Orthodixie

(Part one of a series)

By William J. Olson and Herbert W. Titus

On April 28, 2015, nine unelected lawyers drawn from three elite law schools (Harvard, Yale, and Columbia) listened to 90-minutes of oral argument about same-sex marriage and then retreated behind a wall of red velvet drapes to confer secretly about whether the U.S. Constitution requires that the U.S. Supreme Court impose same-sex marriage on the entire nation.

Consider for a moment the process by which that decision will be reached. When the Court decided to hear the Obergefell consolidated cases from the Sixth Circuit, that decision was reached in secret. The Justices consult only with their colleagues and their law clerks, also drawn from elite law schools. When a decision in the case is issued, presumably before the end of the current term toward the end of June, the Court will address only those issues argued by parties and the amici curiae that it cares to address. Its opinion will contain only those reasons for its decision that the Court chooses to reveal. The majority decision may be agreed to by as few as five of these nine justices unaccountable to no one but themselves. And then, the Court will expect the American people to set aside their individual and collective judgment and passively abide by whatever decision is reached — based on a doctrine nowhere found in the U.S. Constitution — “judicial supremacy.”

Although the Supreme Court’s only constitutional responsibility is to resolve “cases” and “controversies” brought before it, the High Court often acts as if it has been entrusted with the raw power to decide for us the most important public policy issues facing the nation. While the Court would have us believe that those decisions are mandated by faithful adherence to the constitutional text, the truth lies elsewhere. In his autobiography, Justice William O. Douglas provided a glimpse behind the curtain as to how the Supreme Court really works. In his autobiography, he explained that Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes had once explained to him: “[a]t the constitutional level where we work, ninety percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections.”

We have been working in the judicial vineyard in support of traditional marriage for many years. When one of the cases now being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court (DeBoer v. Snyder) was before the Sixth Circuit, we filed an amicus curiae brief. In the U.S. Supreme Court, we filed another amicus brief. When the Supreme Court decided the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) case (U.S. v. Windsor) in 2013, we filed three briefs, one at the petition stage, one on the merits, and one on the jurisdictional question, and in the Proposition 8 case (Hollingsworth v. Perry), we filed briefs at the petition stage and one on the merits. Even before that, we filed a brief in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas when the U.S. Supreme Court began down this short road to Same-Sex Marriage while denying that it was doing so. In total, working with groups like U.S. Justice Foundation and Public Advocate of the United States, we have now filed a dozen appellate briefs over the past 15 years addressing the issue of homosexual rights in one context or another.

Although the judicial trend to embrace “homosexual rights” is undeniable, we certainly have not given up hope about the Court’s decision. In fact, it is our belief that the case for same-sex marriage is so pathetically weak, that the Court may understand that it would suffer a crippling embarrassment once the People come to really understand that in no way does the U.S. Constitution command same-sex marriage.

But our role now, while hoping for the best, is to prepare for the worst — and that worst could be terrible indeed. Part of our last Supreme Court brief was published by The American Vision under the name “12 Reasons homosexual marriage will wreck the nation.” If you need additional reasons to give your concentrated attention to this issue in the coming days, you will find those reasons in that article.

The American people need to use the short days remaining before that momentous decision is reached to determine how to respond to an adverse decision. Will they yield to a U.S. Supreme Court that claims the power to override state constitutional and statutory provisions governing domestic relations — an area of law which has historically belonged exclusively to the states. Will they sit back while unelected judges decide for them one of the most important public policy issues of our lifetime? Or will they resist — and, if so, what tools do are available to stand against this judicial tyranny?

If you have not yet signed the “Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage,” supported by Dr. James Dobson, Pastor Rick Scarborough, attorney Matthew Staver, Deacon Keith Fournier, and others, we urge you to do so. That pledge was an excellent first step.

To continue the battle, and to think through these many issues involved, a small group of lawyers and public policy experts experienced in this area have resolved to publish a series of a dozen or more articles to help inform their countrymen. You will not read these articles in the Establishment Media. However, thankfully, a number of publications, blogs, and organizations have agreed to publish this series of articles, as they are written. And, when we see other important articles, such as Robert Reilly’s piece “The New Gnosticism of the Homosexual Movement” we will bring these articles to your attention.

We know that some of you have grown weary of reading articles about homosexual issues. Yet, these issues cannot be ignored. Please look for these articles as they are published. These articles will be structured to inform about the issues which each American must think through to develop his own position, including:

$ Does the Fourteenth Amendment Really Mandate Homosexual Marriage?

$ Must a Decision of the U.S. Supreme Court be Obeyed as the Supreme Law of the Land?

$ Does Romans 13 Require that Christians Yield to a Decision Mandating Same-Sex Marriage?

$ Why Were Biblical, Moral, and Religious Arguments Ignored By the Parties Arguing to the U.S. Supreme Court?

$ Have the Federal Judges Deciding in Favor of a Constitutional Right to Same-Sex Marriage Cases Truly Behaved Judicially?

$ What Would Be the Consequences of Mandating Same-Sex Marriage for the Church and Christian Organizations?

$ What Would Be the Consequences of Mandating Same-Sex Marriage for the Traditional Family?

$ How Should Governors, Attorneys General, State Legislatures, and Other State Officers Respond to a Decision to Mandate Same-Sex Marriage?

$ Could Congress Respond to a Decision Mandating Same-Sex Marriage by use of the U.S. Constitution’s “Good Behavior” Clause?

$ Could Congress Respond to a Decision Mandating Same-Sex Marriage by Using its Power to Limit the Jurisdiction of the Federal Courts?

$ How Could Congress Respond to a Decision Mandating Same-Sex Marriage using its Appropriation Power to Prohibit the Expenditure of Funds to Implement the Decision at the National Level?

$ How Should U.S. Citizens Respond to a Decision Mandating Same-Sex Marriage in their various roles as members of grand juries, members of petit juries, taxpayers, and voters?

Although many of us find it increasingly difficult to recognize the nation that we grew up in, we can draw strength from the fact that we still live in a Constitutional Republic, and that our government still operates largely by the “consent of the governed.” And, as Americans, we have the right to determine to withhold our consent from the actions of government officials —if we believe those actions to be lawless. Whatever the U.S. Supreme Court will do, we are each accountable for how we respond. Voltaire counseled “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” Therefore, there could be personal consequences to each person who chooses the route of resistance, but ultimately each of us is responsible to God, not just to man.

We invite each of you to consider the arguments made in these articles, and then decide for yourself exactly what you believe, and even more importantly, how you will respond.

Should you want to help support this important work, contributions may be made to the U.S. Justice Foundation.
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William J. Olson served in three positions in the Reagan Administration. Herbert W. Titus taught Constitutional Law for 26 years, and concluded his academic career as the Founding Dean of Regent Law School. Together they have filed over 80 briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court, and scores more in lower courts, addressing important public policy issues. They now practice law together at William J. Olson, P.C. They can be reached at traditionalmarriage@lawandfreedom.com or twitter.com/Olsonlaw.

Permission is freely granted to publish, copy, reproduce, distribute, or excerpt from this article for any purpose.

What is the relationship between morality and the Eucharist? Do our actions, outside of the church building, define who we are in Christ? Essentially, does our bodily relationship with self and others affect our communion with the Other? These are the issues addressed by Fr Philip LeMasters in his book, Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex. Given that “same-sex unions” is the hot topic of the day, this review will center on chapter six of the book.

Midway down the opening paragraph of the chapter, “An Orthodox Response to ‘Same-Sex Unions,’” we read: “The question of Christianity’s proper stance on homosexuality is the most controversial and divisive issue facing churches in North America today” (p.79). This is a quote with which few Christians can quibble. Fireworks among foes and arm wrestling among friends might be found further down the page:

There is no question about the teaching of the Orthodox Church on homosexuality; namely, sexual relations between persons of the same sex are “sinful and contrary to God’s will. Orthodoxy maintains the living Tradition of the Church on the question of homosexuality. The Scriptures, writings of the Father, lives of the Saints, and the Liturgy provide no basis whatsoever for the endorsement of sexual relations between two people of the same sex under any circumstances. Consequently, there is no debate on this question in the Church (p.79).

Much has changed in America in the ten years since the book, Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex, was published (2004). For instance, in an Illinois Senate Debate that year, Barak Obama stated, “I don’t think marriage is a civil right.” He went on to state that gay people have rights …but marriage was not among them.[1]

One need not be a political news junkie to understand that Obama’s views have changed. When running for President in 2008, Candidate Obama stated: “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman.”[2] On May 9, 2012, Obama told an interviewer that he supported same-sex marriage.[3] Then, in 2015, one reads: “Calling state bans on same-sex marriage ‘incompatible with the Constitution,’ the Obama administration Friday filed a brief at the U.S. Supreme Court in support of couples who are making challenges in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.”[4]

Granted, Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex is not about politics or the evolving belief of the President of the United States. But with such attention directed from the nation’s “bully pulpit,” is it any wonder that many Americans – even those within the Orthodox Church – are questioning the Church’s teaching on human sexuality?

Traditional media outlets – radio, television, movies – and, especially, social media, not to mention politically-correct public school systems, have indoctrinated the next generation of Americans with the notion that love knows no boundaries, and neither should laws regulating marriage. The speed at which we have reached this erroneous notion is dizzying. These days, to question this mandated mantra is viewed as backward, hate speech, bullying. It is for this reason that this book, especially the chapter on “same-sex unions” is a must read by those who seek to understand why the Church believes as She does.

Detailing commonly heard arguments of “orientation” and even citing those who make a good case for the same, LeMasters lays out the timeless position of the Church that “a homosexual relationship is [incapable] of bringing human beings to participation in the Trinitarian love of God in ways that are truly parallel to marriage between a man and a woman” (p.81). The foundation of God-pleasing union detailed throughout the book is our union with God in the Eucharist. With this in mind, LeMasters asks, “Is a homosexual relationship of the sort that may be a foretaste of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb?” (p.81) He is here referring to the eschatological imagery which permeates the Church’s scriptural witness:

From Genesis through Revelation, there is a continuity of God’s purposes for the man-woman relationship that is a unique means of our participation in the life of the Trinity. When man and woman die to self in the conventional love of marriage, they live eucharistically and participate in the very life of God, even as they prepare for the Kingdom. The fulfillment of God’s intentions for our nature as man and woman is possible only in Christian marriage. Hence, relationships which do not fulfill our nature as man and woman before God may not be instruments of grace or a means of participating in God’s reign. For this to happen, grace would have to become the foe of creation; in a dualistic fashion, nature and grace would then be enemies, rather than dynamic categories which together shed light on our standing before God as creatures who have strayed from the Lord’s purposes for us and who need a spiritual healing which is beyond our own ability to effect. Manachaean dualism once more would rear its ugly head” (p.85).[5]

Gnosticism believes that the spiritual cannot mix with matter; it does not matter what you do in the sensible realm as long as you understand the spiritual realm. Gnosticism – with its emphasis on knowledge as the key to power, science and religion – is dualism. It leaves men free to practice immorality.

Those who argue that the biological distinctions between the sexes amount to no more than spiritually irrelevant plumbing have fallen prey to the Gnostic dangers of radically distinguishing the person from the body. A faith which places so much weight on the Body of Christ – in connection to the incarnation, the resurrection, the Church, and the Eucharist – must never dismiss the importance of the bodily differences of man and woman, as they have been revealed to have tremendous importance in the economy of salvation from the biblical period to the present. It is unthinkable for the Church to bless unions which are so clearly perversions of God’s intentions for man and woman (p.85).

A May 2015 Gallop poll reveals that 63% of Americans now find “same-sex unions” to be morally favorable (up 23% since the year 2000); furthermore:

The substantial increase in Americans’ views that gay and lesbian relations are morally acceptable coincide with a record-high level of support for same-sex marriage and views that being gay or lesbian is something a person is born with, rather than due to one’s upbringing or environment.

The public is now more accepting of sexual relations outside of marriage in general than at any point in the history of tracking these measures, including a 16-percentage-point increase in those saying that having a baby outside of marriage is morally acceptable, and a 15-point increase in the acceptability of sex between an unmarried man and woman. Clear majorities of Americans now say both are acceptable.[6]

If you couple this with the recent Pew Research Center findings that 71% of Americans identified as Christian in 2014 (down from 78% in 2007), one must assume that even those within the pews have redefined their moral beliefs based on a mandated politically-correct agenda rather than the faith “once and for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3).”

Referring back to the chapter’s last quoted paragraph, above, no other conclusion can be reached than that many have indeed fallen into a Gnostic division of the body from the soul on the path to salvation. In other words, physical morality plays no part in the salvation of the soul. Such a belief is contrary to the witness of scripture, the fathers, and the saints of the Church. This deviation denies the witness of the Incarnation and distorts – nay destroys – a proper understanding of the Body of Christ as a communion of believers united in the Eucharist. Thus, as with any heresy, grace is denied.

God’s grace enables us for us the eschatological fulfillment and restoration of our nature, for the sharing of God’s reign through our participation in the life of the body of Christ. A homosexual relationship is not a fitting vehicle for coming to share more fully in God’s holiness. Regardless of arguments about whether homosexual activity is in any sense natural in our fallen world, Christians know the true nature of our sexuality if from what God has revealed about our creation and salvation as man and woman. Since grace restores and fulfills, but does not destroy our sexual nature as man and woman, to participate in homosexual relationships is to place oneself on a trajectory away from God’s gracious purposes for our sexuality. Hence, one who is not called to the vocation of heterosexual marriage should remain single and chaste, and take up the unique forms of ministry available to the celibate (p.87).

As with any review, there is a temptation to quote all the good stuff; alas, I have done some of this above. Yet, to fully understand the nature and import of Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex more than select quotes – or even the cited chapter on “same-sex unions” – is needed. While the issues discussed in the book have been politicized in contemporary society, they are not political but moral issues which have been politicized. Above all, Christians are called to remain true to the Faith revealed to us by God in the scripture, the fathers, and the witness of the saints. Fr Philip LeMaster’s book, Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex, explains and maintains this high calling.

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[1] Available: http://www.mediaite.com/online/obama-in-2004-homosexuality-not-a-choice-but-i-dont-think-marriage-is-a-civil-right/ (accessed May 27, 2015)

[2] Available: http://www.mediaite.com/online/obama-in-2004-homosexuality-not-a-choice-but-i-dont-think-marriage-is-a-civil-right/ (accessed May 27, 2015)

[3] Stein, Sam (May 9, 2012). “Obama Backs Gay Marriage”. Huffington Post.

[4] [March 6, 2015] http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/06/politics/obama-nationwide-same-sex-marriage/ (accessed May 27, 2015)

[5] Manichaeism: Manes (215-275) was a Persian and a Gnostic. He contrasted light and darkness, and maintained that Satan had hidden in man the particles of light, and that Jesus, Buddha, the Prophets, and Manes had been sent by God to help in the task of freeing men from the material and sensible world into the Light of Being. Manichaeism had a hierarchy, which distinguished the sensible, intellectual, and divine light. Manes was a proponent of knowledge of divine things, rather than faith. (Taken from an unpublished manuscript by the Rev. Dr. Charles Caldwell, 2010.)

[6] Available: http://www.gallup.com/poll/183413/americans-continue-shift-left-key-moral-issues.aspx?utm_source=Social%20Issues&utm_medium=newsfeed&utm_campaign=tiles (accessed May 27, 2015)

The recent media blitz about a former Olympic star so-called TRANSITIONING into the opposite sex is just kook-koo. Absolutely NUTS. And totally … not new.

First of all – confusion about sex is nothing new. A note to the younger crowd, I don’t typically use the term GENDER, which traditionally refers to language (as in le and la in French), I use the word SEX to refer to male or female or, of course, an act that may produce children – other males and females. If none of this makes sense, you may want to skip this podcast. Unless of course you want to hear what Fr Danislav sounds like in a dress.

DREAMY HARP SOUNDS – I was sleeping when I wrote this, last week it was … when to my surprise, who shows up but my old pal Fr Danislav Gregoriou in drag …

Listen for the rest of the story:

The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio!

A priest walks into a convenience store to buy gas for his car; it’s Good Friday, Orthodox style. The Royal Hours have been completed and, back at the church, the body of the Savior adorns the Cross in the midst of the Temple.

The clerk behind the counter says, “Ah … last Friday was a big day for you, huh?”

“You mean Good Friday?” I asked – “Actually, ours is today. I’m Orthodox.”

“Wait. Didn’t the Catholics have theirs last week?” he said.

“Yeah, the Orthodox Church calculates the date differently …”

“Well,” he interrupted, “if you don’t mind my asking, how is Orthodoxy different than …”

Anticipating his query, I went through the whole “One Church-original five patriarchates-split in 1054” thing …

Again, he interrupted, “No, I mean … I’m Muslim. How does your faith differ from mine?”

Um. Y’all? I ain’t never.

He persisted, but more on that later …

For now,  a confession: I do not like Aaron Copland. I mean, Aaron Copland’s music.  First of all, Classical Music stations play Appalachian Spring WAY too much. It might not be so bad if:

ONE – the didn’t mispronounce it AppaLAYchan Spring (or, worse still, AppaLAYSHUN)

And …

Listen to the Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio (for the rest of the story)!

I’ve been thinking:  Don’t make Lenten Resolutions – that is not profitable. Just do what the Church prescribes! Better yet, REPENT. (Whatever that means.)

Stuff pops into my head; often I am to blame – as I set not a watch at the door. I leave the door of my mind unlocked – if not fully open. Even when I make an effort to set a guard, I do so sloppily – as if I am some prize for the demons and not, as I truly am, just a garden variety old sinner.

I don’t believe in reincarnation – and yet my mind reincarnates past wrongs and memories to haunt and harm me. These sad fantasies are often greater monstrosities than that which tempts in reality. But the least little wrong done me by my neighbor is colossal in scope when sifted through that same imagination.

Adam knew this not – and he chose it. I KNOW IT, and choose to forget it in order to choose it again.

The run of the mill temptations – Houston Traffic, human ineptitude, the perceived sins of my brothers and sisters – the beauty of ugliness of another – these I see all to readily. Yet that which kills me from within … SEE IT? (You probably do) – these things I am blinded to. I choose NOT to see. I have twisted the Lord’s teachings and gouged out my eyes, so to speak, NOT so as not to sin … but in vain hopes of not seeing my own sins.

The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio!