It’s hard to believe that even 10 years ago, the notion of gay marriage was still unthinkable for most Americans and that now, after such a short time, it’s on its way to being the law of the land.
Some states are holding out, but they will buckle to legal challenges and the tacit support of the Supreme Court, which held that opponents of gay marriage were “enemies of humanity.”
I don’t think one can find a similar example of such a fundamental social institution changing in so quick of a timeframe. Even supporters of this change have to admit we have scant data on what the effects may be on children and the family itself. But all that gets pushed aside in favor of adults obtaining legal sanction for their same-sex relationships.
Increasingly the state is using law to enforce acceptance of homosexuality and, with Obamacare, other progressive totems like free contraception. Short is the time before churches that resist these burning waves of “tolerance” and “acceptance” begin losing their tax-free status and are assessed penalties for the temerity to hold views which are no longer (after 6,000 years of humanity) allowable.
What then? Well, unlike our massive social experiment on gay marriage, we do have plenty examples of the state crushing the church in its efforts to impose a better, more utopian societal ideal. The most obvious example is Communism, which in some cases sought to completely obliterate the church, but in all cases severely repressed it in direct contravention of the UN Charter on Human Rights (which most Communist countries signed).
This worked for a while, until the apparatchiks tried to impose their will on Poland. Polish Catholicism was strongly intertwined with its nationalism and the two together had sustained the Polish people through centuries of oppression and even the temporary elimination of the Polish state.
Like a whisper in the field, the voice of Polish Catholics and their leadership gradually grew louder after WWII, challenging the puppet Communist government, holding them to their agreements and basic human decency. This effort culminated in the election of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla to the papacy in 1978. It was the worst nightmare of Communists in his native country and the whole Warsaw Bloc, and they were right to be worried.
Pope John Paul II’s trips to Poland and support of the local Solidarity movement brought unbearable moral scrutiny upon the USSR and its client states, with not a little help from the newly reinvigorated policies of the Reagan administration. The result: the collapse of Communism without a shot fired, a miracle of momentous change never seen before or since.
Other nations at other times tried to squash Christians and their faith throughout its 2000-year history, whether it was Nero and Trajan in the decades following Christ, the Muslim forces which conquered previously-Christian North Africa and Palestine, or the misguided socialist government of Mexico in the 1920s and 30s.
Sometimes Christians responded with violence to these existential threats, but more often than not they took the road that their Lord had walked, the Via Dolorosa, one of suffering, torture, and even death, only to see true victory later, either in heaven or on earth. (You only need look at the news to see how ISIS is still waging the ancient fight against Christians.)
So now I believe our country is on this sad, tortuous road. Christians will again be asked to walk the path of their founder, will be scorned, hated, attacked, and perhaps even killed.
I know this sounds like hyperbole or paranoia, but how else to resolve these fundamental differences? Plus, I don’t see non-Christians standing up to the government as it increasingly forces its will on religious institutions.
We as Christians believe that the ultimate victory is still with God, whether in this world or the next, but there will be suffering between that time and now. As Cardinal George of Chicago once said, “I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.”
So much for “live and let live.”
Trey Hoffman
Peachtree City, Ga.
