Posted on 09/14/2015 8:22:20 AM PDT by wagglebee
September 11, 2015 (ThePublicDiscourse) -- On June 26, five justices of the Supreme Court found an unwritten “fundamental right” to same-sex marriage hiding in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment—a secret knowledge so cleverly concealed in the nineteenth-century amendment that it took almost 150 years to find. Facebook and the White House were awash in rainbow flags proclaiming the arrival of “marriage equality.”
Just three weeks after Obergefell, congressional Democrats filed House (H.R. 3185) and Senate (S. 1858) versions of the “Equality Act,” seeking to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the protected classes listed in the federal code. Americans are on an “equality” roll. What could go wrong?
As it turns out, quite a bit. If enacted, the deceptively titled Equality Act would punish dissenters who disagree with same-sex marriage by using the enforcement tools of the amended Civil Rights Act of 1964, but with even greater force and scope. The Equality Act seeks to weaponize Obergefell, moving with lightning speed from a contentious five-to-four victory on same-sex marriage to a nationwide rule that “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” are privileged classes that give no quarter to Americans who continue to believe and seek to exercise their millennia-old religious belief that marriage and sexual relations are reserved to the union of one man and one woman.
So, in concrete terms, what would the proposed law do? Here are just a few of the potential areas of impact, given how the Equality Act would amend various provisions of the Civil Rights Act:
- Employment: would amend Title VII to create new protected classes for “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” with no countervailing exemptions for faith-based organizations that maintain internal standards of sexual conduct rooted in longstanding religious tenets.
- Federal Programs: would amend Title VI, historically limited to race, color, and national origin, to create new protected classes for “sex, sexual orientation, gender identity,” with no countervailing protections for faith-based providers who willingly serve every program-eligible person but maintain internal standards of sexual conduct rooted in longstanding religious tenets.
- Public Accommodation: would drastically expand the Title II definition of “public accommodation” to cover “gatherings” and facilities historically owned and operated by churches or religious organizations—“shelters,” “food banks,” and “care centers”—extending far beyond the categories at issue during the Civil Rights Movement: common carriers (freight, bus, taxi, train, and air lines), public utilities, hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues.
- Public Education: would amend Title IV definitions of “desegregation” to include new protected classes for “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” placing in the litigation crosshairs all sex-restricted facilities like dormitories, restrooms, or locker rooms.
- Religious Freedom Restoration Act: would omit exemptions for religious organizations contained in prior drafts of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and expressly state that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) may not be used as a defense or a basis for challenging the Equality Act.
- Sex: would enter a congressional finding that “federal agencies and courts have correctly interpreted [] prohibitions on sex discrimination to include discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex stereotypes,” thereby adopting the EEOC’s most aggressively extra-textual recent rulings.
- Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications: would amend Title VII exemptions for employers who have sex-based “bona fide occupational qualifications” (BFOQ) for specialized jobs—for example, male security guards in a maximum security prison or female undercover officers in a sex-trafficking sting operation—to require recognition of persons “in accordance with their gender identity.”
Unlike ENDA, the Equality Act does not even feign an equal balancing of sexual liberty and religious liberty. Like some voracious legal Pac-Man, the Obergefell-fueled Equality Act devours any preexisting constitutional rights that might impede absolute victory in the march for “marriage equality”: speech, association, assembly, and the free exercise of religion. The Equality Act boldly declares that some constitutional rights are “more equal than others.”
That ‘70s Show
We’ve been here before.
On January 22, 1973, seven justices of the Supreme Court found an unwritten “fundamental right” to abortion hiding in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the shadowy “penumbras” of the Bill of Rights, a celestial phenomenon invisible to the non-lawyer eye. In the minutes and hours that followed, the New York Times predicted that Roe represented “an historic resolution of a fiercely controversial issue.”
But Roe did not resolve the fierce controversy of abortion. Instead, sexual revolutionaries suffered loss after loss when they rammed Roe into state and municipal policies restricting public funds or forced participation in the “fundamental right” of abortion. See, for example, Beal v. Doe (1977), Maher v.Roe (1977), and Poelker v. Doe (1977). This losing streak continued into the 1980s, when the Supreme Court affirmed the federal Hyde Amendment and state laws prohibiting the use of public facilities and public employees for elective abortions. See Harris v. McRae (1980) and Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989).
The Court’s underlying rationale was simple. It was also consistent with the Constitution as a “charter of negative liberties”: the right to have an abortion does not include the right to force taxpayers or conscientious objectors to participate in the process.
Moving into the twenty-first century, legislatures counterbalanced the “fundamental right” to abortion with more and more protections for conscientious objectors. These included (1) the Church Amendments prohibiting forced participation in abortion and sterilization procedures, (2) Public Health Service Act prohibitions on abortion-related discrimination in program funding, (3) Weldon Amendment protections for health providers who refuse to cover or refer for abortions, and (4) licensure and lawsuit protections for pharmacists who refuse to dispense contraceptive or abortifacient drugs.
In short, the unwritten right to abortion gradually approached equilibrium with the freedom to exercise religion—which, as Chief Justice Roberts pointed out, is “actually spelled out in the Constitution.” Today, pro-abortion and pro-life adversaries continue to litigate the points where the unwritten constitutional right to abortion collides with written constitutional rights to speech, association, assembly, and religion.
On July 29, Catholic News Agency reported on statements made at the Out & Equal conference in San Francisco, where a speaker declared:
We are at a crossroads where the choices we make will mean we will fight religious exemptions for two to three years or have a protracted twenty-year struggle on our hands.
Despite the euphoric media reaction to “marriage equality” and the rush to enact the Equality Act before President Obama leaves office, the post-Obergefell trajectory will probably look less like a two-year dash to the finish line and more like the “protracted” timeline of post-Roe litigation and legislation. That is, the new “fundamental right” to same-sex marriage will be made to coexist alongside meaningful exceptions for religious dissenters.
I make this prediction for three reasons. First, the vast majority of Abrahamic religious denominations in America—Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim—continue to define marriage as the sacred union of one man and one woman, accounting for over 100 million Americans. For two millennia, Christians have based their definition of marriage on the “red letter” words of Jesus Christ, who incorporated ancient words from the Book of Genesis:
But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two but one flesh.
Whatever the faith-distinctive term—sacrament, covenant, kiddushin, nikah—Americans in the growing Abrahamic denominations will continue to preach and seek to exercise their sincere religious belief that marriage is the sacred union of one man and one woman. Because marriage is a central tenet to all, religious liberty issues will persist and intensify in the post-Obergefell world.
Second, though politically potent in the short term, the analogy to interracial marriage is ahistorical and illogical. All of Christendom permitted interracial marriage until eighteenth-century slaveholders devised a political lie to suppress an inconvenient truth: one man and one woman can and do unite to create interracial children, so skin color is irrelevant to marriage.
Some southerners wrapped their racist politics in the rhetoric of religion, but an even larger coalition of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews brought an end to “racial purity” laws using direct appeals to shared religious principles. In fact, the very first case striking down an anti-miscegenation statute was brought by Roman Catholics who made religious liberty arguments against the state of California. Consequently, the “religious liberty equals racism” argument cannot withstand serious scrutiny.
Third, despite repeated attempts to meld the two into one “right side of history” campaign, the Sexual Revolution is not the Civil Rights Movement. Both started in the post-war boom and gained ground in the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, but they share almost nothing else in common. They have different origins, different leaders, different objectives, and different legacies.
The former was rooted in the soil of the uniquely American Judeo-Christian tradition, spearheaded by Christian leaders, and was essentially “moderate” in its demands. It sought the restoration of civil rights won in the Civil War and ratified in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, with additional, necessary protections for the mediating institutions essential to the African-American community: family, home, church, school, and business. In this way, the Civil Rights Movement was like the American Revolution, seeking to restore rather than destroy.
The latter was rooted in the soil of elitist postmodern philosophy, spearheaded by secular libertines, and was essentially “radical” in its demands. It sought public affirmation of the lie that the human person is an autonomous blob of Silly Putty unconstrained by nature or biology, and that marriage, sexuality, gender identity, and even the unborn child must yield to the erotic desires of liberated adults. In this way, the Sexual Revolution was more like the French Revolution, seeking to destroy rather than restore.
The former has achieved near-absolute victory in winning over the hearts and minds of the American people. The latter is mired in a continuous culture war, pitting sexual liberty against religious liberty in fights over pornography, divorce, abortion, and HHS mandates. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker are all forced into battle.
Polls now show that a majority of Americans favor sexual liberty and religious liberty. Because it decrees absolute victory for the sexual revolutionary without protecting the religious dissenter, the Equality Act is not a serious attempt to achieve equilibrium between the two.
In contrast, the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) does nothing to upset the holding in Obergefell but does prohibit the federal government from discriminating against persons who continue to believe in man-woman marriage. This gives real effect to the closing words of Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell:
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.
FADA is a better start to the long road ahead.
Matthew Kacsmaryk is Deputy General Counsel for the Liberty Institute in Dallas, Texas. He previously served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. Reprinted with permission from The Witherspoon Institute.
The latter was rooted in the soil of elitist postmodern philosophy, spearheaded by secular libertines, and was essentially “radical” in its demands. It sought public affirmation of the lie that the human person is an autonomous blob of Silly Putty unconstrained by nature or biology, and that marriage, sexuality, gender identity, and even the unborn child must yield to the erotic desires of liberated adults. In this way, the Sexual Revolution was more like the French Revolution, seeking to destroy rather than restore.
He spells out the contrast perfectly.
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The Civil Rights Act should have been struck down as being unconstitutional.
Pandora’s Box has been opened and the total state looms ahead. What Americans have fought and died for since the Founder’s days is being spit upon and thrown away by our tyrannical overlords.
>>We’ve been here before.
Uhuh.
26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
NIV
Human nature, and the manipulative exploitation of it, hasn’t change much.
M4L
One wonders if America will continue the long slide into the ash heap of history without even a whimper.
This is spot on!
It is going to have to get a lot worse before most people are willing to put down the remote or iphone long enough to engage in even paying attention.
>>their millennia-old religious belief that marriage and sexual relations are reserved to the union of one man and one woman.
Tossing religiously state-established created things into Baal’s fire doesn’t unexist the facts that:
A: Natural Selection selected Sex (the genetic exchange between Male and Female) because Sex (and Sexual Dimorphism) increases fitness of species.
B: What reprobate perverts have have selected isn’t Sex, but nothing more or less than the worship of mutual masturbation and themselves.
C: Romans 1:25+ describes the results of when human nature manifested the same behavior, historically, in the past.
Watch what happens with the statewide elections in KY this November. It’ll be a good indication of where this is going to go nationally. Right now the KY Dems, who run and win as “Conservatives” are panicking.
As much as the Civil Rights Act was against Free Association and private property rights-—this addition of “sexual orientation” is pure evil, because it normalizes perversions and vile use of human beings “for the children” to normalize sodomy in little children-—the muslim harem-boy ethics.
This addition of “sexual orientation” is radical Marxism—to erase all identity from human beings so they become interchangeable cogs and godless animals to be used and herded by the Lucifereans (Freemasons)/Bohemian Grove Kissinger-types, who need child sacrifices and orgy victims for their he/she Owl worship.
The all-male Bohemian Grove sodomites who practice boy sacrifices and sodomy shows (Franklin Cover-Up) which include the little boys, have been salivating over this normalization (for the boys) for 100 years. It is the Fabian Socialist (and Bolshevik) wet dream-—to have free access to all the little boys.
A “Justice” System can never pretend males are females-—it removes Reason and Science from Just Law which is impossible. To destroy Objective Truth of male and female in children is the embracing of satanic religion—and the erasing of Christianity and the only rational religion in the history of man—the one which created the Age of Reason and the philosophy of the US Constitution.
We are removing Truth/Reason and Science from Just Law for irrational, vile use of the human body—satanism and Marxism.
does this make the homosexual rainbow flag illegal?
it is used to exclude based on normal marriage.
it is used as hate speech.
Very well written article- The battle is however over- for the following reason:
The courts have done what science has failed to do for lack of evidence- they have classified homosexuality and perversions as a ‘genetic condition’ on par with being black, or Hispanic, or whatever ethnicity you would like to compare it to-
We can never go back to sane rational policies- Homosexuality has now been deemed moral because the courts have declared it is a trait (not in so many terms, but by comparing it to interracial marriages, and black folks getting the right to vote- they by implication have deemed it a genetic trait, and not a lifestyle choice- had it been declared a lifestyle choice, states would still be free to ban marriages because iof the harm that lifestyle choice does to society and to families)
Now that the courts have essentially made homosexuality a genetic trait, (something gay people ‘can’t help’), any attempt ot repeal it, or ignore it will be seen as violating their ‘rights’, and the left will scream bloody hell if anyone dares try-
Homosexuality is now the ‘new race of people’ after the court declared it eligible for protections afforded only to race.
Homosexuality has been declared moral by the courts by being removed from the ‘sexual deviancy’ list of sexual perversions that are not allowed when it comes to marriages
The only way this battle can be won is IF God turns this country completely around like He did with the good kings that reigned after the bad kings destroyed the country with immoral laws- However, I believe God has turned His face from this country- possibly for the purpose of ushering in the end times battle, as we are seeing immorality spread like wildfire throughout the world, AND we are seeing a very rapid rise of terrorism and religious bigotry against God and Christians- Christians all over the world are being murdered simply for being Christian- and we’re seeing a very strong concerted effort to destroy Christian values and morality in this country- as seen by this bill
[[What Americans have fought and died for since the Founder’s days is being spit upon and thrown away by our tyrannical overlords.]]
“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
John Adams, Letter, April 15, 1814
“But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
John Adams
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”
John Adams
Frankly, if more people would simply read our foundational documents in context, it would be very clear that social values & moral issues were never supposed to involve the Federal Government. Its role is clearly (and symmetrically) spelled out. It is clear from what rights the States delegated, and what they did not delegate, as well as the specific types of limitations on the Federal Government, as in Article I, Sec.9, that we have fallen down a rabbit hole with a mythical Alice, in the current embrace of an oxymoron definition of marriage.
Rather than wring hands, or insult each other, let us quietly discuss the natural function of sexuality; of all advanced life forms; of what is really essential in normal human psychological, as well as physical development.
Rather than despair, let us reason together, keeping calm & rational.
Under that approach, how long do you think it will be, before many currently misled by a perverse academic & media perspective, begin to ask meaningful questions of those who have misled them.
[[it would be very clear that social values & moral issues were never supposed to involve the Federal Government.]]
Oh we’ve read them and it’s very clear that God and morality were a HUGE part of our foundations and the federal government-
[[Rather than despair, let us reason together]]
It’s precisely because we’ve done that, and NOT fighting the scourge of immorality creeping in) that we’re in this position- NOONE stood up In the early days of the push for ‘homosexual rights’ to state that homosexuality IS a perversion that does NOT deserve constitutional protections anymore than pedophilia does- or bestiality- ALL of which are considered abominations-
By ‘being reasonable’ we’ve allowed homosexuality to be taken off the list of abominations- and now we’re being FORCED to accept this irreligious secularism to trump our universal moral rights and obligations!
Reason? Yep- it’s done us so much ‘good’- so much infact that our supreme court just makes up the constitution as it goes along-
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”
Here are more references to God found in the document:
Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”
Appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World”
With a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence”
The body of the Constitution makes no reference to God. The Constitution honors the Christian Sabbath. The President was given 10 days to sign a bill into law. The counting of the 10 days does not include the Sabbath. This is found in Article 1, Section 7, and Clause 2 which in part follows:
“If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law,”
When the Constitution was completed on September 17, 1787, it was signed by the delegates then to be ratified by the states. The delegates signed the Constitution in the “Year of our Lord.”
When the United States became a nation, it was done in the “name of the most holy and undivided Trinity.” The preamble to this Treat states it is based upon the “Holy and undivided Trinity.”
http://www.internationalcopsforchrist.com/proof-that-america-was-founded-as-a-christian-nation/
At the time of the founding, 99.8% of the population of the fledgling country identified themselves, to one degree of sincerity or another, as followers of Jesus Christ. And 98.4% identified themselves as Protestants. Catholics represented 1.4% of the population, and the other 0.2% were followers of Judaism. Virtually 100% of those living in America at the time of its founding were adherents of the Judeo-Christian tradition
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/140621
on and on it goes- While God isn’t specifically mentioned in the constitution, many of the bills and documents and writing leading up to the constitution made it very clear we were a CHristian nation and that our founders were very serious about including Christianity in our government- The constitution itself PROTECTS the right for ALL people, Even people within our government to practice their faith openly and without fear, and many major documents leading up to the constitution make it more than clear enough that our founders viewed God and religion as a necessary part of government
The oxymoron of "same-sex" marriage, even if it had some rational meaning--which it does not, as the whole function of marriage has always been to sanctify the mating of man & woman;--does not involve anything delegated to the Federal Government in the Constitution; and outside the District of Columbia and the Federal territories, the very subject of marriage is not in any sense within the Federal purview.
The reasoning together, that I refer to, involves the reasoning process. Those advocating the abomination that you denounce, have not been reasoning with anyone. They have been pontificating--as frankly you are pontificating, even though I agree with you that the Leftist position is the scourge that you denounce;--rather than being forced to actually reason.
My point is that the "same sex" marriage oxymoron will simply not bear reasoned analysis. It bears no rational relationship to the immemorial purpose or function of marriage.
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