More than 10,000 sign-waving, hooting, and hollering true believers gathered on the National Mall this afternoon, and they had a message for the Supreme Court less than a mile away up Capitol Hill: the Court does not have the authority to redefine marriage, and the nine Justices dare not try.
At once a political rally and an Evangelical prayer meeting, the striking thing about the third annual March for Marriage was the sea of brown faces. The marchers were almost totally African-American and Hispanic, hundreds bussed in from New York City. This points up a theme of man-woman marriage proponents that gay marriage is a project mostly of white elites.
From the opening prayer by Bishop William Lori, the marchers were primed for a fight. Lori, Archbishop of Baltimore and Chairman of the U.S. Bishop’s committee on religious freedom, told the crowd that God was hearing their prayers that the country turn away from any “new and arbitrary definition of marriage,” and that individuals and businesses should be free to oppose the idea of same-sex marriage without “constraint of opprobrium.”
The President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Joseph Kurtz of Louisville said, “Marriage is and can only be the union of one man and one woman.” He called it a “beautiful truth,” and any effort to redefine marriage would be “the greatest social experiment in our history, and children do not need experiments. They need a mother and a father.”
Kurtz called same-sex advocates to civility in debate and said that “there must be room in the public square for the sacrificial love that a mother and a father share with their children.”
To a deafening roar from the crowd, Kurtz said, “We will not be silenced.”
In what was the most explicit call for possible civil disobedience, Liberty Council President Matthew Staver warned the Court, “Make no mistake, a redefinition of marriage is a line we will not cross.”
Mega-Church Pastor Jim Garlow of Skyline Church in San Diego also challenged the Court: “You mess with the definition of marriage and you burn, you’re toast, you cannot win. Your arms are too short to box with God. In 50 years they will laugh at you just like they’ll laugh at same-sex marriage.”
Present also but not speaking was the Pope’s Ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano. It is well known that Pope Francis has stoutly opposed any redefinition of marriage, both in his home country of Argentina and as Pope. In case there was any doubt, the Apostolic Nuncio’s presence along with high-ranking American Churchmen is a clear signal that the Catholic Church opposes any redefinition of marriage by the Supreme Court, where five Justices are also Catholic.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next week in a case that could result in the imposition of same-sex marriage on the entire country, overruling the laws in most of the states.
If the Court imposes same-sex marriage on the country, the U.S. will be an outlier internationally, as only Brazil has imposed gay marriage judicially.
Same-sex marriage advocates promote the narrative that the world is in favor of gay marriage. However, only 17 countries in the entire world allow for it. What’s more, a number of European courts have decided that gay marriage is not a human right. This might be compelling for the Court’s left wing that is always looking to foreign sources for their decisions.
Follow Austin Ruse on Twitter: @austinruse
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