The right-wing response to the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision has been, quite literally, apocalyptic.
It’s only been five days since the court issued its ruling, but conservative pundits have already predicted that gay marriage will ultimately be responsible for natural disasters, terrorist attacks and the destruction of freedom.
1) Terrorist attacks
While there haven’t been any terrorist attacks against the U.S. since the court’s ruling, whenever there are, anti-LGBT activists will know who to blame: gay people who want to get married.
Sandy Rios, the American Family Association’s director of governmental affairs, linked the marriage equality decision to the reported July 4 terror threat. Declaring that there will be “some consequence” to this “unbelievable affront to God,” Rios suggested that “the terror threat against this nation has gone up exponentially” as a result of the marriage decision.
“They have thumbed their nose at God’s design for man, a man and a woman designed from the beginning of time and creation, and it will not, it will not stand,” she added. “While we’re under such terrible terror threats, you know, our protections have been lifted and that’s what they don’t understand.”
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, also warned that “God’s hand of protection will be withdrawn as future actions from external and internal forces will soon make clear. I will do all I can to prevent such harm, but I am gravely fearful that the stage has now been set.”
“America’s elite leadership have taken the side of the enemies of God, and He will take notice,” WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah warned, claiming that such divine judgment “could come in the form of an attack on our country from foreign power or terrorist group.”
Rick Wiles, host of the End Times radio program “Trunews,” similarly predicted that God will now “lift His hand of protection from this nation” and “permit America’s enemies to attack this nation.”
Cliff Kincaid of the conservative group Accuracy in Media was a little more tame in his reasoning but came to the same conclusion: “A country that descends to the bottom of the barrel morally and culturally will not be able to defend itself against its foreign adversaries and enemies. Indeed, we have the evidence all around us that, as the culture has degenerated, our ability to defend ourselves has simultaneously been weakened.”
2) Forced gay sex
The right-wing warnings of “forced homosexuality” are now coming true, at least according to one pastor. Tim Brooks of the Christian Ministries Church told one conservative radio program that gay people, just like the men of Sodom who tried to rape angelic visitors, “are trying to force their lifestyle on him, come out and have sex with us, have to participate.”
3) Thunderstorms
Fox News pundit Todd Starnes had a curious reaction to Saturday’s storm in Washington D.C., telling his Facebook fans that it was not a coincidence that it came one day after the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of marriage equality:
Record-breaking floods have inundated Washington, D.C. just days after the Supreme Court decided they knew better than God. I seem to remember another time in history when there was a record-breaking flood.
God painted the sky with rainbow colors after that flood. This go-around - Obama painted the White House with rainbow colors.
Anybody got an ark?
4) Food shortages
Heavy rain may not be the only result of same-sex marriage (besides equal marriage rights for gay people), as some Religious Right pundits also believe that divine wrath will come in the form of food shortages and drought.
Wiles warned that “God will cut off America’s food supply and this nation will be hit with disease, pestilence, drought, natural calamities and a great shaking.”
“Nothing grabs the attention of the distracted faster than the complete removal of all creature comforts and extravagant wealth,” Christian Post columnist Michael Bresciani said. “Crops will fail, stores will close and commerce will come almost to a complete stop. It will not be pretty. Add to that, attacks from our enemies and natural disasters rising to meet the pride of the sinners’ right where it hurts the most.”
These predictions aren’t new, since gay marriage apparently already brought drought to California.
5) Jailing pastors
Five years ago, Religious Right leaders confidently predicted that prison cells and court rooms would fill up with pastors after the passage of the 2009 Hate Crimes Act. Of course, such events never occurred, but now the same anti-LGBT activists are making the same false claims about the supposed consequences of same-sex marriage.
“Pastors who refuse to perform gay marriage and preach from the Bible should prepare for hate crime charges,” Starnes said. “All dissent will be silenced.”
Richard Land, a former leader of the Southern Baptist Convention’s political arm, was a little more cautious, explaining that pastors will indeed face prison if they refuse to officiate same-sex couple’s weddings, but only after the government takes a few “intermediate steps.”
6) Media censorship
Just days prior to the Supreme Court’s marriage ruling, Glenn Beck said that if the court were to decide in favor of same-sex couples, then the Bible would be outlawed as a “hate book.” Just hours after the decision came down, Beck offered another dire warning: He will lose his show.
“This could mean the end of radio broadcasts like mine,” Beck said, insisting that he will be taken off the air simply because he is “for traditional marriage.”
7) Taking kids from their parents
Chicago-based pastor Erwin Lutzer believes that parents who oppose same-sex marriage may lose custody of their children following the Supreme Court’s marriage ruling, predicting that “parents that homeschool children, religious parents, will be diagnosed as culturally intolerant and personality intolerant. And therefore, as a result, their children will be taken away from them.”
Rios, the AFA official, even warned that children may be forced to spy on their parents like in the Soviet Union.
8) This means war
Conservative legal activist Larry Klayman denounced the marriage equality ruling as a “harbinger to revolution,” urging Americans to take to rebellion like the Founding Fathers did.
“If evil despots have compromised even our Supreme Court, the ultimate protector and ‘decider’ of our rights, then what choice is left to us?” Klayman asked. “John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin certainly know, from their own experience with King George, and from their graves they see what now again lies ahead and what must be done to restore freedom to our shores.”
Former congressman Allen West also explained “why the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage could lead to civil war,” calling the ruling “the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
One conservative pundit, Bill Muehlenberg, told readers that “a major proper response for Christians and others” to the Supreme Court’s ruling “is massive civil disobedience and defiance of this homo-fascist decision.”
9) Pedophilia now legal
Former House GOP Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who promised that “all hell is going to break loose” if the Supreme Court decided to strike down state bans on same-sex marriage, declared that he has uncovered a “secret memo” from the Department of Justice that reveals plans to legalize “having sex with little boys,” along with bestiality and polygamy.
The website run by West, the former congressman, even claimed that pedophilia supporters celebrated the Friday ruling. As the myth-busting website Snopes notes, the blog post on West’s site was “lifted almost entirely from an article published in 2011 and in no way reflected a claim prompted by a June 2015 Supreme Court decision regarding same-sex marriage.” They add that the 2011 story “originated with a writer who has been asserting for years (less than accurately) that the push for gay rights is manifestly setting the stage for legalized ‘pedophilia rights.’”
Perhaps the blog post’s author received this news from David Barton, the right-wing pseudo-historian who just days before the court issued its ruling alleged, falsely, that pedophilia became “legally protected” following the passage of the 2009 Hate Crimes Act.
10) Criminalization of Christianity
The most prominent claim coming from the Religious Right in response to the Supreme Court’s decision has been what Family Research Council President Tony Perkins has called the government attempt to “eliminate” religious beliefs that oppose gay rights.
“In one appalling decision, the Supreme Court has effectively opened the door to the criminalization of Christianity when it comes to the marriage issue ... and not just Christianity, but every major religion that supports God’s model for marriage and family,” warned Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America.
Right-wing pundit Matt Barber made a similar claim: “The goal of ‘LGBT’ activists and secular progressives has long been to pit the government directly against the free exercise of religion – Christianity in particular – and to silence all dissent.”
One FRC official, Craig James, said that conservatives who oppose the same-sex marriage decision should respond to the coming persecution and ridicule “in love” … just like the families of the Charleston massacre.
