Civil Commotion

Alan Keyes says a Supreme Court decision upholding same-sex marriage would be grounds for war.

If the United States Supreme Court presumes to impose any redefinition of marriage on the states, respectively, or the people, without addressing the issue of unalienable right it involves, with reasoning that respects God-endowed right (which is the logic by which the American people asserted, and still claim to possess and exercise, sovereign authority over themselves), the Court’s decision will be an attack on the very foundation of constitutional government, of by and for the people of the United States. It will be a high crime and misdemeanor that effectively dissolves the just bonds of government between and among the states, and among the individuals who compose the people of the United States. It will therefore be just cause for war.

Or, the matter might be merely that Alan Keyes is crazy.

For many years, here in America, we have lived in a predominately Christian culture. Most of our neighbors shared our Judeo-Christian worldview. When you told people that you were a minister they responded with respect.

Times have changed. Now when I tell people that I am a pastor they ask why I’ve given my life to promoting fairy tales.

Pastor Mike Leake

Yeah. Good question.

Dr. Danny Akin, The head of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, discusses same-sex marriage and explains why he is against it.

In light of the clear and consistent teaching of the Bible, it is simply not possible for me to affirm or support same-sex marriage. In biblical terms, same-sex marriage is not possible because it is not marriage. Biblical marriage by definition is heterosexual marriage.

Because, you know, Genesis says so.

I give Akin credit for this much: He is at least honest; the Bible says so, and that’s that.

But-but-but … what if the Bible is wrong? Oh, n-o-o-o — the Bible is inerrant

Did Akin intend, by his frankness, to give away the intellectual dishonesty of theology? I doubt that, but he certainly has. The truth of the Bible is the first premise and not susceptible of examination. When he says the Bible is inerrant, it is pure assertion — an assertion not supported by facts, and in a great many matters contradicted by incontestable facts.

That is what he reasons from. Theology is more like a game of “What if” than an intellectually serious enterprise.

David Corn profiles the would-be Republican nominee for President.

On Monday morning, Carly Fiorina, a former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and a failed 2010 Senate candidate, announced that she too is running for the GOP presidential nomination. “I think I’m the best person for the job because I understand how the economy actually works,” she said on Good Morning America. “I understand the world; who’s in it.” Not coincidentally, she has a new book coming out this week.

Fiorina’s sole claim to president-ish experience is her tenure at HP, and that stint was marked by layoffs, outsourcing, conflict, and controversy—so much so that several prominent former HP colleagues recoil at the idea of Fiorina managing any enterprise again, let alone the executive branch.

I can’t imagine her winning the general election, but I bet the Republican establishment adores her.

Dr. Dobson has just raised the stakes. He said a few weeks ago that legalization of same-sex marriage could lead to civil war but, thinking it over, he has decided that it’s worse than that: Legalization of same-sex marriage could lead to the collapse of the whole of Western Civilization itself!!

In late June or early July, the justices will reveal their decision to either affirm the definition of marriage as being exclusively between one man and one woman, or it will redefine this institution to include same-sex unions. If marriage is to be reconfigured in the law, which court-watchers predict is almost certain, every dimension of the culture will be adversely affected. It will be one of the most momentous rulings in U.S. history, tantamount to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

[ … ]

I do not recall a time when the institutions of marriage and the family have faced such peril, or when the forces arrayed against them were more formidable or determined. Barring a miracle, the family that has existed since antiquity will likely crumble, presaging the fall of Western civilization itself. This is a time for concerted prayer, divine wisdom and greater courage than we have ever been called upon to exercise.

But, of course, there have been same-sex couples since antiquity. There obviously were same-sex couples when somebody-or-other was busy writing Leviticus. According to Plato, there were same-sex couples around as Socrates laid the groundwork for the whole of Western ethical thought. There were probably same-sex couples in the mob that chose Barrabas over Jesus, and same-sex couples who mourned Jesus’ crucifixion. There certainly were same-sex couples amongst the remote and forlorn monks who saved Western literature and thought after its collapse following the rise of the Roman Church at the end of the 4^th-century, and there were same-sex couples as the Renaissance rediscovered Epicurus and Western civilization staggered back to its feet. There were same-sex couples spurring the Enlightenment.

None of that could have happened if they hadn’t been in the closet? Really?

Why does anybody take these yahoos seriously?