THE COURT IS WRONG AGAIN

            In the words of Dr. Matthew Harrison, the President of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, “A one-person majority of the U.S. Supreme Court got it wrong – again.” Friday’s 5-4 decision created something that never existed before, a law declaring same-sex marriage to be legal in all fifty states. Five justices of the government body charged with interpreting and clarifying laws decided instead to create law. Thirty states had actual laws on the books declaring marriage only to be between one man and one woman, and those states sought the Court’s clarification. The five justices decided instead they had the right to make a new law which negates them all.

             In 1973 a similar thing happened when the Supreme Court voted 5-4 that abortions should be legal, and proponents thought the matter settled. But the matter was not settled, and the ruling only unleashed forty-two years of ongoing challenges and arguments. Friday’s decision will do the same.

            “It’s the law of the land now,” proponents are saying. The same thing was said in 1857 when the Supreme Court voted 7-2 to declare that African American slaves were legal property. The Dredd Scott decision has been universally condemned as the Supreme Court's worst decision, and it was overturned by the 1866 Civil Rights Act. Chief Justice Taney hoped his 1857 ruling would settle the slavery question, but it immediately spurred vehement dissent from anti-slavery elements in the North and was part of what led to the Civil War.

            Today’s Chief Justice John Roberts, issued the dissenting opinion, condemning the decision and stating that five justices have no right to enact their own version of marriage as constitutional law. Now shall come the time of testing for Christians faithful to the Scriptures and the divine institution of marriage (Matthew 19:3–6) And I pray that there will be vehement dissent from those in favor of traditional marriage people all over our nation.

            The ramifications of this decision are huge. Proponents will it to seek to nullify the Christian understanding of marriage. They will try to pass laws forcing faithful Christian institutions and individuals to violate their consciences and follow this law rather than the Bible. If left unchallenged, pastors will be required to perform same-sex marriages and churches who refuse to obey will be punished in courts.

            The early apostles were once ordered to stop preaching about Jesus, but they refused, replying, “We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29) This is what Christians must also do and say today. As Christians, we should continue to be obedient to just laws. We should also respect the divinely given dignity of all people, no matter their sexual preference, while also recognizing we are still sinners in thought, word and deed, and confessing that the “blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all our sins” (1 John 1:7).

            However, as we struggle with a decision that rejects the historical and biblical practice of marriage, Christians must also learn what it means to be in a state of conscientious objection against the United States government. We must seek to overturn this illegal and unwise decision, and we must resist this Court’s imposition of falsehood upon us as we stand shoulder to shoulder with Christians, churches and all people of like mind on this issue.

May God help us courageously to follow His Word in this matter.