The Supreme Court today has "turned away appeals from five states looking to prohibit gay marriage, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage in those states and likely others -- but also leaving the issue unresolved nationally." So now same-sex "marriage" is legal in 30 states plus D.C.
My boss Tony Perkins issued a thoughtful statement about the ruling earlier today. In part, he said, "As more states are forced to redefine marriage, contrary to nature and directly in conflict with the will of millions, more Americans will see and experience attacks on their religious freedom." Sadly, he's dead right.
There are a number of dimensions to this issue, one of which was articulated by Dr. Al Mohler of Southern Baptist Seminary in an article on September 24: Homosexuality is "now inescapable for every congregation, every denomination, every seminary, and every Christian organization. The question will be asked and some answer will be given. When the question is asked, any answer that is not completely consistent with the church's historical understanding of sexual morality and the full affirmation of biblical authority will mean a full embrace of same-sex behaviors and same-sex relationships. There is no third way, and there never was."
Two observations: First, Dr. Mohler is right with respect to the inevitability of division within the believing church over this issue. Christians will choose to be faithful to Scriptural teaching or they won't. There is not, as he notes, nor will there ever be, any middle ground between obedience and submission to the revealed will of God and rebellion against it.
Second, I'm haunted by the memory of William Seward's comment, immediately before the Civil War, that strife between North and South over slavery constituted "an irrepressible conflict."
Millions of Americans simmer with resentment at the coerced redefinition of marriage the courts are imposing on them, despite referenda in dozens of states where they have affirmed the traditional definition of marriage quite explicitly. The Dred Scott decision did not decide the issue of human bondage. The Roe v. Wade decision has not decided the issue of abortion on demand. And the continued federal court confusion over same-sex unions only postpones a day of legal reckoning that could create a measure of civic sundering unwitnessed in our nation for decades.
Even if the Supreme Court has valid reasons for postponing their decision on this issue, postponement is not resolution. I fear that whatever decision the Supremes finally reach will not resolve it, either.
