Who Is the Final Authority in America?
Time and again during the last decade and in state after state, unelected and unaccountable federal judges over-ruled the will of the people on the issue of same-sex intercourse and marriage.
When given the opportunity to go to the polls, what was the percentage of voters who chose to vote in favor of banning same-sex marriage?
Kentucky 75% Florida 62%
Virginia 57% Georgia 76%
Texas 76% Idaho 63%
California 52% Kansas 70%
Michigan 59% Louisiana 78%
Nebraska 70% N. Carolina 61%
S. Dakota 52% N. Dakota 73%
Alabama 71% S. Carolina 78%
Arkansas 75% Utah 66%
Ohio 62% Wisconsin 59%
Oklahoma 76% Arizona 56%
Colorado 56% Missouri 72%
Mississippi 86% Montana 67%
Nevada 67% Oregon 57%
Tennessee 81%
Question: Do these tens of millions of Americans have rights too? Or does the final authority lie with federal judges or with a 5-4 vote by Supreme Court justices?
Where in the world is the legislative branch of our United States government? The Republican leaders of the House and Senate indicated they were ready to storm hell with a water pistol if they were given the majority in 2010 and 2014. What a disappointment these weak-kneed leaders have been.
Let’s return to the discussion about state referendums and use Texas as one example. By a margin of 76-24, Texan voters went to the polls in 2005 and amended their Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The amendment won in 253 out of 254 counties; some counties voted 90-10 for the ban.
Even by Texas definitions of the word “big”—those vote percentages were huge, representing millions of Texans for the ban. But in 2014, one unelected, unaccountable federal judge decided his will would dominate over millions of Texans. The 76 percent supermajority meant nothing to this judge as he struck down the amendment.
Not to be outdone, the U.S. Supreme Court doubled-down in 2015 and found a constitutional right to same-sex intercourse and marriage—in the U.S. Constitution! Two of the Justices—Elena Kagan and Ruth Ginsburg—had performed same-sex weddings before hearing the case, but disgracefully refused to recuse themselves.
The law of recusal is clear. Any independent, reasonable observer would recognize that Justices Kagan and Ginsburg’s had disqualified themselves from hearing the case by performing same-sex marriages prior.
And yet, if Hillary Clinton is elected president this Nov. 8, everything I’ve mentioned so far will have only served as the opening act. Will our grandchildren live to see persecution such as depicted in Nero’s Torches?
This seems to be as good of time as any to bring up secular, socialist, liberal Harvard professor Mark Tushnet, who recently wrote:
“For liberals, the question now is how to deal with the losers in the culture wars. That’s mostly a question of tactics. My own judgment is that taking a hard line (“You lost, live with it”) is better than trying to accommodate the losers, who-remember-defended, and are defending, positions that liberals regard as having no normative pull at all. Trying to be nice to the losers didn’t work well after the Civil War, nor after Brown. (And taking a hard line seemed to work reasonably well in Germany and Japan after 1945.)”
Tushnet is not the first tyrant to declare victory over the grave of a vanquished foe. As Charles Spurgeon noted in The Treasury of David, “A medal was struck by Diocletian, which still remains, bearing the inscription, ‘The name of Christians being extinguished.'” And in Spain, a monumental pillar was raised, on which was written: “Diocletian Jovian Maximian Herculeus Caesares Augusti, for having extended the Roman Empire in the east and the west, and for having extinguished the name of Christians, who brought the Republic to ruin.”*
Like Diocletian, Shebna (Is. 22:15-19), Jehoiakim (Jer. 13-19), Haman (Esther) and Adolf Hitler after them, arrogant Tushnet has imagined a vain thing. For in God’s never-ending order, if His people, called by His name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek His face and turn from the false gods of Secularism, He will intervene in America, and there soon will be a resurrection (2 Chr. 7:14).
Secularist liberals over the last 50 to 75 years have used and abused the courts to impose a godless agenda on this once Christian nation. And the result? Fifty-five million babies dead, homosexuals praying at the Inauguration, a redefinition of marriage, and transgender bathrooms imposed on public schools. What secularists couldn’t win in the voting booths, they imposed through the courts.
This is to be expected from those without biblical faith and the gospel. As Old Testament scholar John Oswalt wrote in his Isaiah Commentary:
“In order to justify their own behavior, they must, in the most sophisticated reasonings possible, demonstrate that their evil behavior is good, their darkness is light, and their bitterness sweet. This attitude is the end result of refusal to admit the absolute authority of a revealed Word. For sin is not content to live alongside righteousness anymore than disease will co-exist with health. Sin can only be satisfied when righteousness is destroyed.”
To the pastors of God’s flock in America, getting the congregation entrusted to you registered to vote and voting in the next 60 days is critical. Someone’s values are going to reign supreme; biblical values or the values of secularism.
We desperately need a Gideon or Rahab to stand.
