By James Wilson
The
Governor of California facilitates passage of a law mandating so-called cap and
trade for industries in the state. The
law requires companies exceeding pollution limits to pay fees for credits so they
can pollute within the law; funds from their fees are to address environmental
issues. But that same governor decrees –
in defiance of the law – that a quarter billion cap and trade dollars be
diverted to fund his unpopular and court-stalled bullet train project. That same governor – and his predecessor –
decided a few years back to disagree with the voter adopted amendment to the
California Constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman. They refused their obligation to defend the
laws and constitution of the state and actually attacked them in court,
effectively preventing even private parties from standing for those laws.
The
President of the United States decides to disagree with federal law defining
marriage. He later chooses to disagree
with immigration law; he most famously disagrees with his own healthcare law –
after seeing the fruit. In the first two
he – and his like minded attorney general – simply refused to enforce and even
attacked these laws in court; in the last he has unilaterally re-written the
law twenty-seven times. None of these
actions – state or federal – is within the authority or the oaths of these
officials. Now Virginia Attorney General
Mark Herring announces he will not tolerate the marriage provisions of his
state’s constitution. Is integrity in
political office a reasonable expectation?
Let
me ask another way. If we cannot
reasonably expect integrity from our leaders why ask them to swear an oath to
exercise their duties faithfully and in accountability to the laws and constitutions
supplying their authority? But – we hear
– these men and women have a conscience of their own and surely they are
entitled to act within their convictions.
Really?
They are so
entitled; they are even morally obligated to so act. But when they cannot in good conscience keep
the oath they swore and the accountability they assumed the honorable thing is
to resign their office and press for change as the advocates they long to
be. To simply usurp power they were
never granted is neither conscientious nor honest. It is arrogance masquerading as integrity and
those who practice it should be removed from office and treated with disdain.
Officeholders
and other governmental types do not corner the market on phony integrity. Those who seek to advance the gay agenda by
presenting themselves as prophets of civil rights are classic examples of scam
artists seeking to mold conviction. They
have the brass to claim Dr. Martin Luther King would be marching beside them if
he were alive today. The circular
reasoning is: Dr. King was the greatest civil rights leader – true enough – and
gay rights are a civil right; therefore King would support gay rights. Michael Long’s 2012 book about King and gay
rights is a recent addition to the mountain of unsupported inferences. The problem is the facts get in the way.
Dr.
King’s daughter, Bernice, says of her father, “He did not take a bullet for same
sex unions,” at his graveside calling for a constitutional amendment defining
marriage in Biblical terms. He was a
Bible believing Christian all his life who rarely spoke about homosexuality;
when he did it was Biblically consistent.
Through his advice column for Ebony Magazine in the late fifties he
wrote a struggling young man, “The type of feeling that you have toward boys is
probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally
acquired. You are already on the right
road to a solution, since you honestly recognize the problem and have a desire
to solve it.” King’s love for all persons
comes across; just as clear is his conviction God did not make people gay and
there are solutions to every problem if we seek God and His healing. Reality is that King’s words, written more
than half a century ago, are in sync with the most reliable scientific evidence
regarding causation of homosexuality.
People
who differ with me on this issue are doubtless grinding their teeth in rage. Well and good. Make your case. But don’t stoop to putting words in another
man’s mouth. Alongside all the loving
things Jesus said were confrontive words like, “Thou shalt not bear false
witness,” and of the Pharisees, “You shut the Kingdom of Heaven in men’s
faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor
will you let those enter who are trying to.”
He came to bring abundant life, but the gift requires honesty and
integrity in order to be received.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living
As Ambassadors of Relationships and The
Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by
e-mailing him at
praynorthstate@charter.net
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