Thursday, June 27, 2013

To: Friends & Supporters

From: Gary L. Bauer

We MUST Keep Fighting!

Based on the messages I have received, many of you (and especially our friends in California) seem tempted to give up. Some are asking, “Why should we bother anymore?”

This may be shocking to you, but if we throw up our arms in frustration and surrender the public policy arena to the left, it will get a whole lot worse. We are headed toward the criminalization of Christianity. Let me explain.

If a family were teaching its children that the KKK is the correct model for society, people would rightly be outraged. If Child Protective Services found out, that family would face the possibility of having its kids taken away for psychological child abuse.

When it comes to same-sex marriage, the militant homosexual movement and its left-wing media allies have, unbelievably, taken the normal view of marriage and equated it with the kind of raw bigotry I just described.

If we stop fighting, in short order you will not be able to teach your children that God intended them to marry someone of the opposite sex.

You may say, “Gary, that will never happen!” That’s exactly what folks said about men “marrying” other men just 20 years ago.

As I wrote yesterday, this is about more than just marriage rights. It is not hyperbole to say that religious liberty is at stake.
(Pastors, please pay attention!)

Think about the example I described above. There is legal precedent here. As Ben Shapiro explains, in 1983 the Supreme Court stripped Bob Jones University, which once banned interracial dating, of its tax exempt status. The court declared, “Government has a fundamental, overriding interest in eradicating racial discrimination . . . which substantially outweighs whatever burden denial of tax benefits places on [the University’s] exercise of their religious beliefs.”

Shapiro writes, “Internal Revenue Service regulations could be modified to remove non-profit status for churches across the country. …Should the IRS move to revoke federal non-profit status for churches, synagogues and mosques … the Court could easily justify that decision on the basis of ‘eradicating discrimination.'”

He goes on to note how this has already happened at the state level to some degree. Due to certain “anti-discrimination” laws, Catholic Charities was forced to stop its adoption services in Massachusetts. Legislation was passed in California to strip the Boy Scouts and religious youth groups of their tax exempt status.

These attacks will only intensify. You can read more on this subject in a column I wrote that was published in today’s Washington Times.

Please, my friends, instead of asking yourselves, “What difference does it make?” ask yourself, “What more can I do?”

I had several reporters point out to me that the only people they saw outside the Supreme Court yesterday were gay rights activists. Why were there not hundreds, or thousands, of men and women of faith taking a stand for our values?

We MUST fight back!

Scalia’s Warning

It used to be said that homosexuals were coming out of the closet and they wanted to force Christianity in the closet. It’s worse than that. If you think I am exaggerating, consider Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in yesterday’s ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act.

In his majority striking down Section 3 of DOMA, Justice Kennedy accuses supporters of normal marriage of harboring an “animus” or hatred of homosexuals. Scalia’s dissent suggests that the majority’s arrogance betrays its own “animus,” one the left is about to unleash on men and women of faith.

“In the majority’s judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to ‘disparage,’ ‘injure,’ ‘degrade,’ ‘demean,’ and ‘humiliate’ our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homosexual.

“All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence — indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.”

“It takes real cheek for today’s majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here — when what has preceded that assurance is a lecture on how superior the majority’s moral judgment in favor of same-sex marriage is to the Congress’s hateful moral judgment against it. I promise you this: The only thing that will ‘confine’ the Court’s holding is its sense of what it can get away with.”

“As far as this Court is concerned, no one should be fooled; it is just a matter of listening and waiting for the other shoe. By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition.

“Henceforth those challengers will lead with this Court’s declaration that there is ‘no legitimate purpose’ served by such a law, and will claim that the traditional definition has ‘the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure’ the personhood and dignity’ of same-sex couples.”

“In the majority’s telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us. The truth is more complicated. It is hard to admit that one’s political opponents are not monsters, especially in a struggle like this one, and the challenge in the end proves more than today’s Court can handle. Too bad.”

“We might have covered ourselves with honor today, by promising all sides of this debate that it was theirs to settle and that we would respect their resolution. We might have let the People decide. But that the majority will not do.”

The Next Assault

The radical gay rights movement is not resting on its laurels. It is already planning the next assault. According to The Hill, it is preparing to launch a massive lobbying campaign for the “Respect for Marriage Act.”

The bill would “fully repeal DOMA and ensure that ‘state of ceremony’ takes precedence over ‘state of residence’ when the government decides whether a gay couple is eligible for tax breaks, entitlement benefits and other federal programs.”

In addition, there are efforts underway at the state level to repeal marriage amendments in at least three states — Arizona, Florida and Ohio.

Polygamists are also celebrating yesterday’s rulings. Kennedy’s “logic” that it is bigotry to limit marriage to what it always has been opens the door to any redefinition. If society has no right to define marriage as the union of opposite, complimentary sexes, then presumably it is also some form of “bigotry” to limit the number of people involved in a marriage.

I am pleased to report that not all the action is on the left. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) announced yesterday that he would sponsor a federal constitutional amendment to protect normal marriage. Responding to the Supreme Court’s decisions yesterday, Rep. Huelskamp said:

“This radical usurpation of legislative and popular authority will not end the debate over marriage in this country.  Congress clearly must respond to these bad decisions, and as a result, I plan to introduce the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) to amend the United States Constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

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