 103 pages of them) and, re­gardless of one’s orientation or views on same-sex marriage, I have to concur with all four of the dis­senting justices that today is a sad day for America and those who love the Constitution and the rule of law. For saying as much on Facebook, in re­sponse to someone else’s post, I have already been labeled a bigot.

“This Court is not a legislature,” Chief Justice John Roberts observed in his dissent. “Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be. . . .

“Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of mar­riage. And a State’s decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has persisted in every culture throughout human history can hardly be called irrational. . . .

“Today, however, the Court takes the extraordi­nary step of ordering every State to license and rec­ognize same-sex marriage. Many people will rejoice in this decision, and I begrudge none their celebra­tion. But for those who believe in a govern­ment of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is dis­heart­ening. . . .

“If you are among the many Americans—of whatever sexual orientation—who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.”

I wish we had the space, and you as reader the patience, to quote Justice Robert’s entire masterful dissent, as well as the dissents authored by the other three justices who did not concur with the majority opinion. In my judgment, all four of them gave com­pelling reasons why legally this was a bad decision.

“I join the Chief Justice’s opinion in full,” wrote Justice Antonin Scalia. “I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy.”

He continues, “It is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of over­whelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opin­ion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create ‘liberties’ that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to men­tion. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern them­selves.”

He continues, “This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of govern­ment. Except as limited by a constitutional prohibi­tion agreed to by the People, the States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even those that offend the esteemed Justices’ ‘reasoned judgment.’ A system of government that makes the People subor­dinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.”

Justice Clarence Thomas adds, “The Court’s deci­sion today is at odds not only with the Constitution, but with the principles upon which our Nation was built. Since well before 1787, liberty has been under­stood as freedom from government action, not en­titlement to government benefits. The Framers created our Constitution to preserve that under­standing of liberty. Yet the majority invokes our Constitution in the name of a ‘liberty’ that the Framers would not have recognized, to the detriment of the liberty they sought to protect. Along the way, it rejects the idea—captured in our Declaration of Independence—that human dignity is innate and suggests instead that it comes from the Government. This distortion of our Constitution not only ignores the text, it inverts the relationship between the individual and the state in our Republic.”

And, finally, from Justice Samuel Anthony Alito: “Today’s decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understand­ing of marriage. The decision will also have other important consequences. It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy. In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women. The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are deter­mined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.

“Perhaps recognizing how its reasoning may be used, the majority attempts, toward the end of its opinion, to reassure those who oppose same-sex marriage that their rights of conscience will be pro­tected. We will soon see whether this proves to be true. I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by govern­ments, employers, and schools. The system of federalism established by our Constitution provides a way for people with different beliefs to live together in a single nation. If the issue of same-sex marriage had been left to the people of the States, it is likely that some States would recognize same-sex marriage and others would not. It is also possible that some States would tie recognition to protection for conscience rights. The majority today makes that impossible. By imposing its own views on the entire country, the majority facilitates the margin­alization of the many Americans who have tradi­tional ideas. Recalling the harsh treatment of gays and lesbians in the past, some may think that turn-about is fair play. But if that sentiment prevails, the Nation will experience bitter and lasting wounds.

“Today’s decision will also have a fundamental effect on this Court and its ability to uphold the rule of law. If a bare majority of Justices can invent a new right and impose that right on the rest of the country, the only real limit on what future majorities will be able to do is their own sense of what those with political power and cultural influence are willing to tolerate. Even enthusiastic supporters of same-sex marriage should worry about the scope of the power that today’s majority claims. Today’s decision shows that decades of attempts to restrain this Court’s abuse of its authority have failed.”

VII

Now, a few words in conclusion. For all this to work for same-sex marriage pro­ponents, they have to get rid of religion and morality. They have to get rid of Christianity, which will always be a thorn in their side and a prick to their conscience. They know this. They acknowledge this. And the assault has long since begun. In their eyes, America can no longer be a Christian nation. It must become thoroughly human­istic and secular. Religion and faith can have no place in the public arena.

The Constitutionally protected and enumerated freedoms of religion and speech and assembly, ac­cording to this assault, now have to bow to concocted freedoms and political correctness.

A characteristic of elitists and those on the left end of the political spectrum is that freedom of speech, for example, is all good and fine as long as it does not disagree with what they believe. Otherwise, they brand it as hate speech or bigotry or stupidity. They use it to demean or belittle or ridicule. They employ it to get people ostracized or dismissed or fired, just as Justice Alito predicted. They somehow miss or are willfully ignorant of their own hypocrisy.

We in the Church believe that in fulfillment of prophecy the Lord is now hastening His work in the earth. The end must be near. Satan knows this of course, so he too is currently hastening his work. He is freely marketing his evil. These are to be “days of wickedness and vengeance” (Moses 7:60). The skir­mishes may become quite intense. We are in for an interesting ride.

But the Lord’s purposes in the end result in “peace, justice, and truth . . . and mercy” (Moses 7:31). So, armed with faith and the power of right­eousness, and led by revelation, the saints of God in this dispensation ultimately prevail. We can take comfort in knowing who wins the war.