Federal Judge in Pennsylvania Assigns Marriage to the 'Ash-heap of History': Persecution in a New Missionary Age

On Tuesday, May 20, 2014, Federal US District Judge John E Jones III of Pennsylvania discarded marriage to "the ash heap of history."  Those were his very words!  Of course he hid them in the judicial sophistry which now accompanies these frequent acts of judicial imperialism. He maintains he is opening the door to the oxymoron called "gay marriage" and claimed to be somehow liberating out entire social order because, in his words, "We are a better people than what these laws represent". The laws he is referring to are the laws which the people of Pennsylvania passed in 1996 defining  marriage as between one man and one woman. Of course, those laws also reflected the Natural Moral Law, the Bible, the Christian and Jewish tradition -and almost every other major religious tradition. The laws concerning marriage between one man and one woman cross cultural and religious lines and are universally accepted precisely because they are true and they serve the  common good.

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CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) - On Tuesday, May 20, 2014, Federal US District Judge John E Jones III of Pennsylvania discarded marriage to "the ash heap of history."  Those were his very words!  Of course he hid them in the judicial sophistry which now accompanies these frequent acts of judicial imperialism. He maintains he is opening the door to the oxymoron called "gay marriage" and claimed to be somehow liberating our entire social order because, in his words, "We are a better people than what these laws represent".

The laws he is referring to are the laws which the people of Pennsylvania passed in 1996 defining  marriage as between one man and one woman. Of course, those laws also reflected the Natural Moral Law, the Bible, the Christian and Jewish tradition -and almost every other major religious tradition. The laws concerning marriage between one man and one woman cross cultural and religious lines and are universally accepted precisely because they are true and they serve the  common good.

Marriage 'is what it is', to use a popular expression. There is an ontology of marriage. The effort to redefine the word and then use the mechanisms of the State to entirely restructure the social order, effectively jettisoning this institution inscribed in the Natural Moral Law - and replacing it - is what is actually underway. And, the branch of government which the founders thought should be the "least dangerous branch" (See, Federalist Papers #28, Alexander Hamilton) are now leading the charge.

This errant federal Judge was following in the misguided activist trail of an openly homosexual advocate of redefining marriage to include homosexual and lesbian partnerships in Oregon, just the day before. Judge Jones used his interpretation of the constitutional doctrines of due process and equal protection to sound noble. However, his words speak volumes:

"In future generations, the label same-sex marriage will be abandoned, to be replaced simply by marriage.We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history."

The truth is that we cannot be better than marriage! It reflects the plan and love of God for the whole human race! This Federal Court Judge is a proponent of what I have long called the homosexual equivalency movement.

The proponents of the homosexual equivalency movement personally insist there is a moral equivalency between homosexual and lesbian relationships and marriages between one man and one woman. Now, they also insist that the full force of the civil and criminal law enforce such a new social construct on everyone else. They fully intend to use the police power of the State to enforce this scheme. Those  who oppose it will suffer the consequences. 
 
They are aided in their cultural scheme by a Press which is only too eager to be used as a mouthpiece of the revolution. A  propaganda press now routinely uses Orwellian newspeak to fuel caricatures against those who defend true marriage as between one man and one woman. They do not report the news - they promote a Cultural Revolutionary plan which opposes marriage while purporting to expand its definition.

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Like propagandists of the past, they attempt to frame public perception by calling those who defend marriage as being against what they call 'marriage equality'.  However, homosexual and lesbian partnerships are incapable of being marriages.

Those who advocate giving this kind of State enforced moral and legal equivalency to homosexual and lesbian relationships are the people who actually oppose marriage. Their intention is to entirely reorder civil society around their alternative model of society. They use the phrase 'marriage equality' in an Orwellian act of verbal engineering and have deluded many in the media into doing the same. They also want to use the police power of the State against those who defend true marriage.

They seek to make what can never be a marriage - a homosexual or lesbian partnership - to be a marriage, by pronouncement of a Court or a legislature. Such partnerships can never achieve the ends of marriage. They accuse those who defend authentic marriage of somehow being against marriage because we will not redefine the word to include homosexual or lesbian partnerships.

This is a propaganda ploy and a tactic aimed at nothing less than a Cultural Revolution. I know that some of my readers do not like it when I use the term Cultural Revolution. They object because the term was identified with the reassertion of Maoism in China. That movement, which turned violent, caused extraordinary social turmoil. That is PRECISELY why the analogy is apropos. 

To limit marriage to heterosexual couples is not discriminatory. Homosexual couples cannot bring into existence what marriage intends by its very definition. To confer by governmental fiat the benefits that have been conferred in the past only to stable married couples and families to homosexual and lesbian paramours is bad public policy.

To state this is not to be 'anti-gay'; it is simply to defend marriage and the common good of society. This is a noble cause. Those who promote it are not bigots, they are liberators! The struggle we face involves a clash of worldviews, personal and corporate, and competing definitions of human freedom, human dignity, and human flourishing. We are involved in a contest over the foundations of what constitutes a truly human and just social order.

We insist that marriage between one man and one woman, intended for life, and the family founded upon it, has been inscribed by the Divine Architect into the order of the universe. That is because they have. Truth does not change, people and cultures do; sometimes for good and sometimes for evil.

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Marriage is the first society into which children are meant to be born, learn to be fully human, grow in virtue, flourish and take their role in families and communities. We must not be afraid to make the claim that children have a right to a mother and a father. They really do.

Of course we care about the single parent family and the many broken homes which characterize this age. However, their existence does not change the norm necessary for a stable and healthy society. Intact marriages and families are the glue of a healthy and happy social order. We need to be a visible, palpable reflection of this truth about marriage and family in our own lives. To live a faithful marriage is now counter-cultural.

Our convictions and claims concerning marriage are not outdated notions of a past era but provide the path to the future. Nor is our position defending marriage as between one man and one woman simply a religious position. We insist upon the existence of a Natural Moral Law which can be known by all men and women through the exercise of reason. 

The Natural Moral Law is the ground upon which every great civilization has been built. It is the source for every great and authentic human and civil rights movement. The Natural Law gives us the moral norms we need to build societies and govern ourselves. It should inform our positive law or we will become lawless and devolve into anarchy.

There is a dangerous intolerance spreading which directly threatens our rights to free expression, association and political participation. This is reflected in a brazen effort to censor any speech which questions the cultural slide into the abyss of relativism. Efforts to prevent our vocal and public defense of the objective truth about marriage and the family are multiplying. Get ready; you and I are soon to face increasingly overt persecution because we stand for marriage. 

I write as a Catholic Christian. The position of the Catholic Church on the nature of marriage is crystal clear. We are the first in line when the proponents of this new cultural order begin to persecute opponents, indirectly or directly. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Catholic Church explained in 2003.

"The Church's teaching on marriage and on the complementarity of the sexes reiterates a truth that is evident to right reason and recognized as such by all the major cultures of the world. Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings. It was established by the Creator with its own nature, essential properties and purpose."

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"No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman, who by mutual personal gift, proper and exclusive to themselves, tend toward the communion of their persons. In this way, they mutually perfect each other, in order to cooperate with God in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives."

Crystal clear! I know that I am joined with Christians from across the confessional spectrum, faithful Jews, other people of faith and those of good will in this growing marriage defense movement. We are the new counter culture of this age. We are facing increasing hostility and it will soon get worse.

The opponents of marriage and family, the enforces of this homosexual equivalency movement as a new social scheme,  are the proponents of a system which seeks to impose their new social order on the rest of us. We will not back down because our cause is just and true. History has demonstrated that we are on the right side, they are on the wrong side, and we will prevail.

Civil institutions do not create marriage. Neither can they create some new right to marry for those who are incapable of marriage. Government has long regulated marriage for the common good. The ban on polygamy and age requirements were enforced in order to ensure that there was a mature decision at the basis of the Marriage contract.

Heterosexual marriage, procreation, and the nurturing of children form the foundation for the family, and the family forms the foundation of civil society. I have often written to other Christians who, remaining faithful to the Natural Moral Law, the teaching of the Bible and the unbroken Christian tradition, share my deep concern about the movement to oppose marriage, in order to remind them that this is not the first time that the Church has been called to live in a homosexualized culture and transform it from within. 

I recommend an excellent article from May of 2012, written by Benjamin Riker for Catholic World Report. It is  entitled Gay Marriage- Nothing New Under the Sun. Read it - and get ready.
 
Increase your prayer, build networks of solidarity and support with other Christians, across the confessional spectrum, and get ready for indirect and direct persecution. Ask the Holy Spirit for a missionary heart and the grace which will be needed to not only persevere - but be used by the Lord in His loving rescue plan for this age.

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The parallels between the first Millennium of Christianity and the Third Millennium of Christianity are beginning to become more obvious. We are living in a new missionary age. As Christians, there are two historic facts upon which we can rely. Our vital work will be accompanied by increasing persecution and the truth about the dignity of the human person and marriage will prevail.  

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