Pro-discrimination coalition vs. Supreme Court's proper role, church/state separation, increasing public opinion, basic fairness

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06/21/2013

by Jeremy Hooper

Writing off same-sex couples as being "those who are incapable of marriage" and predicting that marriage equality will bring our society into anarchy, a large collection of Christian conservatives have released a joint statement basically vowing to defy any positive Supreme Court ruling that comes down in favor of civil equality. A snip and link to full statement:

This claim of the existence of such a Natural Moral Law is the ground upon which every great civilization has been built. It is the source of every authentic human and civil rights movement. This Natural Moral Law gives us the norms we need to build truly human and humane societies and govern ourselves. It should also inform our positive law or we will become lawless and devolve into anarchy.

Marriage is the preeminent and the most fundamental of all human social institutions. Civil institutions do not create marriage nor can they manufacture a right to marry for those who are incapable of marriage. In the words of the first book of the Bible, we read: “it is not good for man to be alone." (Genesis 2:18) Society begins with marriage and the family.
...
As Christian citizens united together, we will not stand by while the destruction of the institution of marriage unfolds in this nation we love. The Sacred Scriptures and unbroken teaching of the Church confirm that marriage is between one man and one woman. We stand together in solidarity to defend marriage and the family and society founded upon them. The effort to redefine marriage threatens the proper mediating role of the Church in society.

Experience and history have shown us that if the government redefines marriage to grant a legal equivalency to same-sex couples, that same government will then enforce such an action with the police power of the State. This will bring about an inevitable collision with religious freedom and conscience rights. We cannot and will not allow this to occur on our watch. Religious freedom is the first freedom in the American experiment for good reason.
FULL: We Stand in Solidarity to Defend Marriage and the Family and Society Founded Upon Them [Freedom Federation]

The signatory list includes everyone from fringe figures like Janet Folger Porter and Bradlee Dean to more mainstream pundits like Ralph Reed and Tony Perkins. Virtually everyone we track through GLAAD's Commentator Accountability Project is on the list.

Notably absent? The National Organization For Marriage. Even though they are clearly spearheading the fight against marriage equality in this nation, no one from the org. or its affiliates signed this doc. Perhaps NOM realized how wacky this call for open defiance really is (and how much is belies their "we're the victims" strategy), or maybe this speaks to fractures on the others. Maybe NOM was pointedly uninvited. Who knows?

What I do know is that this is a chilling and dangerous statement that supports the woeful predictions that many of us in the activist community have been making. LGBT activists are in near-consensus in believing that our opposition, when out of political or legal options, will get more hostile on the ground. I certainly fear what this might look like in the real world—and this kind of public declaration, deliberately designed as it is to stoke their supporters' fears, would seem to confirm my own.