President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called December 7, 1941—the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor—“a day which will live in infamy.” Likewise, many Americans view September 11, 2001—the date terrorists attacked our nation—as “a day that will live in infamy.” On both occasions our nation’s survival was threatened by foreign foes attacking on our home soil. Our response to both attacks was to go to war against our enemies.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Seminary, has called May 17, 2004—the day same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts—“a day that will live in moral infamy.” According to Dr. Mohler, “The attacks on Pearl Harbor, New York and Washington awakened the nation to peril and called citizens to action. That must happen once again, as millions of Americans must now awaken to the fact that an out-of-control judiciary and an army of social engineers are forcing their will upon us.

If the Massachusetts decision is allowed to stand, this nation faces nothing less than moral disaster. America is now a nation at war with itself, and with marriage.”

This unprecedented event in American history, namely, the legalizing of same-sex marriage, has been brought about by a 4 to 3 ruling on November 18, 2003, by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The court’s ruling gave the Massachusetts state legislature six months to pass a law legalizing same-sex marriage. Far from basing its decision on existing law, which is what courts are suppose to do, a quartet of Massachusetts judges ordered the state legislature to create a law to buttress their opinion. According to these justices’ judicial fiat, Massachusetts municipalities were to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples on May 17, 2004. On this day, Massachusetts became the first state in America and America the fourth nation in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. It now remains to be seen whether or not the American people will stand by silently while four liberal judges redefine by themselves the age-old institution of marriage.

Marriage is the God ordained, bedrock institution of all orderly society. In fact, it is one of only three divinely ordained institutions in the world; government and the church being the other two. Ordained by God for the purpose of procreation and proper child rearing (Genesis 1:26-28), marriage cannot be compromised without:

·        Revolting against God’s divine design

·        Unraveling the fabric of orderly society

·        Robbing children of needed role models—father and mother

·        Robbing children of needed relationships—paternal, maternal and sibling

·        Robbing children of a secure and healthy development

·        Endangering the future of the human race

Many will dismiss these foreboding consequences of our legalization of same-sex marriage as the height of hyperbole. After all, they insist, gays and lesbians are only seeking equal rights. Yet, in actuality, gays and lesbians have always had the same right to marry as anyone else. They have always had the right to enter into a lifetime partnership with a member of the opposite sex for the purpose of procreation. The problem, however, is that gays and lesbians want nothing to do with marriage. Instead, they want to redefine it to fit their perversion. If successful, they will open Pandora’s Box and imperil our nation’s future.

Once the pebble of same-sex marriage is cast into the pond by today’s courts, the ripples in our society will never stop. Courts setting a legal precedent for same-sex marriage will render themselves incapable of prohibiting two marriages for bisexuals, multiple marriages for polygamists or the marrying of minors to pedophiles. Any attempt by the courts to condemn any of the latter will undermine their justification of the former, resulting in courts arguing against themselves and ignoring their own legal precedent.

Stretching the definition of marriage to encompass gay unions on the false premise of antidiscrimination will inevitably lead to redefining marriage to the lowest common denominator. Marriage will be defined down until it is all-inclusive, nondescript, offensive to no one and agreeable to everyone. In other words, marriage will be reduced to meaninglessness.

Imagine an America in which all sexual relationships are deemed marriageable and any dissent is denounced as discriminatory. Imagine an America where public schools teach the moral equivalency of heterosexuality, homosexuality, bestiality and pedophilia. Imagine an America in which children born to gay and lesbian couples are not the product of their parents’ love, but of artificial insemination and vials of semen stored in sperm banks. Imagine an America in which your church forfeits its tax exemption over its refusal to accept homosexual members into membership. Imagine an America in which you and your pastor face litigation—you for your refusal to rent property to a gay or lesbian couple and your pastor for refusing to perform a same-sex wedding ceremony. Imagine an America in which the words of sacred Scripture are considered hate speech, the practice of the Christian faith a hate crime, and all Christians hatemongers.

To imagine such an America is no longer too difficult or farfetched. Indeed, it may be materializing before our very eyes. Thanks to today’s militant gay rights movement, despotic judiciary, complicit politicians, silent populace and sleeping church; America may be seeing the handwriting on the wall (Daniel 5:1-31).

In his classic work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon shows how Rome was not conquered by enemies from without, but by corruption from within. Though America has always had its share of external foes, such as Emperor Hirohito in the past and Osama bin Laden today, our nation’s greatest threat has always been internal corruption. Thus, the more serious threat to our nation’s survival today is not losing the war on terrorism to Al Qaeda, but losing the culture war to today’s secularists.

The first shot fired by British infantry on American militiamen at Lexington Square on April 19, 1775, has been called by historians “the shot heard around the world.” It was this shot that started the Revolutionary War. Once again a shot has been fired in Massachusetts. This time, however, it was not fired by British infantry on American militiamen, but by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on the institution of traditional marriage. This shot has not started another War of Independence, but may have begun the final and decisive battle of today’s culture war. Though it may never be heard around the world, it better be heard by the church in America. If we lose this battle the culture war is over; America is lost!

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