Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

John Adams

The religious people of John Adams’ time based their beliefs on the Christian Bible. The Biblical view of marriage is that it is between a man and a woman. Our Founding Fathers would not have considered any alternative to that view as they wrote the documents founding our country. Today’s Congress is not necessarily made up of moral or religious people, and they are creating laws that go against the beliefs of our Founding Fathers. Although the new laws coming out of Congress may line up with a small percentage of Americans, they are not laws that will unite the country or encourage morality. One such law, seriously misnamed, is the Respect for Marriage Act. The Respect for Marriage Act pretty much does everything except respect traditional marriage.

This is the summary of the Respect for Marriage Act at Congress.gov:

Passed House (07/19/2022)

Respect for Marriage Act

This bill provides statutory authority for same-sex and interracial marriages.

Specifically, the bill repeals and replaces provisions that define, for purposes of federal law, marriage as between a man and a woman and spouse as a person of the opposite sex with provisions that recognize any marriage that is valid under state law. (The Supreme Court held that the current provisions were unconstitutional in United States v. Windsor in 2013.)

The bill also repeals and replaces provisions that do not require states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states with provisions that prohibit the denial of full faith and credit or any right or claim relating to out-of-state marriages on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin. (The Supreme Court held that state laws barring same-sex marriages were unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015; the Court held that state laws barring interracial marriages were unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia in 1967.) The bill allows the Department of Justice to bring a civil action and establishes a private right of action for violations.

Bringing in interracial marriages is simply a red herring. By doing this, the sponsor of the bill (Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York) hoped to introduce a racial element that would distract from exactly what is going on here.

We are on the slippery slope. A recent court case in New York State essentially codified polygamy (article here). You may not accept a Biblical standard of morality, but before you decide to abandon it, look at the practical consequences of discounting it. The rules of the Bible (The Ten Commandments) are the basis for the laws of America. They provide a plan for an orderly society. It is when we abandon those rules that we have chaos and division.

The next step on the current slippery slope will be the transgender movement that is currently impacting our children. Parents’ rights will be limited in their fight to stop life-altering drugs or surgery on their children. That is already happening in some states.

Please let your Senators know that you oppose this bill–it has already passed the house.