So apparently a judge in California declared Proposition 8 unconstitutional, setting the stage for more appeals and possibly leading to the nullification of every "traditional marriage" referendum in the country. Personally I find it ironic that a homosexual judge from Illinois can be celebrated for spitting on the will of the people but when a religious group like the Mormons that has members in California but is headquartered in another state tries to get people to vote then it's suddenly the worst thing in the world and they have to be punished for it. Of course, this doesn't mean that I'm surprised. It was only a matter of time before they found a judge to do this, and history has told us that many radical changes in our country both good and bad have come about through a judicial disregard for the will of the people.

This may seem like a small thing, like an inconsequential movement toward something that will have no effect on those who don't approve, but if history has taught me anything it's that California is the harbinger of doom and things always end up worse than they were when they started. Looking at abortion, many probably didn't believe that the actions of a few liberal states like California and New York would shortly be mandated throughout the country. They also probably didn't think that we'd be experiencing such a breakdown in the family, such catastrophic rises in child and spousal abuse as well as other sorts of domestic violence, and in fact many in the pro-abortion movement seem to have thought that legalized abortion would lead to the eradication of such evils. In five or ten years we may face a situation where a federal judge declares all "marriage between a man and a woman only" laws unconstitutional, and then we'll all be in this situation. It will be tragic, but it certainly won't be surprising.

The real question here, the real uncertainty about the rapid movement toward entropy and chaos that is defines our culture, is whether this will be used to persecute religious groups that oppose gay marriage. This sort of thing has happened in the past, where churches that rented out halls for wedding receptions were sued for not renting them out to gay couples. If the courts decide that church weddings are a "service" like renting out facilities, what would stop them from deciding that such services have to be offered equally regardless of sexual orientation? What would stop them from penalizing churches that performed weddings for straight couples but refused to perform them for gay ones? Even if they couldn't punish churches and clergy for their inconvenient beliefs, what stops them from using litigation to discourage laity from supporting those churches and clergy? We may very well end up in an era of persecution of the Church in this country, perhaps not tomorrow or next year but soon enough, and I only pray that God graces our leaders and the faithful with the strength to endure. Perhaps after a while our culture will realize the error of its ways and return to God, hopefully before we become so morally bankrupt that we end up like the Roman Empire and fade out of existence as a society, and at that point we'll need somebody to reintroduce His ways to a fallen world.