West Coast Regional Director
Thomas More Law Center
In June, 2008 this writer warned readers that the moral decay eroding the foundation of our nation was bringing it within one generation of collapse. I have tracked the decline of the U.S. over the past several decades to various landmark judicial decisions that sought to uncouple our nation from its Judeo-Christian moorings. That decline stands to be greatly escalated by three new judicial decisions over the last three months which I have dubbed the “trilogy of tyranny”.
The first such decision, in July, 2010, by a federal court judge in Massachusetts, overruled the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”). The second decision, in August 2010, by a federal judge in San Francisco, overruled Proposition 8 in California. The third decision, in September 2010, by another California federal judge, overruled the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, concerning the service of open homosexuals in the armed forces. Individually and collectively, they represent a further direct attack not only on our nation’s morality, but also on our notion of the need for a separation of powers between our three branches of the government.
Thomas Jefferson warned about federal judges becoming a powerful “oligarchy” that would seek to inflict their will over an unwilling populace. Most of us realize that public policy should be set by the people and their representatives in the state and federal legislatures, and not by unelected federal judges with lifetime appointments who answer to no one. The judiciary was intended by our enlightened founders to be the weakest branch of our government. Yet, it is increasingly usurping the power of the executive and the legislature and is becoming the strongest branch by sheer force of its own unbridled will.
In seeking to impose a new order of sexual immorality on the nation, these self-appointed ministers of modern secularism have taken a sledge hammer to our traditional notions of “religion and morality”–or what George Washington once called “these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.” Washington’s view was soundly rejected by Judge Walker Vaughn who authored the opinion striking down Prop. 8. In his view, “private morals or religious beliefs” can not serve as the basis for our laws — at least not in the absence of what he would consider a legitimate “secular purpose”— such as trying to make homosexuals feel good about their conduct or “relationships”.
According to Judge Walker and his followers, apparently Washington would simply be considered an irrational bigot — just like the seven million Californians that voted for Prop. 8 — and the people of 30 other states that also voted to preserve traditional marriage in their state constitutions. After all, the men who drafted the U.S. Constitution considered sodomy a serious crime and it was never tolerated in either the original thirteen colonies or in Washington’s Continental Army.
I have to ask, consistent with my premise in Part I of this article from a year ago, are there really any consequences to deviating from the precepts of religion and morality — particularly as they concern traditional marriage? In answering that question, rather than wasting any more time with these activist result oriented judges, who pander to a politically powerful and vocal minority, I will look instead for our answers to the writings of yet another great U.S. President.
In that regard, it was none other than our beloved Abraham Lincoln that had this to say on the subject of the importance of religion in the life of our nation: “It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God…to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures, and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord. We know that by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world.” So if these timeless truths were so obvious to great men like Washington and Lincoln, why do these contemporary federal judges and their leftist leaning cronies find them so difficult to understand?
I am reminded by the fate of the Pharaoh in the Old Testament who would not heed the warnings of Moses to let God’s people leave Egypt. Pharaoh’s heart became so hardened that he was blinded to the severe consequences of his actions even when his kingdom was afflicted with plagues of locusts and frogs and water turning to blood, etc. His own stubborn pride brought him and his unwitting subjects to ruin because he refused to obey the will of God. Our own nation’s current downward trajectory is also now so obvious that it is hard to believe that the haughty and proud leaders of the secularist movement cannot see where their disobedience to God’s will is taking us.
Most Americans today have lost confidence in their government. Indeed, for the first time in our nation’s history, it was reported earlier this month, by a Bloomberg National Poll, that a majority of us believe that our children’s generation will be worse off than our own. This pessimism is well justified by our chronically anemic economy. Even financial genius Bill Gross, CEO of PIMCO, reported this month that the declining dollar will lead to “a lower standard of living” in this country. He concluded that: “A future of low investment returns, and a heap of trouble for those expecting more, is what lies ahead.” Thus, we are reaping what we have sown. We have to decide if we are going to once again follow the lead of enlightened men like Washington and Lincoln, or let the secularists and their judicial minions hijack the nation and lead it to ruin.
As I predicted just over a year ago, time is fast running out. It has largely been on our watch, that is the baby boomer generation of which I am a part, that this disaster has happened. I still believe that by the grace of God we can turn this around, but only if we genuinely seek His help. And, we must vigorously resist the misguided and increasingly virulent efforts of those who would seek to have us reject the faith and morals that once made us a great nation. For starters, the three recent judicial decisions, that make up the “trilogy of tyranny”, must be recognized for the miscarriage of justice and usurpation of power that they represent, and they must be soundly rejected. If they are not, then our fate is sealed.
Note: My conclusions are based on the monumental study by Joseph Unwin, PhD., “Sexual Regulations and Cultural Behavior” synopsis here. S. Michael Craven used the same study for his series, “In Defense of Marriage July 7,2008-August 18, 2008, archived here.
Mr. LiMandri orginally posted both articles on Catholic Exchange.