In his scathing dissent from the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling to invalidate the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Justice Antonin Scalia said that the majority in essence said that those who oppose same-sex marriage are “enemies of the human race.”
“In the majority’s judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to with the purpose to “disparage,” “injure,” “degrade,” “demean,” and “humiliate” our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homo- sexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence— indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.”
The majority of the court tried to limit the ruling to DOMA. But Scalia said “It takes real cheek for today’s majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here—when what has preceded that assurance is a lecture on how superior the majority’s moral judgment in favor of same-sex marriage is to the Congress’s hateful moral judgment against it (DOMA). I promise you this: The only thing that will “confine” the Court’s holding is its sense of what it can get away with.”
In essence, Scalia says, the majority is telling us: Hate your neighbor or come along with us… “We might have let the People decide,” he added. But that the majority will not do.”
In conclusion, Scalia said: “Some will rejoice in today’s decision, and some will despair at it; that is the nature of a controversy that matters so much to so many. But the Court has cheated both sides, robbing the winners of an honest victory, and the losers of the peace that comes from a fair defeat. We owed both of them better. I dissent.”
The overthrow of DOMA and its effect to demonize same-sex marriage opponents will certainly increase pressure on the States to recognize same-sex marriage.
Talk of the possibility that churches and religious organizations would lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage was so significant that president Obama felt obliged to say that churches would not be forced into performing or sanctioning gay marriages. “How religious institutions define and consecrate marriage has always been up to those institutions. Nothing about this decision — which applies only to civil marriages — changes that.”
Needless to say, conservative Catholic groups, and others don’t believe him.
America is fast becoming what it was like “in the days of Lot…” Luke 17:28-30