On November 10, the Supreme Court declined to reconsider the landmark, 2015 Obergefell decision, which radically redefined marriage.
This is highly significant, since, even with the current 6-3 conservative majority, not enough justices were found who were willing to reopen the case – at least not now. And yet it was not that long ago in America that talk about same-sex “marriage” sounded as oxymoronic as talk about fast sloths.
That’s because marriage was universally understood to be the union of a male and female, and so, no matter how much two men or two women loved each other, and no matter how committed they were to each other, their union could not be considered marriage.
Put another way, just as 2+2=4 is math, not spelling, it was understood that man+man (or woman+woman) was something other than marriage.
What could be more basic than that?
This is not to deny that there are same-sex couples who are deeply committed to each other, nor is it to deny that many of them are committed parents as well. For them, there was a massive sigh of relief when SCOTUS declined to revisit Obergefell this past Monday.
My point, instead, is to help us realize just how far we have declined on a national, moral and cultural level, lest we congratulate ourselves for pushing back against radical transgender activism without realizing just how much ground has been lost.
In other words, while the “T” in LGBTQ+ activism is under fire, the LGB part of the equation is still firmly entrenched. And so, our celebration over victories in the culture wars – and without a doubt, there have been significant victories – should be tempered when we realize how far we have drifted as a nation.
This is underscored when we realize that redefining marriage was not even on the map for the early gay activists, many (if not most) of whom viewed marriage with disdain, seeing it as a vestige of heterosexual patriarchy.
That’s why, in 1971, when John Singer and Paul Barwick, two Seattle gay men, filed an application to receive a marriage license, they did so as a “political ploy” to ridicule the system, not to endorse it, In their words,
“Although we are seeking a marriage license from the state of Washington, this in no way implies that we accept or condone the institution of marriage. On the contrary, we would prefer the abolition of all laws governing sexual behavior and the abolition of the institution of marriage itself.” (See here for an important study with source quotes.)
As stated by the Australian-American gay activist Dennis Altman in his 1971 book, Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation:
“[Gay] marriage . . . is simply aping the straight world and would reinforce all the worst aspects of that world—its possessiveness, its often hypocritical concern with sexual fidelity, its desire to create nuclear families isolated from the wider society.”
For Altman and many other early gay activists, the nuclear family itself was an enemy to be dismantled, as can easily be illustrated with many similar quotes, reflecting the ideology of those early gay activists.
Again, this underscores just how far we have fallen in terms of our national conscience and our recognition of the importance of marriage as intended by God, namely the lifelong union of a man and a woman.
And so to say, “Look at how well we’re doing!” would be similar to telling the victim of a near-fatal car crash that they’re “doing great” as they relearn how to walk.
Let us not deceive ourselves.
But perhaps the best way to illustrate where we stand today is to revisit an infamous 1987 article by gay activist Steve Warren. It was called “Warning to the Homophobes” and was published in the flagship gay publication The Advocate, although it was considered radical by many back then and was intentionally overstated.
Warren declared,
“1. Henceforth, homosexuality will be spoken of in your churches and synagogues as an ‘honorable estate.’
“2. You can either let us marry people of the same sex, or better yet abolish marriage altogether. . . .
“3. You will be expected to offer ceremonies that bless our sexual arrangements. . . . You will also instruct your people in homosexual as well as heterosexual behavior, and you will go out of your way to make certain that homosexual youths are allowed to date, attend religious functions together, openly display affection, and enjoy each other's sexuality without embarrassment or guilt.
“4. If any of the older people in your midst object, you will deal with them sternly, making certain they renounce their ugly and ignorant homophobia or suffer public humiliation.
“5. You will also make certain that ... laws are passed forbidding discrimination against homosexuals and heavy punishments are assessed. . . .
“6. Finally, we will in all likelihood want to expunge a number of passages from your Scriptures and rewrite others, eliminating preferential treatment of marriage and using words that will allow for homosexual interpretations of passages describing biblical lovers such as Ruth and Boaz or Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Warning: If all these things do not come to pass quickly, we will subject Orthodox Jews and Christians to the most sustained hatred and vilification in recent memory. We have captured the liberal establishment and the press. We have already beaten you on a number of battlefields. ... You have neither the faith nor the strength to fight us, so you might as well surrender now.”
And just as he wrote, in what seemed like highly exaggerated, overstated tones, it has come to pass. It is high time that we wake up.
This does not mean that we despise gay couples or families. But it does mean that, if we want to see a real, sweeping, national awakening, the revival will have to go deeper. Much deeper!
