Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
Luke 18:8
The occasion for this teachable moment is the “Respect for Marriage
Act” now before the Senate. Democrats claim the proposal is required to
make same-sex marriage legal nationwide, even though the Supreme Court’s
Obergefell decision in 2015 did precisely that.
For liberals, government is the source of individual rights, and that
means government defines those rights and has the power to redefine
them as desired by whoever happens to be in control at any given time.
And since liberals are in control of the government, they intend to
do precisely that—define the right of religious expression and practice
so as to exclude from the public square all of those whose sincere faith
requires them to reject same-sex marriage.
Simply put, the liberals are saying to millions of Americans that
they have no right to disagree in the public square with same-sex
marriage and the state can and indeed soon
will take their property via taxes and use them to support the
enforcement of same-sex marriage as a political right.
That enforcement is the second element here that commands attention.
The bill includes provisions that authorize the IRS to jerk the tax
exemption of any church or non-profit that opposes same-sex marriage.
The bill also encourages litigation to be brought against those same
institutions in the court system to enforce the right to same-sex
marriage.
Here’s what that means: Soon after Biden signs the bill into law,
there will begin to be same-sex couples demanding to be married in
evangelical churches they know to be opposed to the practice.
If the pastor refuses to perform the ceremony, the church will be
sued and it will lose in court. That litigation will then be used by the
IRS as justification for ending the church’s tax-exempt status, as well
as the tax-deductibility of congregants’ tithes and contributions.
But that’s not all. The IRS is being primed to be ready for action
against evangelical and traditional Catholic social service institutions
as well. As Heritage Action for America explains:
Just months after Democrats used the Inflation Reduction Act to fund 87,000 new IRS agents, the Respect for Marriage Act would be giving those new agents carte blanche to harass and target religious schools and other faith-based entities that oppose same-sex marriage and eventually strip them of their tax-exempt status.Worse, it would create a roving license to sue anyone acting “under color of law” – a loosely defined term that would include those providing government-funded or -regulated services. As a result, adoption centers and foster care providers with religious objections to same-sex marriage would have to close down." pjmedia