However, some liberals took comfort in the fact that the
federal judge’s ruling in the Utah
case was somewhat limited in its scope. So don’t worry, declares
Jay Bookman of the AJC, (in spite of where the redefining of marriage will
eventually lead us) judge Waddoups' ruling “does not in any way require government
to recognize a polygamous marriage.”
Haven’t we heard something like this before? No need to
amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as a union between one man and
one woman; the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is sufficient. For over a decade
(and marriage has only been an electoral issue for little more than a decade),
the vast majority of elected U.S.
democrats were for biblical marriage, until they were against it. In 1996 DOMA
passed by a 342 to 67 margin in the U.S. House, and an 85 to 14 margin in the
Senate, and was signed by President Clinton.
After DOMA, until 2003, only three U.S. states (AK, NE, NV) saw fit to
amend their constitutions to limit the legal definition of marriage to a union
of one man and one woman. And just as they now have with polygamy, the liberal
courts struck. In Lawrence vs. Texas ,
the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6 to 3 ruling (reversing itself from the 1986
Bowers vs. Georgia )
overturned the Texas
anti-sodomy law and thus invalidated similar laws in the 12 states that still
had them on their books.
Of course, as liberals now point out with polygamy, the Lawrence ruling in no way
granted gays the legal right to marry, but it did give legal (and inevitably
cultural) legitimization to homosexual activity. Then the liberal courts struck
again, as they almost certainly will do (if they follow their own liberal
logic) in the case of polygamy. Later in 2003, the state Supreme Court of
Massachusetts ruled in favor of same-sex marriage.
These two events set in motion of a torrent of activity
among U.S.
states to amend their constitutions to define marriage as a union of one man
and one woman. Conservatives and liberals alike rushed to declare their support
for biblical marriage. In other words, in the late 1990s and early 2000s
same-sex marriage did not poll well.
As Carl Cannon of Real Clear Politics (and a supporter of
same-sex marriage) put
it, “Although ‘marry the person they love’ is a talking point, it’s also a
noble sentiment. But ‘fight like hell’ is not what Barack Obama or his
political party did on this issue. Quite the contrary: ‘Headed for the hills’
is a more apt description.”
According to Cannon, as late as 2004, Bill Clinton himself
(who earlier this year “bravely” announced that “It’s time to overturn DOMA”)
privately urged then presidential candidate John Kerry to “outflank George W.
Bush from the right on gay marriage.” Once the polling changed, liberals in the
democrat party were very willing to “evolve” on the issue of same-sex marriage.
In his Op-Ed in March of this year, President Clinton stated that DOMA was
“discriminatory” and “should be overturned.”
Those who support polygamy are simply following the same
play book used by the homosexual agenda to obtain full legal recognition of
same-sex marriage. First, get legal recognition of the behavior. Then use the
rulings of the courts along with allies in the media to sway public opinion.
Finally, use the courts again to further erode whatever elements of Christian
morality that remain in the U.S.
legal code.
But currently, the left does face a quandary: on the one
hand, their ever-evolving morality says that there really can’t be anything
wrong with polygamy, but on the other hand, the line for marriage must be drawn
somewhere. Thus, since liberals really don’t want to defend the inevitable
myriad of consequences of a legal redefinition of marriage, and since polygamy doesn’t yet poll well among
Americans, and democrats don’t yet want the political burden of supporting
polygamy, right now at least, liberals are willing to “discriminate” when it
comes to marriage.
Yes, whether they would admit it (and they almost never do),
liberals do take moral stands and they do discriminate. All of us do. Yet,
liberals (and even some confused
conservatives) would have us believe that it’s wrong to “legislate
morality.” CNN’s Mark Goldfeder ignorantly
concludes that in the light of the Lawrence
ruling, morals based legislation is “unconstitutional.”
In his dissent of Lawrence vs. Texas, Justice Antonin Scalia
wrote “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest,
prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity
are likewise sustainable only in light of…laws based on moral choices.” Scalia
later concluded that the Court had effectively decreed “the end of all morals
legislation.”
Maybe the “Court” has so decreed, but not the Constitution.
And of course, by “morals” what Scalia and Goldfeder are both referring to are
Christian morals. As I have often
noted,
all law is rooted in some morality. It is illogical, ignorant, and hypocritical
for liberals to rail against laws that are rooted in Christian morality, all
the while preaching a morality of their own making. Americans simply need to
decide by whose morality we want to be governed.
(See this column on American Thinker.)
Copyright 2013, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
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