Wesley May: Immoral governing

John Adams warned us that our “Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

The Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage validated Adams’ concern that in the absence of moral rectitude, the principles informing our Founding Fathers become irrelevant

Those five justices have set in motion a coercive attack that will emasculate the free exercise of religion granted by the First Amendment. It is the coercive nature of those effects that will undermine our social structure. Adherence to sincerely held moral precepts of conscience cannot ever be considered discrimination against those who support same-sex marriage. It is those adherents who actually discriminate against the moral precepts (i.e., integral components of “exercise of religion”) that Adams thought were so important, having endured for thousands of years.

And no demands are made on the same-sex marriage adherents to change their beliefs or activity. So what we really have is an example of personal selfishness by same-sex marriage adherents trumping the free exercise of religion right of a very large group of “religious people,” who typically don’t demand behavioral changes.

If anything, the most persons of conscience will do is to pray for the souls of their antagonists.

This story was originally published July 7, 2015 at 4:38 PM with the headline "Wesley May: Immoral governing."