Last week, the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins convened an emergency meeting of his “Watchmen on the Wall” pastors’ group to address “the aftermath of the seismic Supreme Court ruling on marriage.” Perkins told the group gathered at a Dallas Baptist church that thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision, “we are at a moment of urgency unprecedented in the history of this country.”
Perkins told the story of King Uzziah, who according to the Book of Chronicles, ruled competently over Judah until he became proud and attempted to burn incense in the Temple, something only priests were allowed to do. Ultimately, the priests stopped Uzziah and God smote him with leprosy, he was ostracized and died.
Perkins, he said, was struck by the “parallel between Judah under King Uzziah and America under Barack Obama.”
“What struck me was that on the eve of this Supreme Court decision, on June the 26th, if you watched the news you saw that the president had bathed the White House in the colors of the so-called gay pride,” he said. “The parallel between the pride of Uzziah and the pride of our national leader shaking his fist in the face of God was stark and alarming.”
Like the priests in Chronicles, he said, American pastors today have the duty to stand up to such heresy, even if it means going to jail, which he said is possible.
“I know many have talked to me, saying, ‘As pastors are we going to face prison, are we going to face jail, Are we going to be forced to do same-sex marriages?’” he said. “That may come if we fail to act today, but the greater threat is to the men and women sitting in your pews every Sunday morning.”
He urged pastors to “encourage your people to stand firm in the faith” even when that means facing a “reverse religious test” in which they aren’t allowed to use their religious beliefs as a reason to discriminate against LGBT people in the public square.
