By L.A. Williams, Correspondent
Christian Action League
August 14, 2014
“Inevitable,” “unavoidable,” “only a matter of time,” “a foregone conclusion” — if you’ve heard these types of descriptions in recent same-sex marriage news bytes, you haven’t heard the whole story, said the Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League.
Despite some major blows delivered by the judiciary to believers in biblical marriage, a number of recent events reveal this fight is far from over.
In fact, just days ago a Roane County Circuit Court Judge ruled that Tennessee’s marriage protection amendment does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. In his ruling, Judge Russell Simmons Jr. contends that defining marriage should be the prerogative of the state.
“The Court finds that marriage is a fundamental right. However, neither the Tennessee Supreme Court nor the U.S. Supreme Court has ever decided that the fundamental right under a state’s laws extends beyond the traditional definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman,” wrote Simmons, who further explained that Tennessee laws regarding marriage — including the state’s MPA passed by 81 percent of the voters in 2006 — “have a rational basis and a reasonable relationship to a legitimate state interest.”
“Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race,” Simmons wrote. “Marriage can simply not be divorced from its traditional procreative purpose.”
A week or so before Simmons’ ruling on the Volunteer state’s anti-recognition law, the European Court of Human Rights determined that the European Convention of Human Rights does not require that nations recognize gay marriage.
“Acknowledging that only 10 of the 47 states in the EU recognize same-sex marriages, the decision supports our argument that same-sex marriage is not a fundamental right,” said Tami Fitzgerald with the NC Values Coalition.
“The court concluded it would be better to let the debate continue rather than impose a universal solution on all the countries in the European Union.”
Dr. Creech said although foreign law doesn’t apply to the United States, the parallel is obvious. Just as European countries should not have same-sex marriage forced on them, neither should the Supreme Court mandate all 50 U.S. states redefine marriage.
In yet another legal development that could bode well for traditional marriage, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments about the MPAs in Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee and Ohio, and according to the National Organization for Marriage “looks poised to deliver a decisive blow to the ‘inevitability’ narrative.”
Dr. Creech said that even amid the bad news of the 4th Circuit Court’s refusal to stay its decision against Virginia’s MPA, the battle for traditional marriage is not “futile” as North Carolina’s Attorney General Roy Cooper might have us believe.
“This is just the kind of propaganda I’ve spoken about before — the Tokyo Rose Effect — that too often keeps folks from fighting the good fight because they’re convinced early on that they’ve already lost,” Dr. Creech said. “Too often media bias keeps the good news from spreading and leaves folks believing it’s too late to make a difference.”
“Instead of buying into that lie that traditional marriage is history, we need to be on our knees calling out to the One who holds history in His hands,” he added. “God is still on His throne.”