The Supreme Court: Our Worldview Optometrist?
By now, Obergefell v. Hodges is household parlance. The majority opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States reads, “The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them.” Same-sex marriage is now a civil right. Though not surprised when I heard the ruling on June 26th, I did have a hollow feeling. How did we arrive at this point in history? How did we come to have this view of the world?
As I reflected on the situation I was reminded of a quote from a well-known propagandist minister of a previous century. He said, “We don’t talk to say something but to obtain a certain effect.” The implication is that “truth” is created, not discovered, and to be correct we should say “truths,” not truth. That is what the homosexual community has been doing for over a decade. They have been using propaganda to create truth and so construct a new worldview for the American people.
Perhaps you think such a thing is a stretch or a bit too harsh of an accusation. But consider this; in 1989 Marshal Kirk and Hunter Madsen turned their 1987 article, “The Overhauling of Straight America” into a book titled, After the Ball, published in 1989. The subtitle of this national bestseller says it all, “How America Will Conquer its Fear & Hatred of Gays in the 90’s.” Rather than a “storming the barricade” approach, After the Ball adopted a propaganda campaign. On page xxviii of the introduction, Kirk and Madsen write, “The campaign we outline in this book, though complex, depends centrally upon a program of unabashed propaganda, firmly grounded in long-established principles of psychology and advertising.” They continue on the same page saying, “this will be a hot campaign, with all the excitement and theatrics of any other approach – and with a better chance of at least partial success.”
Clearly, they were able to deliver on the promise. Kirk, Madsen, and others like them, have been aligning legitimate rights for women, blacks, the elderly and the poor with the illegitimate rights of the homosexual community since the 90’s. In other words, they have subtly inserted their ignoble agenda alongside the just cause of civil rights! Now, this has been happening for so long that many people probably don’t even realize that this is propaganda. On page 183, Kirk and Madsen write,
In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be portrayed as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to adopt the role of protector. If gays present themselves, instead, as a strong and arrogant tribe promoting a defiantly non-conformist lifestyle, they are likely to be seen as a public menace that warrants resistance and oppression. For that reason, we must forego the temptation to strut our gay pride publicly to such an extent that we undermine our victim image.
These men, like the propagandist mentioned earlier, are talking to obtain a certain effect.
But when true truth (to use a Francis Schaeffer expression) is cast aside in favor of manufactured truth where will the slide into a totally pagan worldview end? For example, when Chief Justice Roberts, in his minority opinion asked "about a plural marital union at oral argument, petitioners asserted that a State 'doesn’t have such an institution.' Tr. of Oral Arg. on Question 2, p. 6. But that is exactly the point: the States at issue here do not have an institution of same-sex marriage, either" (Roberts, Dissent, 21). And if the Supreme Court has manufactured the institution of same-sex marriage then what other institution might they create?
Let me give you another example. Who is to say that there will not be a push by such groups as NAMBLA (the North American Man-Boy Love Association) to promote homosexual pedophilia as an acceptable alternative form of sex? Surely advocates of same-sex marriage would deny such a thing, but logically how can they? If there is no truth to discover but only to create who is to say that NAMBLA won’t adopt a similar propaganda campaign? The homosexuals decided that they were too much of a risk for their own campaign (After the Ball, 184) but they did not denounce them as wrong. In fact, Kirk and Madsen say to the group and those like them, “We’re not judging you, but others do, and very harshly; please keep a low profile. You offend the public more than other gays.” According to Kirk and Madsen, groups like NAMBLA are simply politically inconvenient…at least for the present. But how long will inconvenience last?
We are living in uncertain days. Even Chief Justice Roberts in his minority opinion said, Unfortunately, people of faith can take no comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today” (28). Speaking in terms of worldview, we are being asked to replace one truth for a new and better one. But Roberts is right. We can take no comfort in the truths that men construct. So, let’s return to true truth. Let’s receive the truth that God has given in His infallible and inerrant Word. There, and there alone, amidst the shifting sands of culture and society, we will find a firm Rock upon which to stand.
Jeffrey A. Stivason has been serving the Lord as a minister of the gospel since 1995. He was church planter and now pastor of Grace Reformed Presbyterian Church in Gibsonia, PA. He also holds a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, PA.
