‘Redefining marriage will lead to fall of Western civilization’

Dr. James Dobson, who founded the highly influential groups Focus on the Family and Family Research Council and now runs Family Talk Radio, is warning that if the U.S. Supreme Court redefines marriage as analysts predict, the ruling will presage the “fall of Western civilization.”

“I do not recall a time when the institutions of marriage and the family have faced such peril, or when the forces arrayed against them were more formidable or determined,” he writes in a letter distributed to his hundreds of thousands of supporters.

“Barring a miracle, the family that has existed since antiquity will likely crumble, presaging the fall of Western civilization itself. This is a time for concerted prayer, divine wisdom and greater courage than we have ever been called upon to exercise,” he writes.

The author has frequently has tangled with the Obama administration.

At one point he warned America is heading toward “depravity.”

He also, amid his lawsuit against the administration over Obamacare’s abortion requirements, told the president he would refuse to obey any law that required him to participate in the killing of an unborn child.

“I believe in the rule of law, and it has been my practice since I was in college to respect and honor those in authority over us. It is my desire to do so now. However, this assault on the sanctity of human life takes me where I cannot go,” he wrote in an open letter to the president.

WND also reported that when Dobson spoke to the National Day of Prayer in Washington, hundreds stood and cheered him.

‘Hurtling’ toward Gomorrah

His newest comments were written for distribution to constituents of the organization he founded after leaving Focus on the Family in 2003, Family Talk, which features the daily radio show “Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson.”

“We … are not simply ‘slouching toward Gomorrah,’ as Judge Robert Bork warned in his best-selling book; we are hurtling toward it,” he writes. “The old earthen dam that has held and protected the reservoir of Judeo-Christian values since the days of our Founding Fathers has given way.”

If the Supreme Court redefines marriage, he says, “an avalanche of court cases will be filed on related issues that can’t even be imagined today.”

Religious liberty “will be assaulted from every side.”

“You can be certain that conservative churches will be dragged into court by the hundreds,” Dobson writes. “Their leaders will be required to hire people who don’t share the beliefs of their denominations and constituents. Pastors may have to officiate at same-sex marriages, and they could be prohibited from preaching certain passage of Scripture. … Prison is also a possibility.”

He says Christian businesses and ministries, as already has happened to florists and bakers, will be forced to serve at same-sex ceremonies, and Christian colleges “may be unable to teach scriptural views of marriage.”

A foreshadowing can be seen in Obama’s recent demand for laws that prevent parents from seeking professional therapy if their children are dealing with a sexual identity crisis. Already law in a couple of states, Obama’s plan would require counselors to accept homosexuality in all such cases.

“What business does this man have telling parents how to help their confused and disoriented kids even after they have been abused and exploited sexually? This is outrageous!” Dobson says.

Also, anyone with a state license soon could be coerced into adopting the state definition of morality.

Textbooks would be rewritten, and public schools soon would teach children “gay and lesbian concepts.”

All of which, he writes, defies the facts of marriage.

“The institution of the family is one of the Creator’s most marvelous and enduring gifts to humankind. It was revealed to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and then described succinctly in Genesis 2:24, where we read, ‘For this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.’ With those 20 words, God announced the ordination of male-female marriage, long before He established the two other great human institutions, the church and the government,” he writes.

Every civilization has held to that understanding of marriage until now.

“God help us if we throw the divine plan for humankind on the ash heap of history,” he said. “Down one path are millions of strong and vibrant families with their children growing up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Down the other path is a nation drifting away from its spiritual roots in a culture that will teach a dangerous ideology to today’s younger generation and those yet to come.

Gay couple overjoyed to feature in Clinton launch video

When Jared Milrad and Nate Johnson participated in a video about “big changes,” they had no idea their same-sex wedding plans would feature in Sunday’s campaign launch by Hillary Clinton.

Friends called to say they saw the pair walking hand in hand in what quickly became one of the most widely viewed political clips of the year.

“We were both out shopping, working on wedding invitations,” Milrad told AFP, overjoyed to be part of the Clinton rollout — and part of a large-scale change in US social attitudes.

“It shows how far we’ve come,” said the 31-year-old lawyer, pleased that public support for same-sex marriage rights has grown so far as to appear in a presidential campaign launch.

The gay couple were only one in a diverse series of aspirational Americans featured in the Clinton ad, which casts a broad demographic net as she hunts for a winning coalition of voters.

It features Spanish-speaking brothers preparing to start a business, a mother seeking to return to the work force, an Asian-American college graduate and expectant African-American parents.

“Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion,” Clinton says. “So I’m hitting the road to earn your vote.”

Milrad was one of the featured everyday American optimists to get a speaking part, explaining: “I’m getting married this summer, to someone I really care about.”

The vibrant clip, set to snappy music and featuring Clinton for less than half the video’s length, is a dramatic departure from Clinton’s drab announcement of seven years ago.

The video which kicked off her former unsuccessful campaign showed Clinton on a couch, talking about ending the Iraq war, shrinking deficits and expanding affordable health care.

It made no mention of same-sex unions. Barack Obama, the candidate who beat her to the White House, was personally opposed to gay marriage in 2008 and only recently converted to the cause.

Source: AFP