Windy Cutler (April 4, “Constitution protects rights”), Maryland lawmakers and citizens who support gay marriage ignore the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence.“By invoking the ‘Laws of Nature and of Nature's God,’ the 56 signers of the Declaration incorporated a legal standard of freedom into the forms of government that would follow…that God's law was supreme.”
-- Kerry Lee Morgan, ,LONANG.org
It cites “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God” as the forces that create freedom and entitle citizens to certain inalienable rights -- but in the context of eternity, not simply the here-and-now.
Kerry Lee Morgan explains at LONANG.org, “By invoking the ‘Laws of Nature and of Nature's God,’ the 56 signers of the Declaration incorporated a legal standard of freedom into the forms of government that would follow…that God's law was supreme.”
The founders knew, as authentic believers do, true life, liberty and happiness (earthly and eternal) flow in following the laws of nature and of God, not in opposing them -- which results in spiritual death, enslavement to passions, and entanglement in disorder.
Thomas Aquinas, whose writings the founders likely studied, explains in his Summa Theologica, Question 94 that natural law drives man to survive and reproduce, to educate offspring, to know the truth about God, to live harmoniously in society, and to act according to reason.
Faithful Catholics are not the only ones who defeated gay marriage in Maryland. Black delegates from Prince George’s and Baltimore who “refused to vote against their ‘base’” (black faithful) get the most credit in a March 12 Capital News Service article.
More than a dozen black ministers and bands of their faithful lobbied to defeat the bill, “which they say violates God’s law,” reports the March 8 Washington Post. Rev. Joel Peebles, pastor of 19,000-member Jericho City of Praise in Landover says, "We didn't come tonight against anybody. We came for the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman."
The article quotes Rev. Nathaniel Thomas of Forestville New Redeemer Baptist Church: "What we are focused on is the word 'marriage,' We're not talking about anyone not having rights. But when you use the word 'marriage,' that goes directly to what the church believes is a relationship between a male and a female."
Greg Quinlan, an “ex-gay” and president of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, testified in a House hearing, quoted in the Feb. 25 Washington Post, “I urge you to stop."
The National Organization for Marriage pledged to spend big money to support Democrats in Maryland who voted against the bill, and to oppose the sole Republican who voted for it (Sen. Allan Kittleman, Howard), the March 11 New York Times reports.
If the bill should pass in the future, enough public outcries probably would bring it to referendum. Its chances for acceptance in Maryland, though, may increase.
A national Pew Research Center survey (March 3) reveals “a continuing rise in support for same-sex marriage since 2009.” Currently, 45 percent favor, 46 percent oppose gay marriage, Pew reports, compared to 37 and 54 percent, respectively, two years ago.
Furthermore, “all the growth in Maryland is coming from groups that consistently vote Democratic – African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics,” Gazette.net reports Feb. 25.
While blacks oppose gay marriage on moral grounds, a 2010 Univision and Associated Press poll indicates Asians and Hispanics may waffle, depending on their level of American enculturation; but “Protestants were much more strongly against homosexual ‘marriage’ than Catholics.”
“The Senate vote was definitely a wake-up call,” the March 11 Washington Post quotes Minority Leader Nancy Jacobs (R-Harford). “I thought it was going to fly through the House. But once delegates started hearing from their constituents, they started thinking twice.”
Marylanders who revere God need to educate themselves about their faith and the freedoms God’s laws ensure, and engage to protect them.
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