End of Prop 8/ DOMA

 

 

Mat 7:6 “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

Mat 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?

27 June 13 - The US Supreme Court has announced her decision for gay marriages by striking down the proponents of Proposition 8 (which bans Gay marriage in California) and declaring some components of DOMA or the Defence of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

The repeal against Prop 8 had its origins when Christian Gays and activists won the Californian Supreme Court ruling for Gay marriage in 2008 which resulted in the Christian Right forcing through a public voter intiative in Prop 8 to ban gay marriage.

 The victory at the California Supreme Court was in the favor of the marriage lawsuit brought by gay christians and civil rights exponents including Rev Troy Perry who has been knocking at God's door since 1968 with the founding of the MCC Church which has now extended world wide.

Rev Troy Perry was from a Pentecostal background perhaps reflecting that Pentecostals had often been at the leading edge to stir up the move of the Holy Spirit since the Azuza Street revival in Los Angeles in 1904.

For the last 45 years (since 1968), gays have been knocking at the door at God's heavenly throne praying and pleading for equality and the right to love their partners. They have asked for bread but have been hitherto given the hard stones of religious laws or the poisonous rethorics of serpents of the lies of the Christian Right.

 Today, the door is open for us to find love, the loaf of breaf finally given to the hungry child knocking at the door. In reality from the time the child started knocking, he would be well aged by now, yet hope does not diminish with time for we saw the day coming and is now at hand.

On DOMA, the court's majority opinion by Juctice Anthony Kenny wrote:-

"The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity,”

 "By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment."

"demonstrated purpose is to ensure that if any State decides to recognize same-sex marriages, those unions will be treated as second-class marriages for purposes of federal law."

"The differentiation demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects ... and whose relationship the State has sought to dignify. And it humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples. The law in question makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives."

"The avowed purpose and practical effect of the law here in question are to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the States."

"DOMA's principal effect is to identify a subset of state-sanctioned marriages and make them unequal. The principal purpose is to impose inequality, not for other reasons like governmental efficiency. Responsibilities, as well as rights, enhance the dignity and integrity of the person. And DOMA contrives to deprive some couples married under the laws of their State, but not other couples, of both rights and responsibilities."

With the Proposition 8 repealed and gay marriage legalised in California, Gay marriage is now available for 30% of the US population. There is a long journey to go, but the momentum, public opinion and moral standing is with gay marriage as a basic human right and civil liberty.

Change is coming fast like a mighty river with the UK expected to be next to legalise gay marriage after her opponents failed to derail the bill at the House of Lords. With New Zealand legalizing gay marriage, it is expected that Australia will not loose out for too long to the Kiwis.

Where do we go from here. To keep knocking, to keep praying, to keep asking for God's deliverance and blessings for our gay brothers and sisters to receive their redemption from the closet (set up by the people of faith). For Jesus has come to set us free, and if we are still in our closets, we would never be free to worship Jesus Christ as well.

As we reflect on the decision by the US Supreme Court, when all is said, it was all by God's grace, love and mercy through Jesus Christ. For unlike the black civil rights movement, gays form less than 5% of the population hence have little political voting power.

There is still a long way to keep on knocking but Ephesians 6:18 says keep on praying, at all times,

Eph 6:18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—

 

 

 

 

 

 

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