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The Imaginative Conservative. Last week Matthew Carpenter posted an article concerning Romans 13 and Protestant Resistance Theory. Growing up and even into college I never learned the degree at which Calvin influenced the American Founders. Carpenter provides excellent detail concerning that fact and more.John Locke is always the central figure, however, the Founders looked to an immense array of thinkers, ideas, and systems of law. Thomas Hobbes, Cicero, the Bible, and even Plato all had a role in the shaping of the United States of America. I commented on the article that it was a great coincidence that Carpenter published the article within minutes of when I catching up on an older episode of Reformed Forum, Christ the Center podcast onRomans 13 and Protestant Resistance Theory. From Carpenter’s article:
“Because of their sacrifice and heroic status, those known as the Founding Fathers are marked for special appreciation. Men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and even those from earlier eras like the Puritans are known for their unique contributions to the establishment of the United States. But one name is often left out when discussing important contributors to America’s founding. Although he lived centuries before the war, his ideas were foundational to the philosophy of resistance and the demand for a constitutionally limited government. That man is John Calvin.”
In Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. 644 (2015), the Court read a right to same-sex marriage into the Fourteenth Amendment, even though that right is found nowhere in the text. Several Members of the Court noted that the Court’s decision would threaten the religious liberty of the many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman. If the States had been allowed to resolve this question through legislation, they could have included accommodations for those who hold these religious beliefs. Id., at 711 (ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting); id., at 734 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). The Court, however, bypassed that democratic process. Worse still, though it briefly acknowledged that those with sincerely held religious objections to same-sex marriage are often “decent and honorable,” id., at 672, the Court went on to suggest that those beliefs espoused a bigoted worldview, ibid. See also id., at 670 (noting that such a view of marriage is “demean[ing]” to gays and lesbians because it “teach[es] that gays and lesbians are unequal”); id., at 671 (describing the view of marriage dictated by the religious beliefs of many as “impos[ing] stigma and injury”); id., at 675 (characterizing the traditional view of marriage as “disrespect[ful]” to gays and lesbians). The dissenting Justices predicted that “[t]hese . . . assaults on the character of fairminded people will have an effect, in society and in court,” id., at 712 (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.), allowing “governments, employers, and schools” to “vilify” those with these religious beliefs “as bigots,” id., at 741 (opinion of ALITO, J.). Those predictions did not take long to become reality.
Obergefell (2015) was a terrible decision that requires an overruling. The U.S. Constitution explicitly protects religion and religious freedom including fundamental beliefs in regards to marriage and sex. Mohler notes in his article that leftist groups and legalist were quick to respond to Alito and Thomas:
Yale Law School professor William Eskridge said, “It is alarming that there are justices on the Supreme Court who want to overrule Obergefell, which is a precedent the Court has reaffirmed and which hundreds of thousands of couples have relied on to seal their unions and matrimony.” The Guardian, a liberal newspaper out of London, cited attorney Chase Strangio with the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued that stare decisis—the judicial principle of applying precedent—“will not protect even recently decided cases. The brazenness of the rightward direction of the court is a threat to even the most basic expectation of legal protection.”
We dare not miss Strangio’s argument: Even if a case were decided incorrectly and stood on no Constitutional foundation, it should stand. After all, it has now created a right upon which some Americans depend. Never mind the consequences to religious liberty. Never mind our Constitutional order. All must be subservient to the newly invented sexual liberties.
GREECE – CIRCA 1955: Pericles Funeral Oration on 50 Drachmai 1955 Banknote from Greece. Famous speech given at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC)..
