Oops, Wrong Side

Sometimes I hear someone, and my mind reels at the lack of self-awareness. Often times it comes in the form of cognitive dissonance.

Case in point Mat Staver.

As shown in this video posted to YouTube via Right Wing Watch, on Saturday April 25, 2015 Liberty Council founder Mat Staver addressed a march organized by NOM:

As someone who's argued before the United States Supreme Court, I certainly have respect for this court, but I have no respect and cannot respect a lawless decision. This court has not always been right on the issue of marriage. 

In the 1800s it issued the infamous Dred Scott decision, and Justice Taney said, “sorry Dred, no rights for you here at this high court,” because they said blacks were inferior human beings.

How racist and bigoted was that? How contrary to the natural law of God is that decision?

It is no decision worth respecting today, and It was no decision worth respecting then.

In 1927 the famous Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the infamous words, “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Saying to Carrie Buck, the Commonwealth Virginia can forcibly sterilize you to get rid of your population, because you have low IQ.

That was a racist bigoted decision flies in the face of the dignity of every person created in the image of God.

No one will defend it now and no one should have defended then.

I say now as we are standing on the precipice this major decision before the United States Supreme Court, these leaders that came together in this marriage pledge, that I hope you sign on it at defendmarriage.org are saying this, “Supreme Court of the United States with all due respect, we warn you, do not cross this line.”

As much as I am an attorney, and I respect the rule of law, I also respect a higher law. And when an earthly law collides with a higher law, we have no choice to obey higher law. We cannot comply Caesar's demands that are in direct conflict with a higher law, and that's what the Doctor Martin Luther King wrote in a letter from a Birmingham jail. There are two kinds of laws just and unjust. You have to obey the just laws, but the unjust laws are no laws at all, and we cannot obey those.

Marriage is the union of a man and a woman. As a policy matter any other union says that God’s design is flawed. As a policy matter any other unions say that boys don't need fathers and girls don't need mothers, and we know that God’s creation the divine architect that infused into the natural created order, knows what's best for the family. Children need mothers and fathers.

This United States Supreme Court, nor any governmental entity, does not have the authority to redefine God’s natural created order of marriage.

Mat, honey, the connection between Dred Scott, Buck v. Bell, and Baker v. Nelson was an unjust denial of the Due Process Clause. Or in other words, Americans are afforded the rights to life, liberty, and property.

In fact, the denial of the 5th Amendment in Dred Scott was a major point for the adoption of the 14th Amendment. It ensured that all people are afforded due process protections by both the States as well as the Federal Government.

I know in 2014 your Liberty University had a first time bar passer rate of 50% in Virginia: so I have a feeling you might not be teaching this, but based on the concept of substantive due process the right to marry is a condition of life, liberty, and property as enumerated in Loving v. Virginia, Zablocki v. Redhail, and Turner v. Safley.

In your own analogy, you are on the wrong side of history. You're not arguing for Dred Scott or Carrie Buck. You're on the side that wants to deny liberty and substantive due process. But thanks for playing and proving why your school is garbage.

If I were a betting man, I would be willing to bet that Mat knows that he is on the wrong side of history, as much of his speech reads nearly perfectly as a pro-LGBT. But quite frankly in the end I don't care.

I am curious though how Mat is going to perform civil disobedience in regards to same-sex marriage.
For civil disobedience, which MLK, Jr. prescribed, the government has to be doing something and your non-compliance is therefore disruptive. For example not paying your taxes. Or sit-ins in Government or public locations.

The only thing I can think that vaguely would qualify, is that Mat won't get married to a dude. Not much of protest there as not getting married affects nothing.

Or perhaps he will get a boyfriend and then won't get married as some sort of fucked-up, bizarro, psycho-sexual protest that only Mat Staver knows about or would makes sense to.

I have heard of people doing weirder things.

The Loophole by Garfunkel and Oates

It's either that or impotent rage. And impotent rage is never attractive.

The very last point I want to touch on is when Mat says, "This United States Supreme Court, nor any governmental entity, does not have the authority to redefine God’s natural created order of marriage."

You do realize that gay people exist, right? And that many of us have kids? And that would be a part of god's order, right? I'm not saying existence is right or wrong, but I am saying that existence is nature. If god didn't want gay people, then why do we exist.

Where do they get off speaking for god. That's pretty fucking arrogant.


Liam '15