The Supreme Court’s majority opinion in the overthrow of the Defense of Marriage Act made a mess of marriage. It opened a Pandora’s Box of future litigation and perversion that we are seeing every day in the United States. Polygamists see that they’re next in line for judicial satisfaction. Who would have thought that transgenderism and sexual perversion would be taught to elementary school children under the cover of law? But it’s happening. The slippery slope of moral decline was inevitable. You can’t mess with God’s design for marriage and not end up with dire consequences. We saw it with King David and King Solomon.
Thinking Straight in a Crooked World
The nursery rhyme "There Was a Crooked Man" is an appropriate description of how sin affects us and our world. We live in a crooked world of ideas evaluated by crooked people. Left to our crooked nature, we can never fully understand what God has planned for us and His world. God has not left us without a corrective solution. He has given us a reliable reference point in the Bible so we can identify the crookedness and straighten it.
Buy NowFor same-sex marriage to be dignified, same-sex sex had to be dignified. There is no way morally, biologically, reasonably, or historically that same-sex sex can be made to look respectable. But it’s become that. Once the abnormality of same-sex sex was dignified by legal fiat, we can no longer claim that any sexual relationship can be labeled inappropriate. As the 1934 Cole Porter song explains, “Anything Goes.”
Times have changed And we’ve often rewound the clock Since the Puritans got the shock When they landed on Plymouth Rock If today Any shock they should try to stem ’Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock Plymouth Rock would land on them
In olden days, a glimpse of stocking Was looked on as something shocking But now, God knows Anything goes Good authors, too, who once knew better words Now only use four-letter words Writing prose Anything goes
If driving fast cars you like If low bars you like If old hymns you like If bare limbs you like If Mae West you like Or me undressed you like Why, nobody will oppose When every night the set that’s smart is Intruding at nudist parties in studios Anything goes
By today’s standards, “Anything Goes” is mild, but the seeds of depravity were sprouting. Again, there is nothing new in this going back to Adam and Eve and their progeny. Sodom was a warning not heeded today.
This brings me to Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974). There are probably millions of people today who have never heard of Lindbergh. Lindbergh was a national hero after he made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean on May 20-21, 1927.
Then there is the kidnapping and murder of the Lindberg baby (Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr.) and the Trial of the Century that followed. “Newspaper writer H. L. Mencken called the kidnapping and subsequent trial ‘the biggest story since the Resurrection.”
If you don’t know much about Lindberg’s solo transatlantic flight, I suggest you sit down and watch The Spirit of St. Louis (1956) starring Jimmy Stewart. It was a huge event.
The hero Lindbergh had a secret. While married to Anne Morrow, he had two families in Germany. He was a secret polygamist.
[F]rom 1957 until his death in 1974, Lindbergh had a relationship with German hat maker Brigitte Hesshaimer (1926-2003) who lived in a small Bavarian town called Geretsried (35 km south of Munich). On November 23, 2003, DNA tests proved that he fathered her three children. The two managed to keep the love affair secret; even the children did not know the true identity of their father, whom they saw when he came to visit once or twice per year using the alias ‘Careu Kent.’ … At the same time as Lindbergh was involved with Brigitte Hesshaimer, he also had a relationship with her sister, Marietta (born 1924), who bore him two more sons.
The Supreme Court dealt with polygamy in Reynolds v. United States (1879). The Court ruled unanimously that a federal law banning polygamy was constitutional and did not infringe upon individuals’ First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. Also, in Davis v. Beason (1890) the Supreme Court affirmed, by a 9-0 vote, that federal laws against polygamy did not conflict with the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The basis for these rulings was not firm enough. The late Justice Scalia saw the handwriting on the wall when it came to legalizing same-sex marriage, but he didn’t see that sexual perversion would be celebrated for an entire month and major companies would promote the agenda in open displays.
If same-sex marriages are “dignified,” then what can anybody say against Lindbergh’s polygamist marriages? The Court has turned law on its head. Now everything is up for grabs. The moral fallout has been devastating. It didn’t stop with same-sex marriage and it won’t stop with bigamy and polygamy as a federal judge made evident in a Utah case. Give it time. It’s not that people are not living as adulterers, bigamists, and polygamists and won’t in the future. It’s been so since the beginning (Gen 4:19). The issue is the sanctioning of these relationships by the courts. It’s one thing to acknowledge that people act immorally, it’s another thing to abolish laws legitimizing such behaviors.
There is no longer a moral standard, a behavioral pou sto, a fixed moral place to stand. We are left with judges creating fiat law.
Restoring the Foundation of Civilization
There are many Christians who will not participate in civilization-building efforts that include economics, journalism, politics, education, and science because they believe (or have been taught to believe) these areas of thought are outside the realm of what constitutes a Christian worldview. Nothing could be further from the truth.
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