The “Disrespect For Marriage” Act

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK

I occasionally tap into network TV via antenna for the morning show during time away from parish life and work to check on the agenda that the world, between commercials, is pushing. It’s still mostly about selling things with a little light news and entertainment sprinkled between ads. Some earthly realities aren’t subject to the law of constant change.
Sometimes again in the evening I use it to avoid the reading I owe to my intellectual and spiritual development. After vespers of St. Andrew’s Day I watched the concert from New York surrounding the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and was very pleasantly surprised to find that a few real Christmas carols made it past the censors.
Mickey Guyton and the Bocelli family, in particular, are to be congratulated. They, among a very few others, sang authentic hymns of the season which make clear that it owes its entire existence, now and always, exclusively to the historic fact of the birth of Our Most Holy Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.
So much of the Christmas palaver descends into complete nonsense. Which made it encouraging, amidst the silliness of songs about romance, food and toys with no reference to Christ, that plenty of the entertainers wished the audience a “Merry Christmas,” another sign that honest description of the reason for the season is still free of the consequences of prosecution, at this time of year at least.
You can mention Christ, it seems, during the days of December leading up to Christmas. But you may never, under any circumstances, claim that Christ condemns the sexual mutilation of the body, calling genital expression between two people of the same sex “marriage” and denial that the fetus in His sacred Image is a human being with inviolable dignity. This list is by no means exhaustive and likely will grow longer as the human will to power uncoupled from God evolves into more and more oppressive tyranny.
We have fewer and fewer duties and responsibilities while gaining ever more and more legal “rights” to do evil.
The social phenomenon of great numbers of individuals falling into heresy has been enabled and encouraged through connivance in evil of the once-Christian sects which claim them as members and giving them cover while they falsely insist they still qualify as faithful. In turn, communities, social and educational organizations and state majorities have fallen away from the norms of nature and nature’s God, along with the social institutions that came about through God’s gift. Marriage is one of these.
The representatives and senators elected by the anti-Christ agenda have gone to Washington to inscribe into law a “right” to commit unnatural acts offensive to God endowed with defenses that belong only to the institution of marriage between one man and one woman. Those who represent us are federalizing sodomy compliance, attempting to make it a crime to remain Christian in the authentic and integral sense of that word.
The “Defense of Marriage Act” (sic) passed in November by the Senate and which now goes back to the House, is a euphemism for what in fact will be a legally enabled war on Christians.
I’d like to give the mike here this week briefly to one of the great number of faithful Catholic laity who dependably represent our faith well. Blogger “dad29.blogspot.com” has summed up well the threat we are facing. He says the lawsuits against Christians are just waiting in the wings to be launched as soon as Congress gives the green light through what would be better described as the “Disrespect for Marriage Act.” Word was that a carve-out for Christians who refuse to use the word “marriage” as a euphemism for sodomy would prevent legal and monetary persecution. That does not appear to be the case, as “Dad29” reports.
“Tammy Baldwin’s War on Christians Continues:
“It seems that a war on right order and Christianity in general will proceed. You can bet large money that the lawsuits against the churches are already being prepared.
“The Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act on Tuesday [November 29], with 12 Republicans joining all 50 Democrats in supporting the legislation. The legislation, negotiated in the Senate by Maine Republican Susan Collins and Democrats Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Dianne Feinstein of California, will go back to the House of Representatives. There, it is likely to pass. The lower chamber approved the legislation in July, with 47 Republicans joining all 220 Democrats in support. If signed into law, the Respect for Marriage Act would affirm that states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, in accordance with the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause. . . .
“Since SCOTUS declared that same-sex ‘marriage’ is OK, intelligent citizens wonder why this law is necessary. Here’s the answer:
“Heritage Foundation Vice President of Domestic Policy Roger Severino told the Daily Caller that a religious liberty amendment negotiated by Collins and Baldwin is ‘not enough.’ The amendment declares that the legislation may not be used to ‘diminish or abrogate a religious liberty or conscience protection otherwise available to an individual or organization under the Constitution of the United States or Federal law.’
“Severino pointed to the 1983 case Bob Jones University v. U.S., in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) could revoke a segregated university’s tax-exempt status based off the agency’s reading of the Civil Rights Act. He argued that the Baldwin-Collins amendment would not prevent such a move for organizations that refuse to recognize same-sex marriage.
“‘Giving it the most generous interpretation, it’s not enough. It doesn’t provide the defenses needed. This bill will set a chain of events in motion, and this construction won’t stop it,’ Severino said. ‘Unless there’s an affirmative defense, it will not prevent the IRS or DOJ from taking away tax-exempt status’….
“That’s the reason it was pushed.
“More succinct:
“. . . ‘Nowhere in [the Collins-Baldwin amendment] is a statement prohibiting the federal government from taking adverse action against an individual or an entity based on a sincere religious belief interest same-sex marriage, whether that religious belief is one that embraces or does not embrace same-sex marriage. It does not do that. It instead says that nothing in this act shall be construed to alter or deny any status or benefit of any group. Those are two very different things. That language does not do what my amendment does. You see, the threat is not and never was based on what the act itself would do,’ Lee said…
“Be prepared.” He concludes. “Prayer and fasting.” (Source: http://dad29.blogspot.com/2022/11/tammy-baldwins-war-on-christians.html)
There are demons behind the great evil attacking God through the destruction of human lives, human sexuality and marriage. Some demons are driven out only by prayer and fasting, as Our Lord Himself declared. But, as our Lord Himself demonstrated, some souls will, by refusing to surrender the truth, configure themselves in this life to Him by “testifying” as martyrs, whether of the bloody sort or not. In our day that martyrdom may consist in being driven from one’s business or livelihood, one’s home or family, but it is martyrdom all the same.
We must ever count ourselves as blessed and rejoice in these and all circumstances “for having been found worthy to suffer for the sake of the Name” (Acts 5:41). Love demands no less.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
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