June 30, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) — On Friday the US Supreme Court in a 5 to 4 decision—led by so-called Catholic Justice Anthony Kennedy—ruled that all 50 states must recognize gay so-called “marriage” as marriage according to the rights guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Let me say right out—there’s ultimately only one thing wrong with the Court’s decision and it’s this: Gay marriage is not marriage. What has just happened is that 5 mere human beings have completely re-defined marriage and thus have imposed a kind of madness on our society—madness in the sense that an immoral form of sexual behavior is called the equivalent of conjugal nuptial love—and to treat such unions as the moral equivalent of marriage is madness. Welcome to the insane asylum—that’s where you are now.
What happened today is the second to the last scene in a four act sad cultural drama—indeed a tragedy. The first act was the beginnings of acceptance of contraception by society and the Christian churches; the second act, the advent of the Birth Control Pill in the 1950s; the third act, the continued breakdown of marriage in the last 40 years (sex without marriage, couples living together, divorce, no-fault divorce, artificial reproduction, and of course abortion, all among heterosexuals); and the fourth and final act, the rise of the gay rights movement and its triumph today—that unnatural sexual unions must be regarded the same as marriage.
Why is this gay “marriage” victory only the second to the last scene in this fourth act of our tragic social drama, and not the last scene itself? The last scene of the tragedy is the persecution of those who do not accept the madness.
It makes little difference that the Kennedy-written opinion contains rhetoric to the effect that the Constitution protects the right of people to voice their views and advocate their views that gay “marriage” is not marriage. Such rhetoric will not matter. Now that the high court has said that what gays do in the bedroom is a matter of human rights and human dignity, and has cut off the political process on this issue, a cultural, social chill is created against those who do not agree with the Court—against those who refuse to be dragged into this cultural madness.
Those who do not accept so-called gay “marriage” are already viewed as ethically backwards, intolerant, and steeped in a narrow-minded religious bigotry. It will only get worse for those of us who actually believe that marriage means something—that it is a God-designed institution.
Today the court foisted upon America a completely subjectivist, relativistic view of human sexuality. Marriage is not regarded as an objective social/moral covenant that provides culture with innate order and structure and takes civilization into the future. Marriage is completely—and I need to emphasize this—completely relegated to emotions, feelings, romance—and that’s essentially it! Indeed, one lesbian interviewed on WWJ radio said: “I want to be married for my own reasons.” This is a good statement on what marriage has come to mean, not just for gays, but for just about everyone—as if marriage had no objective moral or social meaning. Rather it’s just something I do for myself.
Today there is much celebrating going on, with social pundits and political figures like Obama himself congratulating the gay rights movement for never giving up in the advancement of their cause!
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But let’s be very clear, it’s not the gay rights movement that should be congratulated. Rather it’s the heterosexual community that deserves the most credit for this gay rights victory. The success of the gay rights movement has only been possible due to the fact that the heterosexual community paved the way for it—as much of the sexual activity practiced by the heterosexual community cannot be called marriage either! (Please see my article here providing one of the most cogent arguments on the difference between gay sexual unions and marriage.)
When the Court made its decision I was at Mass praying that the Court would not make the decision that it did make. When I emerged from Mass, I entered a different world. My urge was to dash home, read my emails, listen to my voice mail messages—maybe there were requests from the media for interviews (there were a few) and make some kind of response. It took a huge exertion of will to refuse that compulsion as I thought I should instead pray the Stations of the Cross.
Thus I forced myself to drive to my husband’s Catholic School where there are outdoor (somewhat neglected) Stations. I prayed them, walking from one station to the other up the hill behind the school. When I came to the Fifth Station—Simon Helps Jesus Carry His Cross—I was struck with the realization that this is what God is asking of me now—perhaps asking of all of us—as if He was saying: “Help me now to carry this cross.” So in this time of darkness and madness—our Lord on the Via Dolorosa—where God Himself was deemed a criminal in the eyes of the world— asks us to help Him carry the Cross—and this is what we must do.
Do not despair and do not be afraid. For love of Christ—let us carry the Cross of love and truth.
While the last scene of the drama is persecution—another play is being written. It is the drama in which we reclaim the culture by a new evangelization. This is our holy task. Let us go forward. The God of the Resurrection is calling us.
One final note—we can lay the blame for the Court’s decision at the door step of the Church. The weakness of Christian witness from bishops down to the last man in the pew is the reason why we are facing this moral dissolution. And yet –the light is still there—as it is really only the Church that has the ability to reverse this time of darkness.
Monica Miller is director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society and author of “Abandoned–The Untold Story of the Abortion Wars”, and the new book “The Authority of Women in the Catholic Church” (Emmaus Road Publishing).