High court to hear gay marriage cases in April
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (January 16, 2015) — Setting the stage for a potentially historic ruling, the Supreme Court announced Friday it will decide whether same-sex couples have a right to marry everywhere in America under the Constitution.
The justices will take up gay-rights cases that ask them to overturn bans in four states and declare for the entire nation that people can marry the partners of their choice, regardless of gender. The cases will be argued in April, and a decision is expected by late June.
Proponents of same-sex marriage said they expect the court to settle the matter once and for all with a decision that invalidates state provisions that define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Attorney General Eric Holder said the Obama administration would urge the court "to make marriage equality a reality for all Americans."
On the other side, advocates for traditional marriage want the court to let the political process play out, rather than have judges order states to allow same-sex couples to marry.
"The people of every state should remain free to affirm marriage as the union of a man and a woman in their laws," said Austin R. Nimocks, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom.
Same-sex couples can marry in 36 states and the District of Columbia.
That number is nearly double what it was just three months ago, when the justices initially declined to hear gay marriage appeals from five states seeking to preserve their bans on same-sex marriage. The effect of the court's action in October was to make final several pro-gay rights rulings in the lower courts.
Now there are 14 states in which same-sex couples cannot wed. The court's decision to get involved is another marker of the rapid change that has redefined societal norms in the space of a generation.
The court will be weighing in on major gay rights issues for the fourth time in in 27 years. In the first of those, in 1986, the court upheld Georgia's anti-sodomy law in a devastating defeat for gay rights advocates.
But the three subsequent rulings, all written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, were major victories for gay men and lesbians. In its most recent case in 2013, the court struck down part of a federal marriage law in a decision that has paved the way for a wave of lower court rulings across the country in favor of same-sex marriage rights.
The court is extending the time it usually allots for argument from an hour to two-and-a-half hours. The justices will consider two related questions. The first is whether the Constitution requires states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The other is whether states must recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.
The appeals before the court come from gay and lesbian plaintiffs in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. The federal appeals court that oversees those four states upheld their same-sex marriage bans in November, reversing pro-gay rights rulings of federal judges in all four states. It was the first, and so far only, appellate court to rule against same-sex marriage since the high court's 2013 decision.
Ten other states also prohibit such unions. In Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota and Texas, judges have struck down traditional marriage laws, but they remain in effect pending appeals. In Missouri, same-sex couples can marry in St. Louis and Kansas City only.
Louisiana is the only other state that has seen its gay marriage ban upheld by a federal judge. There have been no rulings on lawsuits in Alabama, Georgia, Nebraska and North Dakota.
In his Encyclical Letter Libertas Humana, Pope Leo XIII explained that:
"It is manifest that the eternal law of God is the sole standard and rule of human liberty, not only in each individual man, but also in the community and civil society which men constitute when united. Therefore, the true liberty of human society does not consist in every man doing what he please, for this would simply end in turmoil and confusion, and bring on the overthrow of the state; but rather in this, that through the injunctions of the civil law all may more easily conform to the prescriptions of the eternal law . . . the binding force of the human laws is in this, that they are to be regarded as applications of the eternal law, and incapable of sanctioning anything which is not contained in the eternal law, as in the principle of all law . . . where a law is enacted contrary to reason, or to the eternal law, or to some ordinance of God, obedience is unlawful, lest while obeying man we become disobedient to God."
Human laws are "incapable of sanctioning anything which is not contained in the eternal law." This is crystal clear Catholic teaching. There is no room for doubt. All other "laws" are unjust and are, therefore, not laws at all. And Catholics are not bound to obey them. In fact, Catholics have a duty to resist them. As I mentioned in a previous post, "Any law supportive of same-sex 'marriage' is no law at all. This because any law which is promulgated must correspond to the divine law. No human authority can declare what is morally evil to be morally good. Laws permitting slavery, abortion, euthanasia, divorce and "marriages" between persons of the same gender are immoral, and therefore unjust (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 96, a.5)."
Men might actually believe that they have the right to change the definition of marriage, but this is merely symptomatic of an illusion which is rooted in pride. As such, it represents a form of insanity. Men are not free to change God's eternal law to suit their own pleasures. Recall the teaching of Pope Pius XI in his famous Encyclical "On Christian Marriage":
"First of all, let this remain the unchanged and unshakable foundation: Matrimony was neither established nor restored by man but by God. It has been protected, strengthened, and elevated not by the laws of men, but by those of God, the author of human nature, and of Christ who restored that same nature. Consequently, these laws cannot be changed according to men's pleasure, nor by any agreement of the spouses themselves that is contrary to these laws. This is the teaching of Sacred Scripture (see Gen 1:27; 2:22f.; Mt 19:3ff.; Eph 5:23ff.); this is the constant, universal tradition of the Church; this is the solemn definition of the holy Council of Trent, which in the words of Sacred Scripture teaches and reasserts that the permanent and indissoluble bond of matrimony, its unity and strength, have their origin in God."
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 1603-1605, explain marriage in the order of creation:
"The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws. . . . God himself is the author of marriage." The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. "The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life."
God who created man out of love also calls him to love the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the image and likeness of God who is himself love. Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator's eyes. And this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation: "And God blessed them, and God said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.'"
Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone." The woman, "flesh of his flesh," his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a "helpmate"; she thus represents God from whom comes our help. "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been "in the beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh."
Again, we may choose to reject these truths. But in so doing, we lose our grip on sanity as it were. In the words of the late (great) F.J. Sheed:
"..if we see anything - ourself or some other man, or the Universe as a whole or any part of it - without at the same time seeing God holding it there, then we are seeing it all wrong. If we saw a coat hanging on a wall and did not realize that it was held there by a hook, we should not be living in the real world at all, but in some fantastic world of our own in which coats defied the law of gravity and hung on walls by their own power. Similarly if we see things in existence and do not in the same act see that they are held in existence by God, then equally we are living in a fantastic world, not the real world. Seeing God everywhere and all things upheld by Him [such as marriage, my note] is not a matter of sanctity; but of plain sanity, because God is everywhere and all things are upheld by Him...To overlook God's presence is not simply to be irreligious; it is a kind of insanity, like overlooking anything else that is actually there." (Theology and Sanity, p.6).
The choice is ours: We either view marriage within the context of the order of creation with God as its Author, or we sink into insanity.
If this nation continues to set itself against the Author of marriage, the Eternal Lawgiver, it will find out soon enough what the judgment of the real Supreme Court is.
7 comments:
This isn't the country I grew up in. I cannot even begin to describe how sad all of this makes me. Outside of divine intervention, America is finished. Dear Jesus, help us!
I downloaded this a year or 3 ago :
Vladimir Lenin: 'Destroy the Family, You Destroy the Country'
Marriage and family were the very first covenant relationships established by God with man. The first wedding took place in the Garden of Eden and started with Adam and culminated when God formed Eve from Adam’s rib and then joined the two and gave them instructions for their roles in marriage.
From the beginning of man’s existence, the family unit has been the most stable and important structure of all time. It not only serves for procreation, but the very structure of the family actually helps to hold nations together. It is the foundation for many of our morals and character. It defines men, women, boys and girls and teaches them values and lessons that will shape the rest of their lives.
A number of socialists and communists have often said that to destroy a nation, first destroy the family.
Over the past 60 years, the family structure in America has been attacked and eroded. The number of fatherless homes is epidemic. The number of homes with un-wed couples is growing at an alarming rate, even within Christian circles.
The biblical role of the father as being the spiritual head of the house has been effectively destroyed by the constant belittling and ridicule seen on prime time TV. Father knows best has been replaced by mother and daughter know best and dad’s an idiot.
Now, the courts are re-defining the very terms of ‘marriage’ and ‘parents’.
In California, the courts are now turning away from the traditional definition of parent as one of biological or adoption origin to something completely perverted. Case in point is the ruling passed down by the Third District Court of Appeal that gave custody of one woman’s biological children to her ex-lesbian lover.
The ex-lesbian lover is a colonel in the US Air Force Reserve. Before ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ was repealed, she did not file any action to legally adopt her girlfriend’s children, for fear it would end her military career. The couple has since separated and now that she doesn’t have to hide her perverse and sinful lifestyle anymore, the colonel filed for custody of her ex-lover’s biological children and the court granted her request saying that she acted more like a parent than the real mother, even though she had initially put her military career before the children.
The court basically changed the definition of ‘parent’ to ‘de facto parent’ in their ruling.
In North Carolina, a lawsuit has been filed against the requirement of having to file for a state license in order to get married. The people behind the lawsuit claim that such a requirement violates the US Constitution and the supposed separation of church and state.
Founder of Liberty Counsel, Mat Staver warns that the lawsuit could lead to a multitude of sinful lifestyles,
"... This doesn't just stop at heterosexual marriage or same-sex 'marriage,' but it also will extend to bigamy and incestuous marriage and all kinds of situations.
If the government doesn't have any interest in [marriage], then polygamy is permissible, polyamory is permissible. We would have group marriages. Incestuous marriages are permissible. Marriages with ... children as young as 8 or 7 or however low you want to go on the list -- all of that becomes a free-for-all. That's exactly what this is designed to do."
If this North Carolina lawsuit is granted any credence, it will lead to the complete annihilation of the definition of marriage as we know it. The court rulings in California are already re-defining the role of the parent.
To see the long range impact these ruling will have on our nation, all you have to do is recall the words of Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin when he said,
“Destroy the family, you destroy the country.”
Read more at http://godfatherpolitics.com/2872/vladimir-lenin-destroy-the-family-you-destroy-the-country/#CCVIEpixiyF7TAbu.99
Vladimir Lenin (in the early 1920s):
"First we will take Eastern Europe, then the masses of Asia. We will encircle the last bastion of capitalism, the United States of America. We will not need to fight. It will fall as a ripe fruit into our hands."
And, "We must practice coexistence with other nations, until we are strong enough to take over by means of world revolution.... We are not pacifists. Conflict is inevitable. Great political questions can be solved only through violence.... It is inconceivable that Communism and capitalism can exist side by side. Inevitably one must perish.''
A quote from Josef Stalin from the 1930s:
"America's ... resistance is three fold: its patriotism, morality and spiritual life.
If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within."
Come on Americans it's never too late to turn the page, don't give that communist that victory.
Stand up for your principles !!!!!!
Riki
Brenda...None of us of a certain age recognize the Country we now find ourselves in. Our poor youth are confused like ships without sails. There is no anchor for them to adhere to. They are tossed about in the raging waters to and fro like rag dolls. But soon enough, there will be divine intervention. God will intervene. He will not allow this to continue without end. We MUST place ourselves in the folds of our Mother's Mantle. She will protect us and she will draw to herself all of her children and call those who have drifted, and take us to her Son. In the end, it is SHE who will crush the head of the serpent. The time doesn't seem to be very far away.
Based on SCOTUS' December 19, 2014, 7-2 decision refusing to extend a stay sought by Florida officials defending the state ban against same-sex marriages (thus legalizing it in 36 states and DC), I predict the Court will nationalize sodomarriage. In that case only Justices Scalia and Thomas dissented but not Roberts, Alito or Kennedy; thus one of more of the latter group will vote for that perversion (in more ways than one) for 5-4 or 6-3 or 7-2 (ironically repeating the Roe v. Wade vote)
And God will deliver up America to her enemies. His wrath will be upon us. Chastisement will be inevitable.
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