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Chief Justice John Roberts, Gay marriage, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Supreme Court, the Supreme Court
credit: theblaze.com
In a ruling that should have surprised no one, the Supreme Court held, 5-4, that there is a right, under the 14th Amendment, to gay marriage, and every state is therefore forced to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. As in the king v. Burwell decision, there seems little or no Constitutional basis for the decision. In a stunning display of hypocrisy and irony–considering his opinion in the SCOTUScare case, Chief Justice John Roberts, who was in the majority, wrote:
If you are among the many Americans — of whatever sexual orientation — who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. … But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.
Here’s an example of the brilliant constitutional, legal reasoning employed by Justice Anthony Kennedy, as usual, the swing vote:
No union is more profound than marriage. Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right.
Ah! So it’s not about the law; it’s about “personhood” and not disparaging “choices.”
As a Christian, I take the Bible as written: marriage is between a man and a woman. However, this is not an issue that automatically causes me to see the imminent doom of America and western civilization–that will take awhile longer–nor do I, for a moment, try to force others to believe as I do or to use their treasure or other resources to vindicate my belief. That’s neither humane nor Biblical. Barack Obama has done and is doing far more every day to hasten that particular apocalypse. Gay marriage was already so firmly entrenched that this decision is little more than icing on a gay marriage cake.
The ultimate problem with this decision is that it opens wide the door for all manner of legal mischief and forced observance of the whims of gay couples. Since gay marriage is now a right, can churches refuse to perform gay weddings? Can they deny gay couples full church membership and related benefits? The Supreme Court has put the First and Fourteenth Amendments on a collision course, and the results will be–metaphorically and perhaps otherwise–bloody.
With this ruling in their back pockets, LGBTQWERTY advocates will aggressively wage lawfare against any merchant in the wedding support trade, seeking to force them to participate, against their will and convictions, in all manner of practices. A number of states already gleefully do just this. Bakers, tailors, photographers, florists, all will soon have no choice–oh yes, the Supreme Court will grant cert for these cases–but to support the most radical progressive agendas by force of law. People will be jailed and will be bankrupted for refusing to go along with the gay/progressive agenda.
Have no doubt: this case is about more than the tender sensibilities of gay people and a constitutional right to avoid being lonely. It is a major victory in the culture war that too many Americans don’t recognize, and have not yet begun to fight. Progressives never cease in their efforts to achieve total victory. That’s a fundamental transformation of America we must all resist.
For an additional, useful take on this issue, visit Prof. Jacobson’s article at Legal Insurrection.
UPDATE, 062615, 1600 CST: I had a few additional thoughts while doing the yard work. This decision, and its inevitable aftermath, must be understood in the broader context of the never-ending progressive war to destroy any portion of the Constitution inconvenient to their goals, and to rule America via determining the dominant culture. Taking a page from the communist Chinese, progressives fight the long fight. It doesn’t matter which progressive is in office, they all share the same beliefs and will take up any banner fallen on the cultural battlefield and advance it as far as they can, by any means necessary.
While attacking churches and trying to render the First Amendment a dead letter is an avenue of battle already underway and will certainly be massively reinforced in the short term, there are other avenues about which we should be vigilant.
For example, I’ve always thought my sister a hottie. If I can’t marry her, my choices will surely be disparaged and we’ll both be denied our personhood. Come to think of it, the same is true for my favorite female cousin, an attractive and impressive woman. Would cruel conservatives deny us our fundamental right to happiness and self-determination? And if I had a daughter, I’m sure she’d be bright and beautiful–Mrs. Manor is great genetic material–so why should my choice to marry her be disparaged, our personhood denied?
You know, it just occurred to me: I know quite a few wonderful women whose marriage to me would greatly enhance our personhood. Why should we all–consenting adults–be denied marriage in whatever numbers and combinations we prefer? And why not include my sister, cousin and daughter too?
Progressives’ primary means of establishing a permanent Democrat voting majority now consists of encouraging illegal immigration, but with polygamy, think of all the huge families with hundreds of children that could become eternal wards of the state, dependent upon Democrats for their sustenance. Demographically speaking, progressives tend not be big on large families, but I trust you get the point.
The federal government, particularly under a Democrat administration, will use all of its power to assist in establishing progressive/gay goals. There are so many progressives salted throughout the federal bureaucracies a Republican president could spend all of his time merely trying to suppress their vicious partisanship. And not a few Republicans routinely do all they can to help progressives achieve their goals, through stupidity or really stupid stupidity.
The local Baptist church refuses to recognize gay marriages or perform gay weddings? It would take nothing for the IRS to make new rules denying their tax-free status. I’m sure the EPA could discover many ways in which the church is violating the Clean Water Act, and a variety of other federal laws and regulations. Why, the government can just deluge that unenlightened church in alphabetic acronyms until they cry “mercy” and embrace the relentless progressive tide.
The possibilities are endless and coming to a community near you. Soon.
Alarmist? Ridiculous? Mark this article for future reference. You’ll see.
UPDATE 2, 062515 1640 CST: Does the speed surprise you? It shouldn’t. At Politico, they’re already advocating polygamy.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
By the same constitutional logic and reasoning, has SCOTUS likewise declared that, under the auspices of the 14th amendment, all 50 states must now honor my Indiana License to Carry Handguns?
Let’s do a bit of word-smithing with that news article, and see how it reads:
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that firearms owners have a right to carry firearms nationwide, in a historic decision that invalidates firearm carry bans in more than a dozen states.
Firearms owners with licenses to carry already can carry firearms in 38 states. But in a 5-4 ruling, the court held that the 14th Amendment requires states to issue resident carry licenses for firearm owners and to recognize such licenses issued in other states.
The ruling means the remaining 12 states and the District of Columbia that did not have shall-issue licensing, in the Northeast and elsewhere, will have to stop enforcing their bans.
“No right is more profound than the right to life, and to self-defense,” Kennedy wrote, joined by the court’s four more liberal justices. He continued: “Under the Constitution,firearm owners seek in the right to keep and bear arms the same legal treatment as the rich and politically connected, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right.”
There are an estimated 10 million firearms owners with state-issued carry permits in the United States, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute, which tracks the demographics of firearm owners….Roughly 100 million firearm owners, licensed and unlicensed, own firearms in the United States, the institute says.
Michael, it will just be a matter of time to when Christian Pastors and only Christian Pastors will be singled out and arrested and their churches destroyed by lawfare or other means.
I wonder how long God will take to decide the fate of the United States.
“I wonder how long God will take to decide the fate of the United States.”
It’s already been decided. We’re just waiting for the execution.
You probably are right.
“Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942). See also Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190 (1888). To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.” ~ Loving v Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 87 S. Ct. 1817,18 L. Ed. 2d 1010, 1967 U.S.
…
The Supreme Court has long held that marriage is a fundamental right, and as such, any limitations or restrictions imposed on marriage by the government must pass strict scrutiny. In other words, the government must demonstrate a legitimate and compelling need for the restrictions and limitations.
Objectively speaking, just as anti-miscegenation restrictions served no legitimate purpose and were deemed unconstitutional in Loving, there is no compelling government need to prevent homosexuals from marrying and the bans were likewise determined to be unconstitutional in Obergefell.