On Tuesday, as the Supreme Court was hearing arguments on the constitutionality of gay marriage bans, E.W. Jackson convened a conference call with Texas-based pastor Rick Scarborough and conservative attorney William Olson to discuss how a decision in favor of marriage equality would destroy America.
“Gentlemen, we’re facing a crisis unlike any before,” Scarborough told callers, saying that while Roe v. Wade was “a dreadful decision wreaking havoc upon the nation and upon the world” at least “with abortion we can opt out of that.”
Marriage equality, he warned, would be a different story.
“I have portrayed it as two trains on the same track going in opposite directions,” he said. “One is the train of free speech and religious rights, religious liberty as defined in the First Amendment. But the other train is this newly created, unnatural civil right of two men being able to marry one another or two women marrying one another.”
“And only God knows where we go after that,” he continued, “because once you tear down that wall, how do you keep a man from marrying a child, or five men from marrying one woman or one man marrying five women? Once the wall is torn down and God’s law is no longer supported by our federal laws and our statutes, then we move into a realm that we’ve never lived in before, but I can assure you religious liberty will not survive that. And there will be a collision, a collision unparalleled in American history.”
He urged callers to sign a pledge organized by Religious Right leaders vowing to meet any marriage equality decision with civil disobedience. If enough people sign the pledge, he said, maybe the court “will pause and say, ‘We’re about to sow to the wind and reap a whirlwind.’”
“This is the day for modern-day Bonhoffers in America to stand up and speak up,” he said, referring to the German pastor who was executed by Nazi forces.
Olson warned at a Supreme Court decision in favor of marriage equality would mean “we no longer have a written constitution, we no longer have rule of law, we have had Darwinian revolution influence the courts.”
“So we have an extraordinary moment where we might be losing just about everything…if an adverse decision is not met with resistance,” he said.
Olson told callers that while “we’re not being told we cannot preach the Gospel, but it’s awfully close to that command that requires us to obey God and not obey man.”
Referring to Scarborough’s comment at a press conference last week that he would be willing to die fighting marriage equality, Olson said, “As extraordinary as that sounds, that is not an impossibility.”
Anti-gay activists, he said, will have to practice civil disobedience such as “jury nullification” and encouraging state elected officials to refuse to enforce a marriage equality decision. This led Jackson to slam Republican politicians who say they would attend the wedding of a gay or lesbian loved one.
“The popular compromise it seems for politicians these days is, ‘I’m opposed to same-sex marriage, but I would go to a same-sex ceremony to support a friend,’” he said. “It’s unconscionable.”
