John R. Houk
© April 8, 2015
What do Public Advocate of the U.S., Joyce Meyer Ministries, the Lincoln Institute, the Abraham Lincoln Foundation, Institute on the Constitution, Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund and Pastor Chuck Baldwin have in common? Include in that commonality these organizations and Ministries: National Religious Broadcasters, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Samaritan’s Purse, In Touch Ministries, Pathway to Victory, The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview, Dallas Theological Seminary, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Daniel L. Akin, Mark L. Bailey, Francis J. Beckwith, Robert A.J. Gagnon, Robert Jeffress, Byron R. Johnson, Eric Metaxas, Albert Mohler Jr., Charles F. Stanley, John Stonestreet and Owen Strachan.
What they ALL do have in common are the U.S. Appellate, Supreme Court and Traditional Marriage. They all are taking a stand against homosexual same-sex legally mandated marriage ESPECIALLY as the Judicial Branch making it legal as opposed to State legislatures and people’s State Initiatives.
ONLY a handful of American States have made same-sex marriage legal by legislative action or a voter’s Initiative. A significant majority of American States have been forced to recognize same-sex marriage at the hands of the Federal Judicial system on every level.
SO, I have to wonder. What Constitutional Article or Amendment gives the Judicial Branch to legislate laws? My understanding of the U.S. Constitution is that only the Amendment process of the U.S. Congress and/or each individual American State has that authority. All the Courts should be involved with is ruling if a law is constitutional or not. Then order the appropriate action from Congress to correct any unconstitutional provisions of a law. AND if the U.S. Constitution does not address an issue each individual State has the Liberty enact a law pertaining to its jurisdiction.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Here is a pretty good picture of the Original Intent of the 10th Amendment which includes the legal marriage of the 9th Amendment:
Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
What was the original purpose of these two Amendments? … The truth of the matter is that the two Amendments were intended to be a pair that would secure the rights of the people by ensuring a federal government of limited powers. The original purpose of what became the Ninth and Tenth Amendments is embodied in a letter from James Madison to George Washington in 1789. Madison wrote, "If a line can be drawn between the [federal] powers granted and the rights retained, it would seem to be the same thing, whether the latter be secured by declaring that they shall not be abridged, or that the former shall not be extended." In other words, what became the Ninth and Tenth Amendments serve virtually identical and reciprocal purposes. (Bold-Italic text added by this Editor)
… The Tenth plainly says that there is a federal government only of limited enumerated powers. This is of course a most important principle to announce and clearly enshrine in the Constitution, but it alone is not enough precisely because those powers can always be interpreted to be limitless. … The Ninth was therefore also included to say that in applying those federal enumerated powers, it is forbidden to construe them to the point where everything conceivable falls within those powers so long as they do not violate a right specified in the previous listed Amendments to the Constitution that became the Bill of Rights. The Tenth Amendment stands for the proposition that there is only an enumeration of powers and no more, and the Ninth stands for the proposition that the notion of limited and defined powers is to be taken seriously.
Federalist (those who argued for the ratification of the Constitution) Governor Edmund Randolph clearly expressed this intent behind what would later became the Ninth and Tenth Amendments at the Virginia Ratifying Convention of 1788. He asked, "If it would not fatigue the house too far, I would go back to the question of reserved rights. The gentleman supposes that complete and unlimited legislation is vested in the Congress of the United States. This supposition is founded on false reasoning... [I]n the general [federal] Constitution, its powers are enumerated. Is it not, then, fairly deducible, that it has no power but what is expressly given it?--for if its powers were to be general, an enumeration would be needless... [Regarding a government] body arising from a compact, and with certain delineated powers...a bill of rights...would not be [necessary]... for the best security that can be...is the express enumeration of its powers" (emphasis added). The "retained rights" of the Ninth Amendment are reserved by the Tenth Amendment's making clear there is an enumeration of powers. It is in making sure that the federal government is one of limited and defined powers, and that these limitations are taken seriously, that the reserved rights of the people are protected.
Nonetheless, this concern underlying the Ninth and Tenth Amendments is in contravention with Supreme Court jurisprudence. The principles announced in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments has been intentionally gutted by the modern Supreme Court since the New Deal. … The Court stated in the most famous footnote of Constitutional law, in Footnote 4 of the US v. Carolene Products (1938) decision, that there is a "narrower scope for operation of the presumption of Constitutionality when legislation appears on its face to be within a specific prohibition of the Constitution, such as those of the first ten amendments." The idea expressed by the Supreme Court is the most famous footnote precisely because it is still the framework for much of Supreme Court jurisprudence today. The footnote states that there is a "presumption of Constitutionality" given to federal laws unless a right enumerated in the first ten amendments is at issue. This specifically turns the original meaning of the Ninth Amendment on its head, it contradicts the very purpose of the Ninth Amendment's inclusion at the end of the Bill of Rights. SHOULD READ ENTIRETY (Original Purpose Of The Most Significant Ignored Amendments To The Constitution: The 9th And 10th; By Steve Lackner; Free Republic; 6/30/11 [at SteveLackner.com – dead link at time of posting] and 7/1/11 3:32:19 AM [at Free Republic])
Undoubtedly a little more research will uncover more SCOTUS overreach, but I want to draw attention to a report by Bob Unruh writing for WND. Unruh’s post is the source of the organizations and Ministries I listed above that are taking a stand for Religious Liberty and a stand against the moral abomination of homosexual same-sex marriage.
Those great Christians are confronting the SCOTUS Justices with the Word of God and the fact that SCOTUS rulings are infringing on the Rights of individual States to define what marriage is.
Unfortunately the Unruh article only focuses on First Amendment violations forced on We The People rather including the imperative of the 10th Amendment and I discovered in reading up on this issue, the significance of the 9th Amendment.
JRH 4/8/15
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SUPREMES WARNED: 'GOD'S JUDGMENT' NOW LOOMING
'Scripture attests that perversions violate the law of the land'
April 7, 2015
In a stunningly blunt brief, a team of lawyers acting on behalf of a number of Christian and liberty-focused organizations has told the U.S. Supreme Court that to mandate same-sex marriage is to invite God’s judgment.
And that’s probably not going to turn out well.
The brief was filed by the William J. Olson law firm and the U.S. Justice Foundation on behalf of Public Advocate of the U.S., Joyce Meyer Ministries, the Lincoln Institute, the Abraham Lincoln Foundation, Institute on the Constitution, Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund and pastor Chuck Baldwin.
The Supreme Court is to hear arguments later this month in a case coming from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in which judges said state residents are allowed to define marriage in their state. The appeal to the Supreme Court contends barring same-sex marriage violates the U.S. Constitution.
Other briefs already have pointed out that marriage existed before any government, law or constitution, so the judiciary doesn’t have the authority to allow people to simply change the definition.
The new brief goes much further.
“Should the court require the states and the people to ‘ritualize’ sodomite behavior by government issuance of a state marriage license, it could bring God’s judgment on the nation,” the brief warns. “Holy Scripture attests that homosexual behavior and other sexual perversions violate the law of the land, and when the land is ‘defiled,’ the people have been cast out of their homes.”
The brief cites Leviticus 18:22 and 24-30, a biblical passages that seldom finds its way into popular discourse.
Verse 22 states, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”
And the subsequent section warns against such defilement.
“If you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you. … Keep my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them,” the Old Testament passage states.
The court filing, citing the book of 2nd Peter, continues: “Although some would assert that these rules apply only to the theocracy of ancient Israel, the Apostle Peter rejects that view: ‘For if God … turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha (sic) into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly’” (King James Version).
The brief says the “continuing application of this Levitical prohibition is confirmed by the Book of Jude: ‘Even as Sodom and Gomorrha (sic), and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”
The brief argues: “Whatever justification any judge may believe compels a state to define marriage to include same-sex couples, it is not found in the Constitution, nor is it based in any constitutional principles. For any judge to require a state to define marriage to include same-sex couples is an usurpation of authority that he does not have under the laws of man or God, and is thus illegal.”
“God’s Word doesn’t need a majority vote. God’s Word is true regardless of the winds of moral change, and we must stand up for biblical truth in the midst of a depraved society.”
WND previously reported some of the top names in Christian ministry – including the National Religious Broadcasters, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the Chuck Colson Center, Southern Baptists, Albert Mohler and Charles Stanley – asked the U.S. Supreme Court to protect marriage as God defined it.
Their brief also was filed in the Obergefell v. Hodges case, where the 6th Circuit ruled residents of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee can define marriage for themselves.
That brief was filed by Liberty Institute on behalf of the National Religious Broadcasters, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Samaritan’s Purse, In Touch Ministries, Pathway to Victory, The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview, Dallas Theological Seminary, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Daniel L. Akin, Mark L. Bailey, Francis J. Beckwith, Robert A.J. Gagnon, Robert Jeffress, Byron R. Johnson, Eric Metaxas, Albert Mohler Jr., Charles F. Stanley, John Stonestreet and Owen Strachan.
“In reaching its decision, this court should reaffirm that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment protects religious dissenters who disagree with state-recognized same-sex marriage and to reaffirm the importance of free debate and free inquiry in this democratic republic,” the brief states.
Liberty Institute President Kelly Shackelford said religious liberty and free speech “are our first American freedoms.”
“We hope the Supreme Court will use this opportunity to affirm the Sixth Circuit and reaffirm the constitutional rights of all Americans to speak and act according to their beliefs,” he said.
In its order, the Alabama court wrote: “An open question exists as to whether Windsor’s ‘equal dignity’ notion works in the same direction toward state laws concerning marriage as it did toward DOMA. The Windsor court stated that ‘the history of DOMA’s enactment and its own text demonstrate that interference with the equal dignity of same-sex marriages, a dignity conferred by the states in the exercise of their sovereign power, was more than an incidental effect of the federal statute.’”
The Alabama court noted that in Windsor, New York’s law allowed same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses.
“Thus, the ‘dignity’ was conferred by the state’s own choice, a choice that was ‘without doubt a proper exercise of its sovereign authority within our federal system, all in the way that the Framers of the Constitution intended.’”
The Alabama court thus asked: Why, if New York could make that choice, would Alabama be deprived of exactly the same choice?
“The problem with DOMA was that it interfered with New York’s ‘sovereign’ choice,” the Alabama court said. “Alabama ‘used its historic and essential authority to define the marital relations’ and made a different ‘sovereign’ choice than New York. If New York was free to make that choice, it would seem inconsistent to say that Alabama is not free to make its own choice, especially given that ‘the recognition of civil marriages is central to state domestic relations law applicable to its residents and citizens.’”
The new brief makes several other points, including that the “constitutional foundation” for the “‘right’ to marry any person of one’s choice” is simply fabricated.
“The same-sex advocates have posited that their right to marry is an evolutionary one, having gradually emerged from the dark ages of the common law into the full bloom of a social science consensus of marriage equality,” the brief explained.
But to travel that path would be to “ignore what [the court] clearly acknowledged in Marbury v. Madison – that the power of judicial review is limited by the words of the Constitution, and by its original purpose – to secure the right of the people to limit future governments by principles designed to be permanent, not to empower this court to change the Constitution to fit the changing times.”
On the issue of homosexuality, the American people “have seen a flurry of judicial opinions with ‘no foundation in American constitutional law’ overturning laws which were ‘designed to prevent piecemeal deterioration of the sexual morality’ desired by the people.”
“These opinions together constitute what [was] described as ‘an act, not of judicial judgment, but of political will.’”
The problem is social science isn’t static, the document said.
“Prior to 1973, the American Psychiatric Association consensus was that homosexuality was a mental disorder. Now the consensus is that homosexuality is a positive virtue. Who knows what tomorrow may bring.”
The brief said today people are being told that marriage cannot constitutionally be based on “a divinely revealed moral foundation, but only according to the secular reasons of men.”
Beware, the brief says.
“The nation was not so founded. The Declaration of Independence, the nation’s charter, grounded our nation on the biblical ‘Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,’ embracing the principle that all men ‘are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,’ putting its case for liberty before ‘the Supreme Judge of the world,’ and acting in ‘firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.’”
Such a change would require the “entire revision” of every family law in the country, closure of adoption agencies and government persecution of those who preach against homosexuality, the brief warns.
And there would be no logical barrier to three men or three women marrying: “Why not an uncle and a niece as in New York?”
“The current accepted vernacular is said to be “lgbttqqiiaa+,” standing for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, intergender, asexual, ally and beyond,” the brief notes. “Indeed, some consider pedophilia to be a legitimate sexual orientation, returning us to the pagan pederasty of ancient Greece.”
Nearly all orders for states to recognize same-sex marriage have come from federal judges. The judges have simply overridden the will of the state’s residents who voted, often overwhelmingly, to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
That was the scenario in California, where the fight over marriage ended up at the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled only on a technicality – the standing of those supporting the state constitution – and not the merits of the case.
Of the three dozen states that now have been forced to recognize same-sex marriage, only a handful enacted it through their own legislative or administrative procedures.
The Alabama court noted: “Only 12 states have accepted same-sex marriage as a result of choices made by the people or their elected representatives. The 25 other states that now have same-sex marriage do so because it has been imposed on them by a federal court.”
Baxter said the court’s decision to overturn a “deeprooted” standard for marriage opened a Pandora’s box.
“Who can say that, in 10, 15 or 20 years, an activist court might not rely on the majority’s analysis to conclude, on the basis of a perceived evolution in community values, that the laws prohibiting polygamous and incestuous marriages were no longer constitutionally justified?”
The actions by Elena Kagan and Ruth Ginsburg have prompted citizens groups to call for them to recuse themselves from the coming decision, but they have declined to do so.
Kagan performed a Sept. 21 same-sex marriage for her former law clerk, Mitchell Reich, and his partner in Maryland. Ginsburg performed a same-sex marriage at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., in August 2013.
“Both of these justices’ personal and private actions actively endorsing gay marriage clearly indicate how they would vote on same-sex marriage cases already before the Supreme Court,” the American Family Association said.
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Arise Christians against SCOTUS Violations
John R. Houk
© April 8, 2015
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SUPREMES WARNED: 'GOD'S JUDGMENT' NOW LOOMING
Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.
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