Love Didn’t Win—It Was Redefined

#LoveWins is the hashtag of choice for those in support of the newest Supreme Court decision that passed that legislative body by a 5-4 vote. If you’re not content with that, you’re just an evil bigot who needs to shut up and support this new legislation. Forget the fact that you have very rational reasons for keeping marriage between a man and a woman: Genderless marriage changes the cultural understanding of marriage from the well-being of children to merely the romantic desires of adults. For kids who all deserve a mom and a dad and need a culture to support that, love hasn’t won.

But you are to pay no attention to the children behind the curtain! If you don’t change your bigoted position (which isn’t really bigoted) many in the “Love wins” crowd will see to it that you are fired, fined, sued, run out of business and forced to violate your conscience and God. Churches too! (Wow, if this is “love,” I’d hate to see what hate looks like!)

Each side on this issue believes the other side is wrong. There is a moral judgment being made whether you are for or against redefining marriage. Morality is always legislated (or judicially imposed). So what is the right morality?

The Supreme Court has told us. Five justices imposed their own morality that elevates homosexuality to a virtue in our society.  They say states can’t merely permit homosexual behavior (a neutral position); states must now promote it by granting benefits and, in Justice Kennedy’s words, “dignity” through the most “profound” union of marriage.

Those who don’t agree with this new morality imposed by the court are, in effect, the new sinners motivated by “disrespect” and “animosity” (“animosity” comes from Kennedy’s Lawrence decision—precedent he cited to justify his own animosity toward opponents of genderless marriage). Yes, unfortunately the Court smears all opponents to its new morality with the same judgmental bigotry it says it detests.    

This raises a profound question that is central to this decision and every decision we make in politics.  What is our standard?  By what standard do we judge something right and its opposite wrong? By what standard do five justices elevate homosexuality to a virtue and declare any opposition to that position “animosity” and “disrespect” toward people who identify as homosexual?  

The standard should have been the Constitution, but the Constitution was ignored in this case. Justice Roberts rightfully wrote in dissent, “The Constitution had nothing to do with it.” (Roberts ignored the clear reading of the law in the Obamacare case, but at least he got it right this time.) While the majority said they consulted the Constitution, Kennedy actually spent most of his opinion citing his own horrendously argued previous opinions that also ignored or distorted the real Constitution.  

When you look at the real Constitution (the one the people actually passed, not the “evolving” one invented in the minds of politically motivated judges), it’s easy to see why this court is wrong. When the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868, homosexual behavior was a felony in every state, and women and blacks didn’t even have the right to vote. If the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment didn’t even ensure a woman’s right to vote, it certainly doesn’t ensure a woman’s right to marry another woman!  

And by Kennedy’s own admission just two years ago in the Windsor decision, marriage is a state, not a federal issue (unless a law violates the 14th Amendment’s prohibition of racial discrimination, something that was not in play in this case). Now suddenly two years later, Kennedy, along with his mini legislature, decides that everyone, including himself, has been interpreting the 14th Amendment incorrectly for 147 years!  

Want to give women and blacks the right to vote? Then amend the Constitution (which the people did). Want to make marriage a federal rather than a state issue, and change it into a genderless institution? Then the people need to amend the Constitution.    

But the Court decided to ignore all that. Kennedy and his anti-democracy cohorts decided that they were the new standard. Not the Constitution. Not the people. Not God or His natural law, which gives us the “self-evident” truth that homosexual and heterosexual relationships are profoundly different in many ways, most importantly by their capacity to create and nurture children.   

The personal opinions of five unelected justices now comprise the new standard that 320 million people must obey. That’s right friends, after telling us in 1992 that everyone had “the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life,” Justice Kennedy and his cohorts have abandoned that self-defeating psychobabble and imposed on the entire nation their own meaning of marriage. Even if you are for genderless marriage, the fact that five unelected people think that their personal opinions are the standard for the rest of us should scare you.

If five people can ignore the Constitution and redefine the institution that holds together the foundation of civilization— the biological two-parent family—then no law or liberty is safe. That includes free speech and the free exercise of religion. (They are coming after those next.)

“Oh, but we have the Bill of Rights,” you say. “They can’t take those away.”   

They already have to a certain extent. The issues reserved for the people and the states—which include marriage and almost everything else—have been taken from us by the mini-legislature. With this group it doesn’t matter what the Constitution actually says. It doesn’t matter what laws you pass or what the words mean. It doesn’t matter that we are supposed to be governed by the rule of law not the whims of men. The whims of five people are now supreme—unless governors decide to evoke the 10th Amendment and nullify this decision for their states, which they should. Is there a governor who will save this country from an imperial court? Is there an Andrew Jackson in a governor’s mansion anywhere?   

The words of John Adams couldn’t be more fitting: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  

Love hasn’t won—the immoral gods on the Supreme Court just changed its definition.

Frank Turek is the president of crossexamined.org, coauthor of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, and the author of the new book Stealing From God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case.