The Real Declaration of Independence: Who Can Perform Weddings
The following is one of several Christian responses to the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn a ban on same-sex marriages. The ruling will alter the course of the country and its perception of Christianity. This response is from Movieguide’s Ted Baehr.
Marriage between one man and one woman is a God ordained, God defined, biblical act. Since the time of Jesus Christ, marriage was a unique institution, initiated by God when he created the male and female, presided over by Jesus Christ when he blessed the act of marriage and stated that a man and a woman would leave their parents and join together to become one flesh, and sustained by the Holy Spirit who not only holds the marriage together but produces the offspring who are the ultimate purpose of marriage.
The norm in most other religions is not monogamy, although many have borrowed the form of a Christian wedding. Moreover, the state civil government’s involvement in Christian marriage is relatively recent.
In 1837, the Rev. Henry Morris complained that the state civil government had usurped the authority of God in marriage. Fr. Norris explained the Scriptures in establishing his point that marriage is a Christian institution, and therefore it should not be relegated to a civil government contract:
“They took from the Clergy ‘the solemnizing of Matrimony, and put it into the hands of Justices of the Peace [the state]. . . .’ [Thus], ‘the power to legislate had been seized by those who would be restrained in nothing that they imagined to do….’
The biblical position is that only God ordains marriage. So, in the light of history and God’s Word written, the civil government or any state or federal court have no authority to say anything about Christian marriage and have no authority to define, ordain or desecrate it. And, they certainly don’t have a civil right to ordain same-sex “marriage.”
The church has to reclaim marriage as its unique institution. Whatever anyone wants to do outside of the church may be their business, but it is not sanctioned by God’s Law. The state has the right to regulate only what the Constitution allows it to regulate. The state does not have the right to tell the biblical, believing, Trinitarian, Christian church that any couple outside of the faith is married.
We need to stand for God’s Law in the face of the power grab by those in civil authority, ‘who know no restraints.’
The increasingly socialized Federal Government does not have the right, nor the authority to violate God’s Law. They have also violated the Constitution and the will of the governed. When they do that, they have abdicated their moral and legal authority and are subject to indictment, trial and just punishment.
Now, all those who freely exercise their inalienable right to religious faith, must stop acting like useful idiots and fellow travelers by going along to get along, and instead stand for your God-given rights by proclaiming loud and clear that these government servants have crossed the line into illegal activity that as no authority and makes them criminals.
Often, people of faith and values do not stand up because they have been slowly boiled in the brine of socialism and so give the states powers they have no authority to use. Often the state or federal government argues that the state needs to govern marriage to regulate and to tax. Such dishonest reasoning has almost deceived the voters.
Now, the people of have and values must throw off the stupor of Marxist double speak and return to the basic principles that made them free to live at peace in the American Republic that recognizes “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Pages could be, have been and should be written about the progressive Marxist destruction of the American Constitutional Republic; and, pages could be, have been and should be written about the destructive nature of the sexual perversion of the culture. But even so, it is more important to understand clearly that the civil government has no authority in area of the free exercise of religion such as marriage. If it has no authority and tries to exercise power not vested to it, then the government is acting illegally.
Thus, the Declaration of Independence made it clear that King George III acted illegally when he oppressed the American Colonies, because he was under the Law of God.
Countries that allowed men to rule above the law have produced tyrants such as Stalin, Hitler and Mao Tse Tung. Marx, who was a debased serial adulterer, called his followers to work toward the: “Abolition of the family!” (The Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2, Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels)
Don’t buy the lie and hide while the neo-Marxists destroy the family!
Ted Baehr is founder and publisher of Movieguide, as well as chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission.
Want to know what God’s doing in Hollywood?
