Gollum yearns for the ring. But nine black-robed figures in the great white building in a great white city deny him consummation within that which he seeks. They refuse to grant him satisfaction. They decline to set down a single law for the realm in which many realms exist. They restrain a hand the creature had hoped would be raised to aid him in his quest for redemption in power.
The federal supreme court in Washington on Wednesday declined to impose a top-down settlement on marriage, one that would have pretended to overturn constitutional marriage amendments in 30 states for the sake of homosexual couples. It declined, on grounds of federalism and a strong measure of constitutionalism, to slap down upon Tennessee and other states a unitary system that would have equated homosexual unions and marriage before the law.
The two rulings leave unmolested Chattanooga, its local economy, its families, its place as a municipality subject to a state government whose prerogatives are let alone.
Still, it is fair to say that in California and in areas claimed as being under federal jurisdiction, the warmaking by the homosexual lobby landed blows against Christian conceptions of society and family and against traditional morality. One decision struck down DOMA, or the Defense of Marriage Act, and a second let lie dead California’s Proposition 8. That law was the result of a plebiscite among Californians to affirm marriage. Appellants in the California case lacked standing from which to appeal, and justices did not arrive at the substance of the case.
The high court in United States vs. Windsor and Hollingsworth vs. Perry ignored pleas that it force all states to accept homosexual civil unions as marriage. The DOMA ruling objected to the way the federal statute reached down into the states and imposed an inequality between marriage and homosexual unions declared by 12 states to be the same as marriage. It was able to assert a pro-homosexual perspective, and was able to oppose the favor DOMA showed to marriage on the grounds of federalism and states’ rights. The ruling objected to such favor, calling it an inequity.
To each his own at state level
The rulings leave tranquil the liberty of marriage in Chattanooga and Tennessee. That liberty is protected by the Tennessee marriage protection amendment passed in a referendum that took effect in 2006, having been approved by 81 percent of voters. It says “the historical institution and legal contract solemnizing the relationship of one man and one woman shall be the only legally recognized marital contract in this state,” and says homosexual marriages are “void and unenforceable” in the state.
Biblical law asserts that marriage is between one man and one woman, and it puts sexual relations outside marriage as being either fornication or adultery. Homosexuality is under the heading of the seventh commandment against adultery, and as a form of sexual and moral uncleanness is declared a capital offense. St. Paul in Romans equates it to a judgment of God, a burning out of a man. It may be a sin God judges and commands civil authority to judge; but it also is a judgment in and of itself. Christianity teaches that marriage is a creational ordinance gifted to man’s first parents, Adam and Eve, in the garden at Eden. It mirrors the relationship of God to His people, first identified as the children of Israel, then the church. Marriage is a bedrock of social order, capital, and upon it tribes, nations and races are built and the earth populated. Upon marriage rise homes, and within their security children are born and reared to be godly, productive citizens, for God’s glory and the benefit of a fallen race redeemed by Christ, according to basic teachings of Christianity.
Homosexual culture is bitterly hostile to this worldview and to the family. It detests Christian monogamy in favor of sexual novelty, revelry and revolution. Media and fashion express its desire for camp tastes in which sound standards are replaced by arbitrary and capricious styles. Parasitism and subversion are deeply exciting to homosexual culture. Normal sexual intercourse is laughable, and pedophelia, incest, saliromania, algolagnia, scapophilia and necrophilia are in view as alternative forms of enjoyment and self-satisfaction.
Though fewer than 2 percent of Americans are homosexuals, activists and their allies are fighting a religious war in which acts that are crimes against nature are considered acts of common right, even virtue. Proponents enjoy immunity for much of their work — special protections in federal statute, an obliging mainstream media, protection from criticism at universities. Homosexuals are not the put-upon, serious and sensitive souls they pretend to be, but anarchists made attractive by the arguments of equality, fairness and human rights.
The homosexual lobby is not interested in adopting and sharing in marriage as it is in destroying it and making it meaningless. Marriage by its existence witnesses against their exercise of free will and reminds them of their moral guilt. A man given to homosexuality has a right to marry, as I exercised the right to marry my wife, Jeannette. But he cannot marry a member of his club in any common law sense. In fact, common law marriage is available ONLY to a man and a woman. States may attempt to redefine marriage as including homosexuals; but all they practically have done is place the name marriage on what is at most a civil union or a legal contract. To say marriage includes gays is much like framing a law changing a foot from 12 inches to 20, or a gallon from four quarts to five, or a week into 10 days (as did the Commune during the French revolution).
Such innovations last a short time.
Emigrate to Chattanooga?
People living in gay marriage states remain there because they are able to synthesize legal developments and accept them. When the Pilgrims lived for 11 years in Leyden, they felt a growing pressure to leave because of the poor Christian morality among the Dutch. A main grievance was the low view the Dutch held of the Lord’s Day. The English dissidents feared their children would grow into an accommodative and lose walk with God. So they felt increasing urgency to flee for the New World.
People residing in states structurally hostile to Christian or traditional morality have their options. If driven by a similar sense of peril, they are free to travel. They are free to change uproot their domiciles, change residency. If they see the danger to their children, their public schools and their liberty in homosexualized realms, they have places to which they may go. The Tennessee marriage amendment makes the state attractive for its recognition of marriage. Tennessee is unattractive to homosexual couples, whose unions are not recognized and unenforceable. Gays who had enjoyed public nuptials and civic blessings won’t be following the fugitives.
Decentralization part of U.S.’ organic structure
In his monumental work for students, Alexander Stephens, who opposed the war of secession but served as vice president of the confederacy, tells about a main issue in that war. It was about forms of government and whether the United States would an empire or operate under “the Federative principle.” In the last two pages of History of the United States he writes about Rome, and how it did not recognize this principle as it expanded. “In extending her jurisdiction over neighboring States, by not adopting this principle and securing the sovereign right of local self-government to all Peoples thus falling within her limits, but by assuming absolute dominion over them, she necessarily became a Centralized Empire, with ultimate despotism as a necessary consequence.” He says the United States “are founded on the directly opposite principle. They do not constitute a single Republic, but a Federal Republic. Under their system of Federative Union, no apprehension need arise for the safety and security of liberty *** .”
Stephens tries to sound hopeful about the fate of the U.S. experiment in his book published seven years after Appomattox. Today’s rulings seem account for his arguments about the decentralized nature of the original federal system. They grant that peoples will differ, states’ laws will differ, and that people in any given jurisdiction get the laws they deserve.
(David Tulis hosts Nooganomics.com at Copperhead 1240 AM radio.
http://1240wsdt.com/. His show airs 1 to 3 weekdays and covers local economy and free markets in Chattanooga and beyond.)
Sources: Slip opinions of Dennis Hollingsworth et al., petitioners v. Kristin M. Perry et al, June 26, 2013; United States v. Windsor, executor of the estate of Spyer, et al, June 26, 2013.
R.J. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1973), “The Seventh Commandment,” pp 333-375
Alexander Stephens, History of the United States [A Compendium of the History of the United States from the Earliest Settlements to 1872, pub. 1872] (Bridgewater, Va.: American Foundation Publications, 1999), pp 479, 480
Robert A. Peterson, “The Pilgrims in Holland,” The Freeman, 1988, fee.org
The usage of “gollum” I owe to Douglas Wilson, editor of Credenda/Agenda magazine.
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That bizarre, long-winded rant did nothing but prove conclusively that pseudo-intellectualism and shameful ignorance are not exclusive.
You are an embarrassment to the city of Chattanooga and the state of Tennessee, and will very soon find yourself on the wrong side of history. Good riddance.
Ray Ingraham
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First I want to apologize to all my gay friends and family including those I haven't met. Secondly I apologize to those not Christian as this rubbish is not representative of the Christ so many of us know and proclaim. And thirdly I'd even apologize to Mr. Tulis if this is just some sort of unclear and twisted parody on a very serious subject involving real issues of human rights and changes that are long overdue. Since I do not believe the last to be true, than I extend my sympathies to Mr. Tulis in his imbecilic thinking represented by his treatise which was abundant in quantitative drivel and completely devoid of qualitative matter.
You set yourself quite the traps, Mr. Tulis. Which Biblical laws do you embrace or do you, as I suspect, just pick and choose? Those commandments, in particular the seventh that you referrred to as such damning evidence, well they were written long before David. Yes, THE DAVID, "a man after God's own heart", and should I outline his morality or lack thereof? A rather X-rated life, wouldn't you say? Rape, adultery, murder?
But let's go back to the beginning, in the garden, the "creational ordinance gifted to man's first parents, Adam and Eve" I believe is how you put it. The oft used "Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve logic. Well, by extension, you, David Tulis, would be endorsing incest as the second parents in the garden must have been both from the first parents, YES procreating siblings, David! All part of God's plan. A Biblical fact perhaps a law.
Your characterizations of gays, the "homosexual culture" as you stated is just plain inaccurate and downright despicable. Mean, cruel, gay bashing at its best (worst.) You stated "The homosexual lobby is not interested in adopting and sharing in marriage as it is in destroying it and making it meaningless". They just want their rightful place at the table. Nobody told you who you could marry. Why should anybody be told? If gay relationships including marriage make you insecure in your own, who has the problem?
One more of your "Biblical laws", the one that you asserts that marriage is between one man and one woman. Hmmm...I already mentioned King David, then there was Moses, Abraham, Solomon, the list get really long of those that apparently were above that Biblical law and God didn't seem to care.
Yes, I do remember the vote in 2006, and do believe that the 81% of those opposing gay marriage was accurate. That large number accompanied by the hateful comments made at that time caused it to be the most embarrassing time for me to say I was from Tennessee. The lines at Chick-Fil-A were a close second. But as you probably have seen, polls in this state have shown dramatic change with the percentage supporting Gay marriage being over 50%, roughly equaling the hetero divorce rate of the state! That must make you crazy, or crazier.
In closing, my kudos go to Ray Ingraham who summed up his response to you succinctly in many fewer words than I.
Michael Lawrence
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I would like to state before I write further that I have several gay friends although I am a heterosexual. I don't feel threatened by the gay community in any form or fashion. I am not their judge, and they are not mine.
I have been a fundamentalist Christian throughout my life. I have always been taught that the gay lifestyle is a sin. It is not my personal choice and I do believe that the Bible, which I wholly believe to be the inspired word of God, teaches against gay lifestyle.
So far as listing old testament characters as having marriage and sexual practices outside of God's law, that is 100 percent correct. David was labeled as a "man after God's own heart," but he sinned greatly. As a result, God told him that "the sword would never leave his house," and it didn't. One of David's sons raped his own sister. That son was murdered by his brother for that transgression. Another of Davids son's tried to overthrow his father's kingdom and murder David, his father. He son died a terrible death. The baby that resulted from David's adulterous/murderous union with Uriah's wife died at birth.
Noah was tricked into to incest by two of his daughters who got him drunk and went in to sleep with him. The resulting offspring was cursed and shunned and cast out.
Solomon, touted as the wisest man that ever lived, had hundreds of wives and hundreds of concubines. God seemed to "allow" him to continue that practice. It is pretty clear that his kingdom fell as a direct and indirect result of his highly sexual lifestyle.
If you accept the story that civilization began with a man and a woman, then genetically possible incest was the only means to 'grow' the initial population.
You also need to separate "universal law" with the laws that were established solely for the nation of Israel. Some of those laws were given by God, and some were established by the priesthood and lawyers of the day. It is clearly stated in the Bible that the religious leaders of each generation established laws as they saw fit and gave the authority for the law to God. Much of it was based on making money, pure and simple.
The Bible is not a catalog of perfect people, it is the story of the relationship of God and mankind. It records and exposes the good, the bad, and the ugly. If you want to know what will happen to all the people that you think have gotten away with breaking God's laws, read and compare Psalms 37 and 73.
So far as what was recorded in the Bible about gay lifestyle, the O.T. talks about two cities where the gay community existed as the total way of life. Stop reading what someone else wrote or told you about that storyline and read it for yourself. Then you will understand how God felt about those people and their gay life.
Next? Drop the O.T. and move to the New Testament. Read Romans chapter one. Those verses are very explicit about gay sexual lifestyle. I have never heard a supporter of gay lifestyle refer to Romans chapter one, and neither has 99.9 percent of the population.
What is the problem with my argument? You will need to use a King James Bible to read and understand what I have pointed out. Next, you will have to actually believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God and relevant to your life. Outside of these two points, you might as well do what you want and ignore God's word as any kind of teaching or authority for your life. You can view your relationship from a religious standard or from your own "worldview." That is the ultimate dividing line.
I'm not writing to convince anyone of the Bible, its truth that I personally believe in, or that I think that the word of God has to say about marriage and sexual preferences. In fact, I have never written in an open forum what I believe that the Bible teaches about gay relationships. I've never argued with a gay person about the subject. In the Bible Jesus ate with sinners, healed lepers, counseled prostitutes, and fed the poor. He never judged any of those individuals, but he did lead then to the truth of what God was about.
To my gay friends, I love you as a person and would never do anything to harm you. I am not your judge.I don't agree with your sexual/partner choices and you may not agree with my life choices or my "attitude" as displayed in this article. I am a sinful man full of faults. I am glad that many years ago, someone assured me that God hates sin, but not the sinner.
Throughout my life I have watched people debate the "gay issue". Either choose to make it a religious, medical, scientific, legal, or human rights issue, but please quit bashing the Bible to make you feel better about the social issue.The Bible is crystal clear on the subject. Take it or leave it.
For my gay friends, gay marriage will eventually be supported 100 percent. After that, the number
one television program will be "Gay Divorce Court," hosted by Nancy Grace and announced
by George Takei. Oh my. Smile, you know you want to.
Ted Ladd
East Ridge