REPUBLICANS COMPROMISE TO PASS GAY MARRIAGE BILL IN SENATE
As usual, controversial bills are given euphemistic titles that hide their real agenda. This one was called the “Respect for Marriage Act” but it was really only the “respect for GAY marriage act.” In the Senate on Wednesday 12 Republicans joined all the Democrats to invoke cloture (cut off debate) and allow the bill to be voted on. This overcame any possible filibuster, and subsequently the billed passed.
It had been rejected previously over concerns of religious liberty. Churches didn’t want to be forced to perform gay marriages. So RINO Republicans like Susan Collins and Roy Blunt crafted a compromise to get the Christian churches on board, and the church leaders bought it hook line and sinker. But it’s a trap.
President Biden celebrated the Senate passing the first hurdle by saying “Americans should have the right to marry the person they love.” But the compromise amendment in the bill also carved out an exclusion for polygamous marriages requiring that they continue to be banned. What about those people’s love?
I’m not a fan of having more than one wife, but this is completely hypocritical from a constitutional point of view. If the Left truly believes that everyone should have the right to marry whom they love, as applied to gays, it should also apply to polygamous and other marriages, which at least fulfill one of the purposes of marriage: to have and take care of their own children—which homosexuality cannot produce.
In fact, as I’ve said before, that is the ONLY reason government has any right to be concerned with marriage—to ensure that the rights of children are protected from neglect, abuse or abandonment. Otherwise, marriage is an important legal and spiritual commitment to one’s spouse if sanctioned and blessed by God, who has specifically condemned homosexuality.
In my view, gays have the right to engage in any private relationship they wish, unhealthy and unproductive of children as they be, as long as it fully consensual. But they should not have the legislated right to force others to recognize those living arrangements as a “marriage,” with all the benefits approved for proper marriage, which might include federal tax breaks and the right to impose on public education their brand of lifestyle.
As far as any non-conventional marriage relationships and the right of legislative recognition, polygamy is more deserving than gay marriage from a demographic point view. Western society is suffering from a dramatic falling birthrate with older people now dying off more quickly than children are being born—in large part because of abortion and homosexuality.
Of course, there are bad examples of moral conduct in all forms of marriage, but with a few high profile exceptions that make all the news, most polygamous families out West are conservative, God fearing, and mostly home schooled. Like the Amish in the Midwest and East, these families generally produces a higher caliber of citizen, free from social media ills and most peer pressure addictions that affect public schooled teens.
Polygamous marriages have a higher birthrate than most Americans and even have a higher fidelity rate than monogamous marriages, which all too often ends with one or more extra-marital affairs that don’t take care of offspring. That’s one reason why the abortion rate is so high in this country which is a great offense to God.
I only mention this as a matter of fairness, not out of condoning the practice. Plural marriages are growing in number because it is rarely prosecuted anymore. Authorities are rightly fearful that if you bring up a legal case against them and compare it to 2015 Obergefell case, the courts are going to have to say it is constitutionally allowed as a matter of free choice among consenting adults.
Most of the Republicans who came on board to this latest gay marriage bill did so because of the questionable amendments that were made to lure them in. As the liberal Christianity Today site said (which backs the bill too because of this amendment),
Section 6(b) of RMA recognizes that religious nonprofits and their personnel have a statutory right to decline any involvement with a marriage solemnization or celebration—including a same-sex one. This federal right would preempt any state or local law to the contrary. It means clergy can refuse to officiate a gay wedding. A church can decline to be the venue for these unions. A Christian college can deny use of its chapel for the same reason, and a Christian summer camp can refuse use of its lake and nearby pavilion, as well.
But this only gives protection to corporate Churches, YMCAs and camps that have non-profit status—not any individual. That’s the trap. Christian fellowships which rightly refuses 501c3 status, won’t be protected—like Chuck Baldwin’s fellowship in Montana. And neither will individual Christians be protected. This is a real sellout by mainstream Churches against individual rights.
This section of the act only deals with nonprofits and therefore doesn’t address ongoing litigation over for-profit Christian wedding vendors—photographers, bakers, florists, dressmakers, [renters of apartments or rooms] and others [where profit is not an issue]. However, RMA doesn’t harm wedding vendors. It’s simply silent and leaves the matter for resolution in the courts.
Really? Let me tell you: Silence of the law on a fundamental right is harmful and dangerous when we’re dealing with a plethora of activist leftist judges on State courts today who enforced non-discrimination laws. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, announced he would support the bill after his church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or “Mormon”), said it would back the legislation if it includes an amendment to strengthen religious liberties.
This harkens back to the compromise the LDS Church made with anti-discrimination laws in Utah and Arizona—that prohibited private discrimination as long as the law carved out an exception for the LDS Church in the name of “religious liberty,” as if religious liberty was different for the Church than its members!
All church leaders of any denomination who buy into this compromise will someday realize it will pave the way for more anti-discimination laws that ban all individuals, including Christians from choosing not to do business with gays or any other minority group they do not approve of. And eventually even church’s non-profit status will be denied based on practicing the exception granted by this bill despite the language in the bill (which can always change as morals deteriorate and hatred of Christian principles grows).
It’s getting to the point when even verbal disapproval of any group is no longer protected as free speech. Churches may not have to perform gay marriages for now but their members will have their individual property and associative rights severely infringe upon by this compromise.
The 12 “foolish virgin” Republicans who voted for this are: Roy Blunt (MO), Richard Burr (NC),
Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Susan Collins (ME), Cynthia Lummis (WY), Rob Portman (OH),
Mitt Romney (UT), Dan Sullivan (AK), Thom Tillis (NC), Joni Ernst (IA), Todd Young (IN),
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
