10 years ago the people of Montana, by an over whelming majority, said marriage should be defined in our State Constitution as a union between one man and one woman. We needed to collect 40, 000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot–we gathered 85, 000! It needed to pass by over 50%, it passed by nearly 70%. The people spoke and they spoke clearly. Now all that could change. Montana’s Marriage Amendment could be struck down by a federal judge as early as next week. The truly sad part is that the will of the vast majority of Americans is being negated by a small minority of liberal judges casting what amounts to “Super Votes”. In Montana, US District Court Judge Brian Morris’ super vote would nullify the votes of 295, 000 Montanans who voted to preserve natural marriage. His one vote would trump the votes of 1/3 of all Montanans living in the state at the time CI-96 (Montana’s Marriage Amendment) was passed. Forget for a moment that he’s a judge—how is it possible for one man to nullify the votes of nearly 300,000 of his fellow citizens? How did judges ever amass so much power? When did “We the People” decide to give up our sovereignty to a small band of our fellow citizens who never even stand for elections? The stark reality is that we are being ruled by judicial decree.
In some states, marriage amendments passed by 80%. If one judge can nullify the will of 80% of the votes in a direct election on a constitutional initiative, then “We the People” have truly lost the ability to chart our own destiny. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals got it right last week when they refused to allow same-sex marriage in four states, saying this is a political issue that must be left to the people to decide. They refused to, in no uncertain terms, legislate from the bench. None of this is a surprise and we only have ourselves to blame. Elections have consequences, and when Christians sit on the sidelines and refuse to vote as they have in recent elections, liberal presidents get elected and liberal presidents appoint carefully selected liberal judges, and liberal judges push a liberal political agenda from the bench. It’s no surprise; in fact it’s a fait accompli. The fact that marriage amendments are being overturned and that marriage will soon be defined as a union between several people who are committed to each other is not a sign of a nation rising from the dark ages and becoming enlightened. It’s a sign of a nation in moral decline, spiraling down into a black abyss that will take generations to climb out of. Once we see the true downside of this grand social experiment and realize that kids really do need a mom and a dad, the damage will have been done and it will be up to future generations to put the pieces back together. To re-instill in our culture the simple truth that a family–made up of a mom, a dad, and their kids–is the most basic building block of a moral, just, and free society.
I predict a time will come in the future when we will look back and remember that kids raised in an intact home with their biological parents do better by every social measure than children raised in any other situation. And when we do, we’ll throw same-sex marriage on the scrap heap of failed social experiments and get back to what actually works for kids.
