In-Depth: 4 Harms the Court's Marriage Ruling Will Cause

From Ryan Anderson, at the Daily Signal.

Viviany Beleboni 'Crucifixion' at São Paulo Homosexual Pride Parade

I had to follow up on this, especially since my blog was getting some hits off this post: "Celebrate Hate? Homosexual Revelers Use Brazil Pride Festivities to Blaspheme Jesus Christ."

See Blazing Cat Fur, "After Blasphemous Gay Pride Parade, Brazil Seeks to Ban ‘Christophobia’."

And at BuzzFeed, "This Transgender Actress Caused a Huge Internet Uproar After Dressing Up as Crucified Jesus In a Parade."

Celebrate Hate? Homosexual Revelers Use Brazil Pride Festivities to Blaspheme Jesus Christ

From earlier this month.

At the Conservative Post, "Gay Pride Participants Mock Jesus and the Bible in a Disturbing Way."

And from Amy Proctor, on Facebook.

Gay Pride Festivities in Brazil. I've seen WAY worse in San Francisco.

I notice they're not targeting Buddha or Mohammed.... why? Because this movement is an anti-Christ movement and no Christian can support it in any way.

Choose you this day whom you will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Joshua 24:15- "But if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord, you have your choice: choose this day that which pleaseth you, whom you would rather serve, whether the gods which your fathers served in Mesopotamia, or the gods of the Amorrhites, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord."

No doubt similar blasphemy was taking place all across the U.S. this weekend. For example, at Twitchy, "#LoveWins? Bronx priest reports getting spit on after today's gay pride parade in NYC," and Gateway Pundit, "Catholic Priest Spit On at Bronx Gay Pride Parade."

BONUS: At Time, "Facebook Has a Super Easy Way to Let You Celebrate Gay Pride," and "Here's how to add a rainbow filter to your Facebook photo in honor of the gay marriage ruling."

The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage

Actually, "gay" "marriage" isn't conservative, but as readers might have noticed, I accept the Court's decision and I think it's time for Republicans to move on. (There are other cultural battles to fight, but I think the economy and foreign policy will be winners in 2016.)

Be that as it may, here's Richard Grenell, at Fox News:

The conservative case for gay marriage | Fox News | http://t.co/MoG8HaqCl9 @RichardGrenell

— Amy Otto (@AmyOtto8) June 28, 2015

.@RichardGrenell is right: whatever feelings on SCOTUS SSM ruling, there's right v. wrong way to handle as GOP candidate. Walker has failed.

— Jeff B@AoSHQDD (@EsotericCD) June 28, 2015

Led by conservative Justice and Reagan appointee, Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court ruled Friday, in a 5-4 decision, in favor of same-sex marriage. Despite the often binary depiction in the media, this decision is in fact a landmark victory for conservative principles. In fact, Friday’s decision is a momentous win for the founding principle of the Republican Party: individual liberty.

Consistent conservatives should frame their views in accordance with the fundamental belief that individuals, not governments, have the right to determine the course of their own lives.

Fellow conservatives, particularly within the Republican Party, typically do a good job arguing against totalitarian, one-size-fits-all approaches to policy. What works for a family in New York City, might not work in Jenison, Michigan, or Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It is for this reason that Republicans and conservatives have embraced issues such as school choice, which gives parents the right to choose the method of schooling that best fits their child’s needs. Parents, not governments, should decide what is best for their family.

Republicans and American conservatives have also been remarkably consistent on taxation. Consistent conservatives believe people should keep more of the money they work so hard to earn—not because the vulnerable don’t deserve assistance, but because individuals can and will make better, and more effective financial and charitable choices with their money than government bureaucrats.

The list of important conservative positions, all relating back to the fundamental principle of individual choice, goes on and on: property rights; freedom of association; and freedom of speech, etc.

But when the topic of gay marriage arises, some conservatives have not been consistent.  The debate on marriage within the Republican Party has been hijacked by those who wish to dictate their beliefs onto others. Rather than professing consistent, conservative beliefs, some within the party have taken to advocating for a remarkably liberal, totalitarian approach.

This hypocrisy has not been lost on the electorate.  Millennials, possibly the most naturally conservative-leaning constituency, laugh at the inconsistencies they hear coming from “conservative” voices on issues like gay marriage.

Republican presidential candidate and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is one of those inconsistent conservatives.  Walker immediately lashed out at the Supreme Court’s decision, proposing an astonishingly big-government response. Walker called for a Constitutional Amendment, ensuring that politicians will forever be able to dictate whom one should or should not be able to marry. In other words, Walker wants to cement the will of politicians into our daily lives.

Walker has taken a stunningly liberal position.  As conservative Justice Kennedy wrote in his opinion, “marriage is a keystone of the Nation’s social order. States have contributed to the fundamental character of marriage by placing it at the center of many facets of the legal and social order.” Indeed, marriage today is as much as it has ever been an important, legal contract—one which carries with it profound financial and emotional ramifications.

Walker, and others like him, seem to ignore the real-life implications of contemporary marriage, instead focusing solely on a religious definition of marriage with which they happen to agree...

Homosexual Marriage is Not a Constitutional Right

It is now.

It wasn't seven years ago when California voters banned it at the ballot box, in Proposition 8. The Courts overturned the will of the voters, here and elsewhere. As I wrote at the time, "Gay Marriage is Not a Civil Right."

This editorial, at IBD and seen on Twitter, is from 2013, "Forget Gay Marriage: What About The Decline of Marriage?"

The constitutional right to homosexual marriage won't strengthen the institution of marriage. In fact, it will have the opposite effect, as all manner of sexual relationships will now be legitimized and America will continue to slide down the slippery slope.

(IBD) Homosexual Marriage Is NOT A Constitutional Right - http://t.co/jDE1TWavQJ - #PJNET - #IBDEditorials - pic.twitter.com/HiX75q5Lie

— Daniel John Sobieski (@gerfingerpoken) June 27, 2015

Homosexual Marriage Symposia

I'm seeing a number of conservative roundups on homosexual marriage.

For example, at National Review, "The Supreme Court Has Legalized Same-Sex Marriage: Now What?"

Also at the Federalist, "Gay Marriage Is Here – Now What?", and First Things, "After Obergefell: A First Things Symposium."

How Conservatives Move Forward After Obergefell v. Hodges

From JPod, at Commentary, "Three Ways Conservatives Can Move Forward After Last Week."

Personally, I think Republicans should downplay homosexual marriage, as I've indicated. Clearly, with today's ruling on the death penalty, all is not lost in the culture wars, not the death penalty and certainly not abortion, which death-loving Democrats avoid talking about at all costs.

How Does Homosexual Ruling Affect 2016 GOP Presidential Field?

More on the political fallout of the left's culture war victory.

From David Lauter and Mark Barabak, at the Los Angeles Times, "A GOP conundrum: How does a 2016 candidate play the same-sex marriage ruling?":

Within minutes of the Supreme Court's decision declaring a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry, President Obama joined the celebration, calling one of the gay plaintiffs to congratulate him on live television, then going to the Rose Garden to hail Friday's ruling as a moment when "slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt."

Almost simultaneously, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, one of the leading Republicans in the race to succeed Obama, denounced the decision as a "grave mistake" and called for a constitutional amendment to reverse it. Another GOP hopeful, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, said the high court had "crossed from the realm of activism into the arena of oligarchy," and called for a constitutional amendment to allow voters to remove Supreme Court justices from office.

By contrast, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, also seeking the Republican nomination, stepped softly, saying only that he thought "the Supreme Court should have allowed the states to make this decision." GOP candidate Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said: "While I disagree with this decision, we live in a republic and must abide by the law."

The widely different approaches highlighted how gay rights — same-sex marriage, in particular — continue to divide and shape American politics.

Republicans running for president face a choice in responding to the court's ruling. They could try to use the strong emotions same-sex marriages evoke as a way to mobilize conservative voters in primaries, but potentially at the cost of undermining their campaigns in next year's general election. Or they could seize on the finality of a Supreme Court ruling as a way of avoiding an issue on which their party is out of step with the majority of voters, but at the risk of alienating conservatives who see the court decision as a violation of deeply held religious principles.

How they choose to navigate the issue will help determine whether the vast majority of the country quickly accepts the court's ruling, as happened with the decision to wipe out laws against interracial marriage nearly half a century ago, or whether it will remain divisive for years to come...

More.

And see my earlier comments on this, from just a few minutes ago, "As Left Wins Culture Battles, Republicans Have Chance to Pivot for 2016."

As Left Wins Culture Battles, Republicans Have Chance to Pivot for 2016

Meh. I'm skeptical of this argument.

And I'm skeptical because the left makes everything about culture. Economics is about culture. About "flyover country" and the "47 percent."

2016 will be about race and especially gender, if Hillary's the nominee, which it'll be surprising if she not.

From Jonathan Martin, at the New York Times, "As Left Wins Culture Battles, G.O.P. Gains Opportunity to Pivot for 2016":

WASHINGTON — A cascade of events suggests that 2015 could be remembered as a Liberal Spring: the moment when deeply divisive and consuming questions of race, sexuality and broadened access to health care were settled in quick succession, and social tolerance was cemented as a cornerstone of American public life.

Yet what appears, in headlines and celebrations across the country, to represent an unalloyed victory for Democrats, in which lawmakers and judges alike seemed to give in to the leftward shift of public opinion, may contain an opening for the Republican Party to move beyond losing battles and seemingly lost causes.

Conservatives have, in short order, endured a series of setbacks on ideas that, for some on the right, are definitional: that marriage is between a man and a woman, that Southern heritage and its symbols are to be unambivalently revered and that the federal government should play a limited role in the lives of Americans.

Remarkably, some of these verities have been challenged not by liberals but by figures from the right.

The past week and the month that preceded it have been nothing short of a rout in the culture wars. Bruce Jenner, the famed Olympian, became Caitlyn Jenner in the most prominent moment yet for transgender people. The killings of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., at once rendered the Confederate battle flag unsuitable for government-sanctioned display. And Friday’s legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide elevated a community that had been consigned to the shadows for centuries of American life.

But even as conservatives appear under siege, some Republicans predict that this moment will be remembered as an effective wiping of the slate before the nation begins focusing in earnest on the presidential race.

As important as some of these issues may be to the most conservative elements of the party’s base and in the primaries ahead, few Republican leaders want to contest the 2016 elections on social or cultural grounds, where polls suggest that they are sharply out of step with the American public.

“Every once in a while, we bring down the curtain on the politics of a prior era,” said David Frum, the conservative writer. “The stage is now cleared for the next generation of issues. And Republicans can say, ‘Whether you’re gay, black or a recent migrant to our country, we are going to welcome you as a fully cherished member of our coalition.’ ”

The critical question is whether the Republican Party will embrace such a message in order to seize what many party officials see as an opening to turn the election toward economic and national security issues.

It will not happen easily: Every major Republican presidential candidate criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday affirming same-sex marriage as the law of the land.

Of course, many of the Republicans running for president are keen to move on from the culture wars, but others, like Mike Huckabee and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, are already seizing on matters like same-sex marriage and what they call judicial overreach to distinguish themselves in a crowded primary field. And the conservative activists and interest groups that play an important role in the primary will not let any of the candidates simply move on.

“Our candidates running in a primary are put in a little bit of a box by the events of this week, but at the same time, it does change the landscape for the general election, which is a blessing,” said Carl Forti, a Republican strategist who has worked on presidential races. “I’m glad I’m not on a campaign and don’t have to advise my candidate on how to navigate those three issues this week, because the answers for the primary and the general are radically different.”

Privately, some of the strategists advising Republican hopefuls believe the last week has been nothing short of a gift from above — a great unburdening on issues of race and sexuality, and on health care a disaster averted. Rhetorical opposition to the Affordable Care Act will still be de rigueur in the primaries, but litigating the issue in theory is wholly different from doing so with more than six million people deprived of their health insurance.

Collectively, this optimistic thinking would have it, June will go down as the month that dulled some of the wedge issues Democrats were hoping to wield next year...

That's the other thing: Republicans need to realize they've been beaten on homosexual marriage and back off for awhile. There'll be time to revisit when the harshly negative social effects start to bleed through. Meanwhile, taxes, economic growth, immigration, and foreign policy remain well within the GOP's wheelhouse, and they should press full steam ahead. The Dems can be beat in 2016, easily. But Republicans need to get real about all the recent changes and focus on their strengths, which are plenty.

Keep reading, in any case.

Confederate Flag Supporters Rally at South Carolina Statehouse

This is after the far-left ghoul climbed up the flagpole.

Seen just now on Twitter:

Hours after woman arrested removing #ConfederateFlag, flag supporters rally at S.C. Statehouse http://t.co/Xogda18MTh pic.twitter.com/9f7kYPwAW1

— Tx_Laney (@Babbsgirl2) June 27, 2015

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux Says Mock ISIS Butt-Plug Flag at London Pride Parade is the Real Thing

Oh boy, at least we live in interesting times, heh.

At Memeorandum, "CNN Mistakes Dildo-Covered Flag at Pride Parade for ISIS Flag."

And at Fusion, "We’ve translated the alleged ‘ISIS flag’ spotted at London Pride."

Crack journalism. Or, journalism on crack. Or up the crack. Oh forget it.



BONUS: From leftist Rosa Brooks, at Foreign Policy, "Can Gay Marriage Defeat the Islamic State?" (at Memeorandum).

Oh My! Radical Leftist Freddie deBoer Calls for Legalizing Polygamous Marriage!

Well, so much for the widely derided right-wing "slippery slope" on legalized polygamy.

Yesterday Salon's Sophia Tesfaye was mocking conservatives who raised the possibility of legalized polygamy: "“Polygamy, here we come!” Right wing melts down over gay marriage victory."

But a quick search shows that Salon's backed polygamy for years, "Legalize Polygamy!"

And then of course radical leftist Fredrik "Freddie" deBoer was off the blocks with the case for legalized polygamy as well, almost as soon the Supreme Court issued its ruling. See, at Politico, "It’s Time to Legalize Polygamy":

Well, that didn't take long. http://t.co/UDmysj6fwR pic.twitter.com/wyCozIugpw

— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) June 26, 2015

Just can't convince some people that I wrote that piece because I genuinely believe in a natural moral right to group marriage.

— Freddie (@freddiedeboer) June 27, 2015

Welcome to the exciting new world of the slippery slope. With the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling this Friday legalizing same sex marriage in all 50 states, social liberalism has achieved one of its central goals. A right seemingly unthinkable two decades ago has now been broadly applied to a whole new class of citizens. Following on the rejection of interracial marriage bans in the 20th Century, the Supreme Court decision clearly shows that marriage should be a broadly applicable right—one that forces the government to recognize, as Friday’s decision said, a private couple’s “love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family.

The question presents itself: Where does the next advance come? The answer is going to make nearly everyone uncomfortable: Now that we’ve defined that love and devotion and family isn’t driven by gender alone, why should it be limited to just two individuals? The most natural advance next for marriage lies in legalized polygamy—yet many of the same people who pressed for marriage equality for gay couples oppose it.

This is not an abstract issue. In Chief Justice John Roberts’ dissenting opinion, he remarks, “It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.” As is often the case with critics of polygamy, he neglects to mention why this is a fate to be feared. Polygamy today stands as a taboo just as strong as same-sex marriage was several decades ago—it’s effectively only discussed as outdated jokes about Utah and Mormons, who banned the practice over 120 years ago.

Yet the moral reasoning behind society’s rejection of polygamy remains just as uncomfortable and legally weak as same-sex marriage opposition was until recently.

That’s one reason why progressives who reject the case for legal polygamy often don’t really appear to have their hearts in it. They seem uncomfortable voicing their objections, clearly unused to being in the position of rejecting the appeals of those who would codify non-traditional relationships in law. They are, without exception, accepting of the right of consenting adults to engage in whatever sexual and romantic relationships they choose, but oppose the formal, legal recognition of those relationships. They’re trapped, I suspect, in prior opposition that they voiced from a standpoint of political pragmatism in order to advance the cause of gay marriage.

In doing so, they do real harm to real people. Marriage is not just a formal codification of informal relationships. It’s also a defensive system designed to protect the interests of people whose material, economic and emotional security depends on the marriage in question. If my liberal friends recognize the legitimacy of free people who choose to form romantic partnerships with multiple partners, how can they deny them the right to the legal protections marriage affords?

Keep reading.

And remember, if you're not down with legalized polygamy, you're a hater!

See, "The Same-Sex Marriage Bait-and-Switch - You Will Be Assimilated!"

ADDED: DeBoer responds to his critics:

But why publish it on the day gay marriage becomes law?

Because I do think, despite what so many progressives have halfheartedly said, that marriage equality meaningfully influences the legal and moral case for polygamy, and that this is a good thing. I waited until that day because, with marriage equality now the law of the land, with broad popular support, the political risk of association with polygamy has died, and so the time has come to make the case for polygamy, a natural outgrowth of social liberalism and one of several moral imperatives for us going forward. I wrote the piece because I believe in a natural moral right to group marriage, and for the reasons I said in the piece. You can agree, or disagree, but you cannot dictate my reasons or my views.

Don't Get Trolled on Confederate Flag

From Robert Tracinski, at the Federalist, "Let’s Not Get Trolled on the Confederate Flag":

I’ve been getting the feeling over the past few days that the Left is trying to troll us into defending the Confederate flag, simply by way of the trivial, obnoxious, and gratuitously partisan way they’re campaigning against it.

Yeah, well, that's the left for you, despicable cretins.

I'm not defending the Confederate flag. It's Democrats battle flag. That's just a fact.

Linked there is Ta-Nehisi Coates, who despite his disgusting racialization of everything, is right about this: "What This Cruel War Was Over - The meaning of the Confederate flag is best discerned in the words of those who bore it."

Stonewall Homosexuals 'Noisily' Celebrate Supreme Court's Depraved Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

I wonder if by "noisily" it turns out the homosexuals weren't using lubricants for their public sex.

At the Independent UK:

Patrons of NYC’s Stonewall Inn noisily celebrate same-sex court ruling #Lovewon http://t.co/xS2V92l7BN pic.twitter.com/TCxAYsNmtp

— Independent US (@IndyUSA) June 27, 2015

PREVIOUSLY: "Stonewall Homosexuals Celebrate Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Ruling."

BONUS: At the ISR, "Stonewall: The birth of gay power - An excerpt from Sherry Wolf's book, Sexuality and Socialism."

Bree Newsome, #BlackLivesMatter Extremist, Tears Down Confederate at South Carolina Statehouse (VIDEO)

Wow.

This is just extreme. No, it's beyond extreme. It's frankly insane.

The woman, Bree Newsome, is on Twitter here. She's a radical leftist and #BlackLivesMatter activist.

At Memeorandum, "Woman removes Confederate flag in front of SC statehouse."

“We removed the flag today because we can’t wait any longer. It’s time for a new chapter where we are sincere about dismantling white supremacy and building toward true racial justice and equality.”

And at the Charleston Post & Courier, "Woman removes Confederate flag in front of South Carolina statehouse (has video)."

...the flag is intolerable only because it primarily offends black people (who racists already feel are "taking over their country").

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 20, 2015

The refusal to firmly acknowledge and condemn the racism only fans the flames further because it makes it seem like...

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 20, 2015

They're trying to displace the decision from themselves; the flag has gotta come down because "some people" don't like it...

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 20, 2015

White politicians calling for removal of the confederate flag because "to SOME people it's a symbol of racism and hate" is problematic...

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 20, 2015

The flag will come down, neo-confederates will rise up and USA will face a day of reckoning for original sin it still refuses to acknowledge

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 21, 2015

They allow monuments to the confederacy all throughout the southern U.S. but suppress the history of the slave rebellions. Why is that?

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) June 21, 2015

San Francisco Homosexuals Celebrate Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

At CBS News San Francisco:

President Obama Calls Jim Obergefell, Plaintiff in Depraved Homosexual Marriage Ruling (VIDEO)

At CNN:

Homosexual Marriage Ruling Starts New Religious Freedom War

At IBD, "Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Starts New Religious Freedom War":

#SupremeCourt Gay Marriage Ruling Will Harm #ReligiousFreedom, Marginalize Biblical Worldview: http://t.co/c6aRo5CIT7 pic.twitter.com/0L7mzKKwBP

— The Christian Post (@ChristianPost) June 26, 2015

Observant Christians — and adherents of other faiths — are reeling from the Supreme Court's declaration of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage and preparing for an unprecedented struggle for their right to express their beliefs and live their lives accordingly, as new battles will now be waged unless and until a future Supreme Court reverses course.

The Constitution says nothing about marriage or abortion. Yet in 1973 the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to abortion, resulting in decades of relentless political and legal conflicts.

Now the Court has held that the Constitution likewise forbids the 50 states from defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. But many people of faith disagree, and the First Amendment promises that they have the right to do so. Devout Christians are already enmeshed in legal battles over this issue.

Navy chaplain Wes Modder, sportscaster Craig James and others have lost jobs or are losing their jobs because they hold Christian beliefs on sex and marriage.

Business owners face more than losing their businesses, as Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman could lose her home and life's savings, and Colorado baker Jack Phillips risks jail time if he continues refusing to bake cakes celebrating gay marriage. There are others, and the list grows monthly.

Keep reading.

Homosexual Flag Goes Up Over Civic Center, City of Long Beach, California

Following up from yesterday, "Homosexual Flag Goes Up Over County Government Center in Santa Clara, California."

From the Twitter feed of homosexual Mayor of Long Beach, Robert Garcia:

Day of decision rally is tonight at 5:30PM in the plaza at the Long Beach Civic Center. info http://t.co/cQYb9GnZEm pic.twitter.com/r7FRz8dSZi

— LB Mayor's Office (@LBMayorsOffice) June 26, 2015

Long Beach raised a rainbow flag today in front of City Hall. pic.twitter.com/etTBvzHel0

— Lauren Raab (@raablauren) June 26, 2015

Stonewall Homosexuals Celebrate Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

Well, homosexual rainbows are breaking out all over.

At CBS News New York: