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On August 22nd, 2015, more than 6,000 people gathered on the grounds of Kentucky’s State Capitol to say to Kentucky’s Governor and Legislators: “Protect the religious liberty of County Clerks!” This Rally was planned in order to support courageous County Clerks in three counties who have said they will not issue marriage license to homosexual couples. Their reason: Their religious convictions disagree with homosexuality. Therefore, to issue a marriage license to those who are breaking God’s Commandments would place the clerk on the side against God. They would rather be in line with God and His Word than to be in line with government edicts that are out of line with God and His Word.
This has been a long protected freedom in America. Religious liberty is the reason the Pilgrims came here in 1620. When our Founders wrote our Constitution the very First Amendment they made to it stated,
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
Thomas Jefferson, chief author of The Declaration of Independence, stated:
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
(Jefferson, Thomas. September 23, 1800, in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush. Jefferson’s Extracts from the Gospels, p. 320. John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution – The Faith of Our Founding Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, A Mott Media Book, 1987; 6th printing, 1993), pp. 235, 238.)
Jefferson made it plain in his letter to Danbury Baptists that the Constitution protected the church from government interference with their worship and teaching. This applied also to the individual’s religious faith, whatever that be. Jefferson revealed that the Constitution had built “a wall of separation” by which the church was protected from the national government interfering with its message of the Gospel of Christ. Thus, County Clerks who hold the Biblical conviction of what is marriage have a right to refuse to participate in the issuing of marriage licenses to any couple besides one man and one woman only! Law that disagrees with the Scripture only takes a nation downhill.
Three days after the Rally, the Family Foundation of Kentucky reported that, on Kentucky Educational television, the leaders of the General Assembly all agreed that religious liberty must be protected in this state. This, of course, is in spite of the U.S. Supreme Court declaring that homosexuals have a “Constitutional” right to marry. And even the Speaker of the House, Greg Stumbo (who has stopped a great deal of Biblically based legislation in recent years), admitted something should be done to protect the Clerks’ religious liberty. This proves that numbers work. I have little doubt that if we had had only 400-500 people at the Rally, Mr. Stumbo would not have been so quick to take that position.
This is why it is so important for Christians to vote, be at government meetings, and especially be at Rallies in our state Capitols. Without the Bible’s influence, which Christians bring to government, there is no standard of right and wrong. Without that standard, laws—influenced by the selfishness in man—get passed that disagree with the Bible. These laws remove justice and take away the right of the Gospel of Christ to flow to the next generation. Without the Gospel’s influence, society sinks into chaos. Is this not what is happening now?
So have you been to the Rallies in your state Capitol?
The Good News is, repentance brings restoration of God’s Order! So let us repent and then:
“Stand fast in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free!”
(Galatians 5:1)
Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—and for your children! And you won’t like what that brings to you. I’m Don Pinson; this has been Think About It.