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Time for Civil Disobedience, Christians
Townhall.com ^ | July 5, 2015 | Matt Barber

Posted on 07/05/2015 11:29:34 AM PDT by Kaslin

“Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.”

– John 15:20

The push back has begun. Christian business owners, lawyers, parents, judges, county clerks, organizations, universities, hospitals, adoption agencies and other individuals and groups have been given an ultimatum by five unelected, unaccountable liberals in Washington, D.C.: “You must now obey us and disobey God. You must pretend, with us, that sin-based same-sex ‘marriage’ is an actual thing.”

To which we say, “Not on your life.”

“Or our own.”

Absolute truth is a stubborn thing. Attempts at marital alchemy notwithstanding, the highly contentious, wholly contemptible 5-4 “gay marriage” opinion (and that’s all it is, an opinion) released last week by five pagan extremists in black robes is altogether illegitimate and should be treated as such.

From a moral, biological and legal standpoint, the court’s majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges is a complete farce. It’s an absurd missive, a bohemian word salad that was roundly, and rightly, condemned by the court’s four dissenting justices. “The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie,” mocked Justice Scalia.

These “five lawyers,” as Chief Justice John Roberts called them, can no more suspend the laws of natural marriage, than can they suspend the laws of gravity. “[D]o not celebrate the Constitution,” wrote Roberts. “It had nothing to do with it.”

This opinion, which has been branded “the Dred Scott of marriage,” has not changed, one iota, the fixed and immovable reality that the institution of marriage, an institution as old as mankind itself, is, and shall forever remain, centrally defined by its binary male-female requirement.

Indeed, as the four dissenting justices noted, the majority failed, at every level, from a precedential, historical, moral and, perhaps most importantly, a constitutional standpoint, to make the case for redefining marriage – something no man can do.

So how should we Christians react to this haughtiness – to this rebellion against God?

God’s word tells us how to react: “But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men.’” (Acts 5:29)

Many of us have long warned that this day would come, and it has arrived. In the Spirit of Daniel the prophet and MLK the reverend, we Christians must now engage, as relates our peaceful response to the imposition of counterfeit same-sex “marriage,” in widespread civil disobedience. It’s the right thing to do. In fact, it’s a sin if we don’t. “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” (James 4:17)

There are those who will prefer the path of least resistance and will cite, out of context, various Scriptures in order to avoid the possible persecution that may come as a result of obedience to God. For example: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” (Romans 13:1)

To be clear, under our constitutional republican form of government, “We the People” are “the governing authorities,” and our elected officials in Congress and the White House are the hired help. They are subject to us, and we are all subject to God, Who is the Final Authority.

These nine unelected, unaccountable justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are appointed and confirmed by the elected officials we hire to represent us. Five of the nine have now presumed to defy both the sovereign will of tens of millions of “We the People” who engaged the constitutional process and voted to defend the immutable definition of marriage, as well as, and more importantly, the sovereign will of God Almighty, the very Author of marriage itself.

Central to Christianity, and clearly delineated throughout both the Old and New Testaments, is the unambiguous and timeless proposition that any sexual practice outside the bonds of true man-woman marriage constitutes sexual immorality and results in separation from God. This, of course, includes sexual acting out between members of the same sex, whether or not such acting out is tied to the novel notion of so-called “same-sex marriage.”

So let’s see if we can make this abundantly clear. Christians, true Christians – regenerate, Bible-believing Christians who strive their level best to maintain fidelity to the word of God and honor His commands – will not, indeed cannot, participate in, approve of, facilitate or encourage certain behaviors deemed by the Holy Scriptures to be immoral or sinful. This is both our constitutionally affirmed human right and our Christian duty.

It is not so much that Christians wish, willy-nilly, to call homosexual behavior, polyamory, fornication, adultery, bestiality, incest or any other disordered sexual proclivity “sinful.” It is, rather, that we must. For the true Christian, God’s objective truths will always trump man’s subjective desires.

And so this opinion, let’s call it “Kennedy’s folly,” will result in, must necessarily result in, widespread civil disobedience – disobedience of the sort we haven’t seen since the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and ’60s.

For 2,000 years, whenever such conflicts have arisen, Christians have placed the laws of God above the laws of man.

What makes you think we’re about to change now?

As many in the early church refused to bow a knee to Caesar in worship, so, too, will many modern Christians refuse, under any circumstances, to obey any court opinion or man-made law that presumes to make sin obligatory.

If the ancient church, through the power of the Holy Spirit, was able to face the lions in hopeful anticipation of joining Jesus, then we, too, under the same Spirit, will face anything today’s pagan left can threaten.

In the ongoing culture war, it seems there are no rules of engagement. The secular left will accept nothing short of unconditional surrender. That is to say, the pagans demand that we Christians abandon the biblical worldview altogether, and adopt their own.

This will never happen.

In his “letter from the Birmingham jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. famously declared, “One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

“A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God,” he explained. “An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.”

An unjust law is, in point of fact, lawlessness.

One can imagine nothing more “out of harmony with the moral law,” than the twisted and oxymoronic notion of so-called “same-sex marriage.”

And so, Mr. Kennedy, our answer is no.

Come what may, we will not obey your unjust lawlessness.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
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To: Kaslin

The branches of gov’t have lost any legitimacy. We’re surrounded. Things just got easier.

It’s not just Christians who will show up for the festivities when gov’t agents are sent to churches, it’s the Constitutional militia, including law enforcement, including ex-military, same as Bundy Ranch.

We will not consent, we will not comply. Civil disobedience to such tyranny will be more than the domestic enemies can handle. Their edicts must be enforced and send armed men to put their will upon us. Bring it. They are that stupid to attempt to meddle and undermine culture, tradition, and fundamental religious beliefs. What is this, amateur hour? How many times in history has this caused wars and backfired? Especially in America with the stubbornest folk who love freedom? 1st Amendment is the bedrock.

Churches attacked and innocents killed means just war clause has just passed and it’s open season. Or, hunting season rather. The tyrants themselves will face personal consequences. Thus starts the reset.

I enjoy Mike Vanderboegh’s post on the matter:

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-reset-button.html

“I was having this conversation with a reader the other day in reference to the firearm laws we are breaking in the various states and he asked me what we were going to do about previous infringements, going back to GCA 68 and the NFA of 1934. I told him, when they start the shooting we don’t quit until we have pushed the reset button on the last 100 plus years of infringements. They lose it all — the Federal Reserve, fiat currency, the income tax, all the gun laws, all the nanny state fascism, the murder of innocents on demand, the tortured rendering of the Interstate Commerce clause, the bloated federal bureaucracy, everything. EVERYTHING.”


141 posted on 07/05/2015 7:16:17 PM PDT by TheBigJ
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To: IDontLikeToPayTaxes

“If that’s the case, why bother voting, advocating for our culture, religion, or values, or do anything? Just stay at home all day and pray.”

Which was an extremely successful strategy in the dark ages. The cloisteted religious communities weathered the storm well.

Be that as it may, a directly confrontational approach is sometimes necessary. I think most of the time it is not.


142 posted on 07/05/2015 7:19:16 PM PDT by RKBA Democrat ( The ballot is a suggestion box for slaves and fools.)
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To: TheBigJ

I like your optimism in the matter, but I am pessimistic myself. A civil disobedience movement must be organized. Who is going to organize it, the working stiffs like all of us here? What people forget, or don’t even know about is that the so-called Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was organized and paid for by the Soviets, to the tune, I’ve read of $30 mill per annum. What is suppressed is the information that the handful of ‘community organizers’ and now martyrs shot and killed in the South at the time were CPUSA members from New York. What were they doing interfering in the Southern states policies?

Even this year’s various riots were organized by agitators. Where are our side’s agitators, ahem, community organizers?


143 posted on 07/05/2015 7:39:15 PM PDT by Ventilator on
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To: Bob434
"no it isn’t- they were fined out of business for not providing services for gay weddings- not simply ‘gay issues’ as you assert..."

I didn't use the words "gay issues". It was a business that serviced weddings and they didn't want to service a gay wedding. That isn't a legal issue about gay marriage, it's a legal issue about the right not to serve gay customers. It could have been an auto mechanic not want to replace the muffler for a gay customer. Same thing.

I'm not criticizing them or defending what happened to them, I'm just pointing out the legal distinction. It is not semantics, it is a completely different legal issue.

144 posted on 07/05/2015 8:24:02 PM PDT by mlo
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To: Ransomed
"I don’t get it. Were people being punished by the state for not making a gay wedding cake before ‘gay marriage’ was legalized in whatever state they happened to be in?"

Naturally you couldn't be in a position to decline to serve a gay wedding in a jurisdiction that didn't have them. But that doesn't make any legal complication that arises a consequence of the recent Supreme Court decision.

145 posted on 07/05/2015 8:26:16 PM PDT by mlo
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To: ctdonath2
"Absolutely the same. Baker specializes in what she regards as weddings based on her personal religious convictions. No reason she should be compelled otherwise under vicious legal threats."

I didn't say she should be compelled. I defend her right to decline. But it's not a legal issue that arises from the Supreme Court decision. It's an issue that arises from anti-discrimination laws that have nothing to do with marital status.

146 posted on 07/05/2015 8:28:33 PM PDT by mlo
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To: The_Reader_David
"What, are you an apologist for Brad Avarkian? The bakers did not refuse to sell cakes to "gay" customers as such, but only refused to cater a "gay" wedding."

Not sure what distinction you think that is but the legal problem the baker got into stems from anti-discrimination laws. If anything compels one to make gay wedding cakes, it's those. Not the Supreme Court decision. That's what I'm explaining.

The court decision doesn't compel anyone to do anything, if you aren't an official involved in marriage licenses. So it would be hard to engage in civil disobedience against a law that didn't require you to do anything. You want to engage in civil disobedience against anti-discrimination laws? That's a bit more practical because there's actually something you can do there.

That what this thread is about after all. "Civil Disobedience", right there in the title. Got to have something to disobey.

147 posted on 07/05/2015 8:34:40 PM PDT by mlo
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To: Sequoyah101

This is a good read!


148 posted on 07/05/2015 8:53:51 PM PDT by Taxman (H. L. Mencken correctly observed: Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man.)
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To: mlo

But the decision does do something to those who do not issue marriage licenses: it purports to require us all to consider homosexual couples who have been issued a state marriage license to be married, and to consider the issuance of such a license or any rite held pursuant to it to be a wedding.

Most directly this affects anyone who provides catering or other services used at weddings — conscientious objection to the subversion of the concept of marriage can be reframed as violating anti-discrimination laws, even if the business owner would be happy to provide other services to homosexuals. Again, there is a difference between conscientious objection to the subversion of marriage and the refusal to sell products or provide services to homosexuals, whether you or a Democrat Party gauleiter in Oregon see the difference or not.


149 posted on 07/05/2015 9:28:33 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)
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To: mlo

I guess I still don’t get it. What would have happened if two gay people decided to have a cake made for a ceremony with no legal recognition in a state that didn’t yet accept ‘gay marriage,’ and the cake makers refused?

Freegards


150 posted on 07/05/2015 9:43:09 PM PDT by Ransomed
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To: RKBA Democrat

[[Going to prison for violating caesar’s edicts is not cowardly. Just stupid.]]

The Apostles were all stupid then? Hint: Persecution and martyrdom strengthened the early church like nothing else could- What man means for evil (ie: Ceasar and ilk) God meant for good- there was nothing stupid about standing up for, and being punished for, God’s word


151 posted on 07/05/2015 10:01:13 PM PDT by Bob434
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To: RIghtwardHo
I agree with you but Corporations seem to have a special power.

I agree; however, corporations or for that matter the converse, a mob, are only a problem when they can wield power over individuals via a corrupt central government that is not limited in power. The Founders knew quite well that to limit the coercive power of government over individuals that the question was not one of choosing a benevolent 'good' king' to rule but rather to physically constrain and limit the central authority to specific enumerated powers, establish checks and balances and a Republican form of governance that respected and recognized God given rights and or limited enumerated powers as evident or self-evident -encompassing fully the spheres of Individuals, States and the Federal.

America's problems today are not about who, the rich elite or the useful idiot mob, occupies the throne in Washington D.C. -but rather, that there is a throne that Leftists have built brick by brick over time...

The throne created in Washington D.C. , the metaphoric "Tower of Babel" must be dismantled, tore down, destroyed --therein lies the answer.

152 posted on 07/07/2015 3:32:24 PM PDT by DBeers (†)
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To: Ransomed
"I guess I still don’t get it. What would have happened if two gay people decided to have a cake made for a ceremony with no legal recognition in a state that didn’t yet accept ‘gay marriage,’ and the cake makers refused?"

It would have been the same result. The issue wasn't that they didn't service a gay wedding. It was that they didn't service gay customers. The business happened to be one that serviced weddings and the cake was for a wedding, but it wasn't that it was a wedding that got them into trouble.

153 posted on 07/09/2015 8:39:42 PM PDT by mlo
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