Marriage Amendments and Beyond

We have been asked to explain what’s happening in California with Proposition 8. In the year 2000, the voters of California by a more than 60 % margin approved Proposition 22 which defined marriage in California as a union only between a man and a woman. In 2008, the California state supreme court ruled that the law initiated by Prop 22 was unconstitutional and that legal marriage was now available to same sex couples as well as opposite sex couples. As a result, supporters of traditional marriage quickly organized a petition drive to put a proposition on the 2008 ballot that would amend the CA constitution to define marriage as only between a man and woman (there is nothing in the constitution that states this) in order to reverse this decision and preclude future similar judgments. The reasoning behind this move is that once a constitutional amendment has been adopted, courts have no power to reverse it. Enough signatures were collected to initiate Prop. 8, and it will be on the CA ballot this November 4th.

Because this is a moral issue, as was Prop 22, the LDS Church has been very involved in advancing the passage of this amendment. It has given Prop 8 substantial financial support and instructed local leaders to call members to positions that involve visits, canvassing, phone calling, and electronic communications. It has organized satellite broadcast meetings regarding this proposition including the one held Oct. 8 throughout church buildings in California, along with a few chapels in Utah Valley for student voters attending BYU and UVU, educating on the importance of passing this proposition and encouraging members to do whatever they can to help (see Deseret News article and www.preservingmarriage.org).

Incidentally, Connecticut, which on October 10, 2008 made same-sex marriage legal, our third state in the union to do so, is in trouble. It does not have in place an initiative process as California does. It will be much more difficult to create a marriage amendment.

Here at the Standard of Liberty, there is no question that if we lived in California we would vote for Proposition 8 and do all we could to help it pass. We’re thankful that great efforts have been organized to encourage its passing. We urge our subscribers to become educated and do what they can to help.

That said, we would like to challenge our readers to think beyond marriage amendments. C. S. Lewis wrote, “Wherever any precept of traditional morality is simply challenged to produce its credentials, as though the burden of proof lay on it, we have taken the wrong position.” Our culture is so far gone that in the public arena we have given up basic standards (such as sexual purity) and concern for the welfare of souls. Instead we have taken an extremely defensive position about the most self-evident of realities: that marriage is instituted for opposite sexes and carries with it a profound interest in the well-being of the rising generation.

It seems that government, the last hold-out for an orderly society, is failing us when it comes to restraints on sexuality, a foundation on the reality of male and female, and the traditional conjugal family as its foundation. As Midge Dector said, this struggle is not about "gay rights" but about bringing the whole house down, meaning our way of life as we know it. It’s about getting rid of God and His laws on a cultural scale. (For an eye-opening read revealing what "gay marriage" is really about see the Joe Kort blog entry on www.psychologytoday.com.)

While marriage amendments may help prevent a ripple effect that could endanger the free practice of religion which is guaranteed by our U.S. Constitution, we must remember that, as Aristotle pointed out, governments and courts are run by people, and the attributes of people are what make up governments and courts. In other words, a marriage amendment won’t accomplish what we perhaps hope it will. It isn’t just our laws that need our attention, it’s our culture. A licentious culture, including its bad judges, will trump good laws, whether they are old or new. We saw this in Lawrence v. Texas. Sodomy laws existed, but were not enforced, so courts saw no problem in casting them aside, and in doing so homosexual sex was tacitly legitimized. We saw this in California when even though a state law was voted on and passed (Proposition 22 ) to protect traditional marriage, bad judges overruled it. And now an amendment to California’s constitution (Prop. 8) will be voted on in November as a desperate attempt to permanently reverse that court decision. For months, money and human resources have poured in from both sides. It’s a huge issue and a dramatic example of a culture at war. Two world views are engaged in political combat. But no matter which worldview wins out in the battle for Prop 8 in California, (it’s supposed to be very close) and in other inevitable future state battles, there will have been no substantive change in our increasingly Godless culture.

While citizens rise up to protect marriage in the governmental arena, there seems to be no such significant battle for traditional values occurring in the cultural arena (unless you count web sites and publications such as ours which are few and far between). For instance, many churches and conservative organizations have lately given up speaking out against alternative sexual orientations and behaviors in fear of being labeled anti-human rights. Instead, they have opted to shift their focus to preserving marriage. This is like putting a Bandaid on a growing internal cancer. It is our hedonistic culture that brought us to this political impasse in the first place. The culture war has been all but won by the enemies of traditional sexual morality, the safety of children, the rights of parents, and religious freedom. It has been all but won through our anti-traditional values education systems and media. The wisdom of the ages and the laws of God are being thrown out like yesterday’s garbage in favor of radical organized sexual permissiveness in the name of “identity” and “rights.” Misinformation, fear, and intimidation are tactics that have been used to condition and silence truth and goodness.

One characteristic of war is that it can change directions at any time. If we care about the rising generation, it we care that all will not be lost, we need an overall offensive strategy rather than only last-minute defensive tactics that overlook the general layout. Robert Bork, in Slouching Towards Gomorrah, sounds like a Book of Mormon prophet, when he writes that our only hope to save our way of life is a grass roots revival of true religiosity (that’s putting God and His laws at the center of our lives) and a resurgence of the public will to change our culture’s direction back toward traditional morality. This means refusing to be distracted by cosmetic fixes and facing up to reality and the extremity in which we find ourselves as a culture. This means throwing off pride and complacency, repenting and seeking the Lord’s Spirit to teach and guide us. It means rejecting the popular philosophies of men without rationalization and despite fear of what others may think of us or do to us. It means teaching our children and grandchildren what to value and what to reject and how to feel the Spirit in a culture that has become past feeling. It means speaking out in our families, churches, neighborhoods, and communities, and running for local offices. (Bork points out that a local school board has more influence over culture than national politicians.) It means contributing and encouraging cultural excellence and goodness in all areas, including education, art, and entertainment, with the objective of conserving what is good and rejecting what it bad. This is the sacred responsibility of any ordered human society.

The cultural juggernaut we are experiencing is nothing new. The battle between good and evil has been the great topic of the accumulated wisdom of the world. It has been the substance of the lives of the most fearless and God-fearing of reformers, revolutionaries, and prophets. It is a primary theme in the timeless word of God. The biggest question is not who will win or lose that battle in the end – that is in the Lord’s hands – but on whose side we will place our minds and hearts and efforts, not just in a voting booth but in our everyday lives.

-Stephen & Janice Graham

 

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