True law necessarily is rooted in ethical assumptions or norms; and those ethical principles are derived, in the beginning at least, from religious convictions. When the religious understanding, from which a concept of law arose in a culture, has been discarded or denied, the laws may endure for some time, through what sociologists call "cultural lag"; but in the long run, the laws also will be discarded or denied.
With this hard truth in mind, I venture to suggest that the corpus of English and American laws--for the two arise for the most part from a common root of belief and experience--cannot endure forever unless it is animated by the spirit that moved it in the beginning: that is, by religion, and specifically by the Christian people. Certain moral postulates of Christian teaching have been taken for granted, in the past, as the ground of justice. When courts of law ignore those postulates, we grope in judicial darkness. . . .
We suffer from a strong movement to exclude such religious beliefs from the operation of courts of law, and to discriminate against those unenlightened who cling fondly to the superstitions of the childhood of the race.
Many moral beliefs, however, though sustained by religious convictions, may not be readily susceptible of "scientific" demonstration. After all, our abhorrence of murder, rape, and other crimes may be traced back to the Decalogue and other religious injunctions. If it can be shown that our opposition to such offenses is rooted in religion, then are restraints upon murder and rape unconstitutional?
We arrive at such absurdities if we attempt to erect a wall of separation between the operation of the laws and those Christian moral convictions that move most Americans. If we are to try to sustain some connection between Christian teaching and the laws of this land of ours, we must understand the character of that link. We must claim neither too much nor too little for the influence of Christian belief upon our structure of law. . . .
I am suggesting that Christian faith and reason have been underestimated in an age bestridden, successively, by the vulgarized notions of the rationalists, the Darwinians, and the Freudians. Yet I am not contending that the laws ever have been the Christian word made flesh nor that they can ever be. . . .
What Christianity (or any other religion) confers is not a code of positive laws, but instead some general understanding of justice, the human condition being what it is. . . .
In short, judges cannot well be metaphysicians--not in the execution of their duties upon the bench, at any rate, even though the majority upon the Supreme Court of this land, and judges in inferior courts, seem often to have mistaken themselves for original moral philosophers during the past quarter century. The law that judges mete out is the product of statute, convention, and precedent. Yet behind statute, convention, and precedent may be discerned, if mistily, the forms of Christian doctrines, by which statute and convention and precedent are much influenced--or once were so influenced. And the more judges ignore Christian assumptions about human nature and justice, the more they are thrown back upon their private resources as abstract metaphysicians--and the more the laws of the land fall into confusion and inconsistency.
Prophets and theologians and ministers and priests are not legislators, ordinarily; yet their pronouncements may be incorporated, if sometimes almost unrecognizably, in statute and convention and precedent. The Christian doctrine of natural law cannot be made to do duty for "the law of the land"; were this tried, positive justice would be delayed to the end of time. Nevertheless, if the Christian doctrine of natural law is cast aside utterly by magistrates, flouted and mocked, then positive law becomes patternless and arbitrary.
RUSSELL KIRK
While the White House was bathed in the rainbow that has come to represent the LGBT movement, President Obama spoke at a service commemorating Rev. Clementa Pickney who died at the hands of Dylann Roof, a racist and a hater who gunned down nine people in a church in a savage act that has shook the state of South Carolina. Roof could have gunned down any nine black people and been just another nut. But his deliberate choice of a church and a Bible study gave his act a particularly anti-Christian tone that has generated a deep sympathy for Roof's victims and their families. Then, those same families expressed forgiveness for this disturbed man in a way that has stunned the world in being utterly Christlike. The irony of Obama giving the eulogy at this service was that he was giving it to an audience who largely oppose that day's Supreme Court ruling mandating that all 50 states recognize same sex marriage. The same Christian ethic that motivated these people to forgive Dylann Roof in an act of love is the same Christian ethic that makes them oppose the sham of gay marriage. The irony is that these people who have suffered under the hands of bigots are now rendered the new bigots in the dawn of this new "right" Justice Anthony Kennedy and four other justices managed to find hidden in the fourteenth amendment of the US Constitution. The irony is that this amendment was written for the protection of people like Reverend Pickney but will now be used to harass them into compliance with recognition of immoral acts. This irony is what happens when the Christian ethic is expunged from our judicial process.
The United States is not a Christian country. It used to be a Christian country, but I think this ended around the time Bill Clinton was elected president. This was when the boomers finally grasped the reins of power, and they had ceased to be a Christian generation in the 1960's. Regardless of the date, this country is certainly not Christian now, and the rainbow bath of the White House will be remembered as a watershed moment when the United States declared its allegiance to the ancient paganism and depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah. Will there come a judgment and a consequence for this? Absolutely.
The United States is rife with many sins, so there is no reason to single out just the sin of sodomy. This is merely the capstone to a pyramid of sins from greed to hatred to lust to violence that demonstrated how utterly depraved this country has become. The same sex marriage debate is one championed by the majority on behalf of the minority of a minority. Why has so much effort been expended on such an insignificant issue? The answer is because it isn't about gay rights but the deeper philosophy behind it all. By championing gay marriage, this gives those who oppose the Christian ethic the opportunity to shove a finger in God's eye. When you want to beat a dog, any stick will do, and gay marriage is the stick that will be used to beat the Christians. The ultimate target is the Roman Catholic Church which is the only institution on earth remaining that recognizes the sacramental and true nature of marriage. Every other church including the Orthodox have walked all over marriage. Let no Baptist decry this Supreme Court ruling without recognizing that many Baptists are divorced and remarried multiple times. This injustice is merely a fresh stain on a dirty shirt that the Protestants soiled long ago.
The Roman Catholic Church will remain true to our Lord's teaching on marriage even if renegade priests perform scandalous acts by marrying these perverts or giving communion to those in the grave and manifest public sin of a same sex marriage. There will be laicizations and excommunications in the wake of this global push to recognize same sex marriage. As for the faithful Catholics who weather this latest storm, I urge them to look to St. Thomas More who was essentially a martyr for marriage because he told his king that he could not divorce and marry another. Be prepared because the persecution is coming. To be a faithful Catholic in this post-Christian era will be to endure being labelled a bigot, losing a job or business, and facing fines and imprisonment for failure to recognize this sacrilege.
What will become of America? Either America will repent, or it will splinter apart as it continues down this road of rejecting the Christian ethic. There is one thing I know will not happen. This country will not mock God and remain prosperous and free. This is because the Christian ethic is the basis of true prosperity and freedom. When Christianity is rejected, you are left with confusion, chaos, and barbarism. The Jeremiahs who make these warnings are mocked and derided, yet when have they ever been wrong? The collapse will not be swift, but it will be certain. The cracks are already in the foundation.
