By L.A. Williams
Christian Action League
November 18, 2022
“Marriage is the nucleus of social order. If marriage fails, the home fails. If the home fails, so does the nation,” said The Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League, in the wake of this week’s Senate vote to advance HR 8404. “This is not an extremist view. It is the only view grounded in truth.”
Creech’s warning about the misnamed “Respect for Marriage Act,” echoed by a number of conservative organizations that pointed out the egregious effects of the bill, seemed to fall on deaf ears in Washington and in North Carolina, as Senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis were among a dozen Republicans joining Democrats to move the measure forward via a 62-37 vote. Senate leaders plan to push for a final vote on the bill by Thanksgiving, and it is expected to pass through the House by the end of the year.
While supporters claim that the law is needed to protect same-sex and inter-racial unions, in truth it will only open the door to pedophilic marriages and undermine religious liberty, Creech explains.
“Codifying same-sex marriage into federal law constitutes an official endorsement by the federal government that marriage is mainly an arrangement for the benefit of adults; that husband and wife, mother and father are merely optional to the family and therefore meaningless; that alternative family forms are just as good as a husband and wife rearing kids, and that gender doesn’t matter for the family,” he said. “This is about to be the federal government’s official position on marriage, and regardless of initiatives in the legislation to protect the differences of those who hold to traditional marriage, maintaining and practicing a different view than that of the federal government still makes one vulnerable to legal reprisals.”
Creech said an amendment to the bill offered by Tillis (R-NC) and other Senators in the name of religious liberty does little to improve the measure, which ultimately “doubles down on the unjust judicial activism of the U.S. Supreme Court, which imposed same-sex marriage in Obergfell v. Hodges.”
Matt Sharp, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, agreed that the amendment does little to protect freedom.
“Whatever lip service they may be paying in this amendment is not going to take away the fact that we are completely blowing up the understanding of marriage, disrespecting people and organizations that believe marriage is between one man and one woman, and opening them up to lawsuits, not just from the federal government, but from other people,” Sharp told Christian Broadcasting Network.
“People of faith are coming under increased aggression from the federal government and state governments over their beliefs about marriage and family. And so what the so-called Respect for Marriage Act is going to do is give more authority to the federal government to be able to enforce this broad understanding that marriage is anything that a state says it is,” he said.
According to HR 8404, states would have to recognize marriages of any kind established in other states, including those involving children. For example, in California, there is no minimum marriage age as long as at least one parent signs off on the agreement. In fact, children as young as 10 years old have been the victim of pedophilic unions.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said HR 8404 would trample religious freedom and is a clear violation of the constitution.
“It will undermine the 303 Creative case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court and will force individuals who engage in artistic expression to violate their religious convictions concerning marriage,” he said. “Congress has absolutely no authority to regulate marriage within the several states.”
Staver pointed out that “in striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the reverse of the ill-named Respect for Marriage Act, the U.S. Supreme Court stated in United States v. Windsor that “[b]y history and tradition the definition and regulation of marriage . . . has been treated as being within the authority and realm of the separate States.'”
“The bills are virtually identical with the opposite conclusion. DOMA said that marriage would only be recognized at the federal level as between a man and wife. HR 8404 by contrast, expands that definition to include all individuals,” Staver said. “If Congress cannot enact the one, then the necessary constitutional corollary is that Congress cannot enact the other as well.”
While national conservative legal organizations vowed to continue to fight the proposed legislation, the Rev. Creech urged Christian parents to consider the effects it will have on their children.
“Since we can expect it to become the federal government’s official position on marriage, we can also expect it to be the official position taught to our children and grandchildren in public schools,” Creech wrote in the CAL’s press release on the issue.
He added: “I agree with the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Al Mohler, who recently wrote: ‘Anyone who would redefine marriage, the most fundamental building block of society, is no conservative, no friend of the natural family, and no defender of family values.’”
