The news has finally broken. The most anticipated Supreme Court decisions in a long time were finally released last week. A sharply divided court has ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional as far as its implications for taxes and inheritance law go. Additionally it ruled that the groups who were defending California’s Proposition 8 in the wake of the state government’s decision to not defend its own constitution did not have standing and thus the decision of the lower court stands.
What now?
Jonathan Waits
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What now, indeed. I suspect that there will be both celebration and hand-wringing in coming days over these two powerful decisions. Christians will be found on both sides of this line. But what is it that these decisions will actually change?
Legally, not much. Gay marriage has not been legalized nationally. The federal government will now treat legally married gay couples the same as it had treated only heterosexual couples. Essentially, the federal government stepped out of the marriage-defining business altogether and said, “If your state pronounces you legally married that’s good enough for us.” As for Proposition 8, the law still technically stands and its fate will now be determined by judicial and political forces in coming weeks.
As far as what now, then, defenders of traditional marriage can breathe a small sigh of relief. The matter is far from settled. The recent failure of gay marriage advocates to pass a bill redefining marriage in the very much liberal state of Illinois — thanks to the tireless work of African-American pastors — is a further indicator of this truth. Nevertheless, there are three troubling implications that come out of these decisions.
First, in states with a voter initiative allowance, if the state’s governor and attorney general decide that they do not like a particular law the people have worked to pass, there is no recourse for the people to defend their own law. Proposition 8 was initiated by the people of California and successfully passed by the people of California. When state officials decided not to fulfill their constitutional duties and defend the law against the expected legal challenges, the people rose up to defend the law themselves — until the Supreme Court said they couldn’t actually do that in the federal court system.
This means that in the future, if administrations in similar states encounter laws they do not like, they need only find someone to successfully make a cogent argument against the law and wait. The opinion of the people no longer matters. For those in favor of American’s unique concept of “we the people,” this should be a deeply troubling development.
Second, the federal government no longer has any official definition of marriage. Now, putting arguments that it should not have gotten into the marriage-defining business in the first place to the side for the moment, absent such a definition, it has now stripped its rational and moral ability to oppose any kind of relationship as long as both parties consent. This means the door has been opened on a federal level for “marriages” between multiple people, in situations that would normally be defined as pedophilic, and even in interspecies relationships. These kinds of groups need only get state recognition.
Perhaps I will be accused of being unnecessarily hyperbolic here, but given that in places like Yale there have been seminars on changing traditional attitudes toward incest and bestiality, and also an increase in advocacy for the mainstreaming of their position by polygamous groups and the North American Man/Boy Love Association using the same kinds of arguments homosexual marriages advocates have successfully used to advance their position, I do not think I am so far outside the lines of reasonableness as critics may allege.
Third, and perhaps most troubling: Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in the DOMA case expressed his belief — now enshrined in federal case law — that the only reason someone would oppose broadening the definition of marriage from its traditional boundaries to include same-sex couples is that they have an animus toward such people. In other words, and at the risk of oversimplification, the only reason advocates of traditional marriage defend such a position is that we hate gay people.
This is patently absurd and someone in Justice Kennedy’s position should be embarrassed to make such an argument. Are there people who oppose gay marriage for bigoted reasons? Undoubtedly. But I suspect there are people who oppose traditional marriage for bigoted reasons as well. To make this a blanket statement, however, is irrational and beyond the pale.
Furthermore, that such a position is now backed by a majority of the Supreme Court bodes ill for future legal challenges to state laws protecting the traditional definition of marriage. The argument that opponents of gay marriage are merely “haters” has been bandied about in the culture for several years, but now it has been officially sanctioned by one branch of government. My own prediction is that this will hasten the cultural marginalization of the church. It will also, though, force defenders of traditional marriage to refine the arguments they use to make very clear that our reasons go well beyond mere animus.
So again, what now? Well, for believers committed to the authority of Scripture and traditional orthodoxy, nothing has changed. Our task may have gotten more difficult, but it has not changed. We must keep proclaiming Christ’s love in word and deed and boldly demonstrating that kingdom life — which is increasingly divergent from cultural life — is better than anything our culture has to offer.
Let us eagerly love our neighbors by humbly defending the truth that the way we naturally want to go is not right and that we are not defined by our sexuality, all the while pointing the way to the life that is truly life. We are responsible not for the state of our culture, but for being faithful. Yet, faithfulness will change our culture. We are, then, to be faithful and change our culture.
That’s what.
Jonathan Waits ([email protected]) is pastor of Central Baptist Church in Church Road, Va.