Obergefell

It’s Good the Left Fears the Overturning of Gay ‘Marriage’

When USA Today publishes an opinion piece citing “horrifying” fear that the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn Obergefell, and Left-leaning Slate urges this “sudden panic” doesn’t go far enough, that’s when the pro-family movement knows it’s winning.

This fear stems from Liberty Council filing a petition for writ of certiorari (a request for the Court to hear the case) on behalf of Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, due to her religious beliefs. U.S. law allows any citizen the right to file a petition for a writ of cert. to our land’s highest court after a lower court has ruled against them. The Supreme Court is highly selective in agreeing to hear such petitions. Davis petition asks the Supreme Court to review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit’s rejection of her religious freedom case and to also overturn their 2015 Obergefell decision.

It is an open question whether the current Court will take up Davis’ request. Yet, on August 7, the U.S. Supreme Court did direct the two individuals who sued Davis to file a response to her petition. This is not insignificant. As veteran Supreme Court watcher Amy Howe notes, “The court essentially took Davis’ case out of the group of cases facing virtually automatic denial … into the group of cases that could theoretically be granted.” She adds, “Although we don’t know whether Davis has the votes, it remains possible” due to current Court makeup.

Yet, USA Today confesses, “The entire LGBTQ+ community [has] reason to be fearful – even if the case is unlikely to be heard by the court.” After listing a number of factors they assume serve as protections against Obergefell being overturned, the editorialist laments, “It doesn’t change the fact that the very notion of this right being overturned is a reminder to the LGBTQ+ community that our rights are dependent upon the whims of politicians and judges, and could easily disappear.” Of course, that’s because the Supreme Court created such a “right” out of whole cloth in the first place.

Slate warns no one should assume “gay rights are safe at this Supreme Court.” They lament, “Far from it: They are under active attack, albeit in a subtler way.” Advocates for same-sex marriage are admitting the momentum is against them and that is good for the pro-family movement.

This is what happens when activists get a narrow, heavily contested decision that many justices felt was clearly outside the Supreme Court’s purview. It is very good that gay activists and their faithful allies in the elite press recognize the vulnerability of their fragile victory in Obergefell.

In his strong dissent to the majority’s slim 5-4 Obergefell ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts stated, “This Court is not a legislature.”

Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be. The people who ratified the Constitution authorized courts to exercise “neither force nor will but merely judgment” The Federalist No. 78, p. 465.  

He added, “Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not.” He further noted, “For those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening.” He then asserted, “The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage.”

For that is precisely what the majority did in Obergefell. They redefined marriage based on bad law. It was never about so-called “marriage equality.” The Court redefined the fundamental pre-law institution of marriage, which until the last few milliseconds of human history, has always been considered, across diverse cultures, belief systems and religions, to be a union joining the two essential halves of humanity: male and female. They had no right or authority to do so.

There are very compelling reasons to object to same-sex marriage. The majority in Obergefell freely admitted, “Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here.”

But we are disparaged in countless other places. Even still, we must remain resolute.

Even those who argued most passionately for the redefinition of marriage have not taken to their new creation. Gallup has tracked the percentage of “LGBT adults” entering same-sex marriages for a decade. They reported 8 percent of same-sex identified adults were in “gay marriages” in 2015, the first year it was legalized. Gallup recently reported that number currently sits at 8 percent. The highest that number ever got since Obergefell was 10%.

Clearly, same-sex marriage was not the great, essential need activists regularly told us it was when so few are making use of its legal status.

Obergefell should be struck down and overturned. That is what should happen when an activist Court plays the role of the legislature, as it did in Obergefell and Roe v. Wade. And Focus on the Family will advocate and work hard for that day. Pro-family advocates should never yield in their work to defend natural marriage.

We are winning! When our opponents are telling us precisely that, we should listen.

Image from Shutterstock.

Why Focus on the Family Believes Obergefell Must Be Struck Down

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Obergefell v. Hodges decision that radically redefined marriage and the family by nationalizing the de-sexing of both. That is precisely what happens when that court required every state in the union to accept that same sex couplings are every bit as valuable and important as the ageless and life-producing marital and familial union of the two essential parts of humanity in male and female.

Marriage between a man and a woman is a cross-cultural institution that existed before it was defined in human laws. What the court did in Obergefell was a logical impossibility. It has been hailed as a progressive victory, but the result has been terribly regressive.

There are at least four compelling reasons why Obergefell must be struck down.

First, Obergefell neutered our legal conception of what it means to be human. If male nor female are not essential to the family – and this is precisely the defective logic this landmark decision resulted in — both lose any consequential meaning. This is why it was absolutely no coincidence that the transgender movement was launched when Bruce Jenner infamously appeared as “Caitlyn” on the July 2015 cover of Vanity Fair magazine … within hours of Obergefell being handed down! There was no daylight between these two revolutionary events because one follows from the other.

If male and female have no essential, distinctive meaning for the family, they then have no real meaning for society. People can just assume new “gender identities” at will … and they are.

Second, Obergefell should be overturned because it does a dramatic injustice to children by asserting children have no fundamental right to be loved and cared for by their own mother and father. Every same-sex family, by definition and design, denies every child it contains the maternal and paternal love he or she craves and requires. And does so to fulfill novel adult wishes. Thus, Obergefell establishes the right of adults to form experimental sexless families over any child’s right to his or her own mother and father. This is always immoral, full stop.

Third, Obergefell fails to protect women by casually dismissing the essential power, quality and character of the feminine. It was largely males who argued most persuasively for this redefinition of marriage, demonstrated in numerous early books on the topic, here, here, here, and here. And if the family headed by two males does everything and meets every need that a wife and mother can – and this is, after all, precisely the claim of gay marriage proponents and the reasoning of the Obergefell majority – then the feminine half of humanity becomes meaningless. This created the worst and most dramatic brand of misogyny.

Fourth, Obergefell is based on bad law. As Justice Clarence Thomas correctly explained in his dissent to the razor-thin majority opinion in Obergefell, “The Court’s decision today is at odds not only with the Constitution, but with the principles upon which our Nation was built.” He then noted an indisputable fact:

[T]he majority invokes our Constitution in the name of a ‘liberty’ that the Framers would not have recognized, to the detriment of the liberty they sought to protect.

The Constitution provides no right to so radically change and redefine the essential human institution of marriage and family that predate all human law. Obergefell, just like Roe v. Wade before it, is radically bad law because it is extra-constitutional. It is usurped legislative power.

Obergefell compels all Americans to do the impossible: assent to the radical idea that male and female are merely optional for the noble and essential purposes of marriage and the family which are universal human truths given by God to all of humanity in His wise goodness. That decision put us on a vast, untested experiment with the family and our very understanding of what it means to be human as male and female.

Some warned gay marriage would lead us to slippery slopes. It certainly has. But the wildest imagination never considered it would create this wildly popular cosplay misogyny or this full frontal assault on mothers and fathers. The intentional queering of the family wrought all this and our nation’s Supreme Court enabled it ten years ago this week.


For all these reasons and more, Focus on the Family strongly calls for the overturning of Obergefell v. Hodges and we will work hard to achieve that end.

Why Are Churches and Religious Organizations Tax-Exempt?

In the wake of the 2015 Obergefell same-sex marriage ruling, political and cultural opposition to religion has ramped up, with some calling for the revocation of tax-exempt status for religious entities. A 2020 presidential hopeful unabashedly promised that any religious institution that does not fully embrace the LGBT agenda would lose its tax-exemption if he were elected. In light of those pronouncements, let’s take a look at why tax exemptions for religious entities exist, and why they should remain in place. 

Historical background

Federal tax exemptions for religious donations date back to the First World War. To fund the war, the federal income tax top rate was raised significantly, but to ease fears that charitable giving would dry up because of the higher taxes, Congress added the exemption. It was not a baseless fear. The data bear this out. For example, tax law changes in 2017 that doubled the standard deduction provided a disincentive for those who itemize deductions, and charitable giving flattened out, after years of successive increases. 

State tax exemptions go back to colonial times.

How large is charitable giving in the United States? Giving USA reports that American individuals, bequests, foundations and corporations gave an estimated $427.71 billion to U.S. charities in 2018. Not all of that goes to religious institutions, of course, but a significant portion does.

There Are Social Benefits for The Common Good

Churches and religious organizations, like other charities, provide a social benefit to society. They minister to the needy and poor in their communities, and they provide an influence on society that helps to reduce crime and encourage good citizenship. The links below are to articles and information that quantify some of the benefits that churches provide:

The Separation of Church and State Is Maintained

Making churches and other religious organizations tax exempt is the cleanest way to avoid government entanglement with (and exercising undue influence over) religion, which is prohibited by the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” As Chief Justice John Marshall stated back in 1819, “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.” Keeping churches tax exempt removes the temptation from government to interfere with the free exercise of religion, also guaranteed by the First Amendment. In 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court held that property tax exemptions for churches were in keeping with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. (Walz v. Tax Commission) 

Churches Would Close

Many small churches cannot afford to stay open without the benefits of tax-exempt status. The median church in the U.S. has 75 regular participants in worship on Sunday morning. From encouraging donations to having enough income to pay the pastor’s salary, those familiar with the finances of small churches know that losing tax-exempt status would spell the end for many churches operating on a shoe-string budget. In small towns across America, where small churches are the norm and central to community activities, this could mean depriving some populations any organized churches whatsoever.

Tax Exemption Is a Founding Principle

By the time of the American Revolution, nine of the original thirteen colonies were giving some kind of tax relief to churches. The idea can be traced back to Roman times when Emperor Constantine granted the Christian church a complete exemption from all forms of taxation.

Tax-exempt status for churches and religious organizations serves a continuing social benefit to American society and is consistent with our country’s commitment to keep the government from unnecessary entanglements with religion. It is a policy that is in keeping with the best social and constitutional traditions of this nation.

You can find additional information here:

 

This is an update of an earlier article.