Calling it a “Bonhoeffer moment” — a reference to German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose outspoken resistance to Nazi tyranny led to his own execution in a concentration camp in 1945 — a large contingent of Christian leaders is declaring that they will not acquiesce to government attempts to redefine marriage.
Anticipating a Supreme Court declaration that same-sex marriage is now a civil right, the signers of the “Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage” state that they will “not respect an unjust law that directly conflicts with higher law,” knowing full well the consequences they might incur for taking such a stand.
The pledge was co-authored by Deacon Keith Fournier, editor in chief of Catholic Online, and Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, with input from Vision America Action president Rick Scarborough and Family Talk Radio founder Dr. James Dobson. It has been signed by over 25,000 people, including Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse; Jerry Johnson, president and CEO of National Religious Broadcasters; Joseph Farah, editor and CEO of WND.com; the Rev. John Hagee, pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas; and Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas.
“We affirm that marriage and family have been inscribed by the Divine Architect into the order of Creation,” reads the pledge. “Marriage is ontologically between one man and one woman, ordered toward the union of the spouses, open to children and formative of family. Family is the first vital cell of society, the first government, and the first mediating institution of our social order. The future of a free and healthy society passes through marriage and the family.”
“Redefining the very institution of marriage is improper and outside the authority of the State,” it asserts. “No civil institution, including the United States Supreme Court or any court, has authority to redefine marriage.”
“The institution of marriage is fundamental and it must be defended,” Dobson told Fox News. “It’s the foundation for the entire culture. It’s been in existence for 5,000 years. If you weaken it or if you undermine it — the entire superstructure can come down. We see it as that important.”
In a conference call with Scarborough and Dobson, Staver said a Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage “will result in the beginning of the end of Western Civilization.”
Such a policy shift, he claimed, “creates a genderless relationship out of a very gender-specific relationship. It says that it doesn’t matter and that two moms or two dads are absolutely equivalent to a mom and a dad” — a message to which many children reared in such circumstances take exception.
One of them, Dawn Stefanowicz, who was brought up by her biological father and his various male sexual partners, wrote recently, “For many of us adult children of gay parents” — she claims to have been contacted by over 50 such individuals — “we have come to the conclusion that same-sex marriage is more about promoting adults’ ‘desires’ than about safeguarding children’s rights to know and be raised by their biological parents.” As a result, Stefanowicz, a Canadian, has become an anti-same-sex marriage activist, testifying before governing bodies in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere.
The signatories to the marriage-defense pledge are under no illusions that their defiance of immoral edicts from Washington will go unpunished.
“Experience and history have shown us that if the government redefines marriage to grant a legal equivalency to same-sex couples, that same government will then enforce such an action with the police power of the State,” the pledge maintains. “This will bring about an inevitable collision with religious freedom and conscience rights.”
Citing the maxim “An unjust law is no law at all” as used by Christians from St. Augustine to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Staver said individuals “have a duty to disobey laws that are against higher law but be prepared for the consequences of the wrath of the civil authorities.”
In fact, he observed, such consequences are already occurring. Christian businesses are being fined for their refusal to serve same-sex ceremonies. Catholic Charities has stopped offering adoption and foster-care services in some states rather than be forced to hand over children to same-sex couples as mandated by those states.
Religious groups’ tax exemptions are also threatened by same-sex marriage and antidiscrimination laws, Staver said. He pointed out that while churches (thus far) aren’t required to accommodate people of other faiths, they are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race. If antidiscrimination laws are extended to include sexual orientation or gender identity, a church could be in big trouble for, say, prohibiting a man who thinks he’s a woman from using the ladies’ room.
Religious organizations have, in fact, already lost their tax-exempt status for running afoul of antidiscrimination laws. New Jersey stripped a Methodist association of its property-tax exemption when it refused to allow a same-sex civil-union ceremony at its boardwalk pavilion property. (The group later obtained a religious tax exemption but stopped hosting weddings at the pavilion to stave off further trouble.) Bob Jones University lost its tax-exempt status in 1976 for prohibiting interracial dating — a precedent that U.S. Solicitor General Ronald Verrilli, arguing the current case before the Supreme Court, admitted could lead to a loss of tax exemptions for religious organizations that oppose same-sex marriage if the court declares such a union to be a right.
The situation is only likely to worsen if the court does rule that way. As Stefanowicz observed, in Canada, where same-sex marriage has been the law of the land for a decade, the law was changed to replace the phrase “natural parents” with “legal parents.” “In effect,” she wrote, “same-sex marriage permits state powers to override the autonomy of biological parents.”
“Human Rights Tribunals/Commissions in Canada police speech, and penalize upstanding citizens for their speech and expressions in opposition to particular sexual behaviors,” she added. “The Commissions have the power to enter private residences and remove all items pertinent to their investigations, checking for hate speech.” Taxpayers must pay plaintiffs’ legal fees, while defendants are forced to foot their own very expensive bills. Proceedings are rigged in favor of the plaintiffs, with “no real juries.” Not surprisingly, therefore, “the federal Human Rights Commission (HRC) has had a three-decade 100 percent conviction rate for hate speech.”
Businesses and other organizations are, of course, subject to the same tyrannical mandates. As a result, penned Stefanowicz, “most faith communities have become politically correct to avoid fines and loss of charitable status.”
Those affixing their John Hancocks to the marriage-defense pledge are hoping that their solidarity will keep the United States from taking the same path as Canada and other Western nations.
“This is indeed a Bonhoeffer moment,” said Staver. “They might be able to pick us off individually, but collectively they can’t. Whenever someone gets targeted, we must gather around them and say no.”
And if the tide of political correctness just keeps washing over them?
“For me there’s no option,” Scarborough told Fox News. “I’m going to choose to serve the Lord. And I think that thousands of other pastors will take that position and hundreds of thousands — if not millions of Christians.”
