I can\u2019t get the Cole Porter song \u201cAnything Goes\u201d out of my head. Even worse, I hear Justice Kennedy singing it.<\/p>\n
The two words that come to mind after reading about the Supreme Court making same-sex marriage the law of the land are \u201canything goes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice Kennedy\u2019s majority opinion has positioned our culture near the top of a generously-greased slope and there are plenty of people ready to give that culture a shove.<\/p>\n
A case in point is the cover story of the most recent issue of the Economist, which appeared a few days before the Court\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n
The cover reads \u201cThe Right to Die: Why assisted suicide should be legal.\u201d Inside the magazine, the article began with the following words: \u201cIt is easy to forget that adultery was a crime in Spain until 1978; or that in America, where gay marriage is allowed by 37 states and may soon be extended to all others by the Supreme Court, the last anti-sodomy law was struck down only in 2003. Yet, although most Western governments no longer try to dictate how consenting adults have sex, the state still stands in the way of their choices about death. An increasing number of people \u2014 and this newspaper \u2014 believe that is wrong.\u201d Wow.<\/p>\n
Strictly speaking, this is a non-sequitur, because in strictly logical terms, what the state does or doesn\u2019t do regarding sex between consenting adults is unrelated to its position on physician-assisted suicide.<\/p>\n
But there is a very real cultural and worldview connection between the two. What the Economist is appealing to is our ideas about personal liberty and autonomy.<\/p>\n
These ideas were at the heart of Justice Kennedy\u2019s majority opinion. He began by saying that, in addition to the rights specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights, the 14th Amendment guarantees \u201ccertain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices that define personal identity and beliefs.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that \u201cthe right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy.\u201d He then concluded by writing that, \u201cThere is dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry and in their autonomy to make such profound choices.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, without autonomy, there is neither dignity nor freedom. (Now there\u2019s a chilling thought for those whose lives depend on others for care). In fact, you could argue that, for Justice Kennedy, the point of freedom is to make personal autonomy possible. As Chief Justice Roberts pointed out in his dissent, the only restraint on this idea of autonomy is five Justices\u2019 \u201creasoned judgment,\u201d based on \u201c\u2018new insight\u2019 into the \u2018nature of injustice,\u2019 which was invisible to all who came before but has become clear \u2018as we learn [the] meaning of liberty.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, the judges are making it up as they go along.<\/p>\n
And that brings me back to the Economist\u2019s cover story. In 1997, the Supreme Court declined to find a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide. That was a little bit of a surprise at the time. After all, Justice Kennedy had recently penned his \u201cmystery passage\u201d in the Planned Parenthood case, in which he defined liberty as \u201cthe right to define one\u2019s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the Court declined to go that far back then, 18 years is a long time, and I can only imagine what \u201cnew insights\u201d might have taken hold since then. It would be folly to think that assisted suicide is settled law.<\/p>\n
Likewise, it would be foolish to think that the legal redefinition of marriage will stop at same-sex marriage. As the dissenters pointed out, Kennedy\u2019s case for same-sex marriage can also apply to polygamy.<\/p>\n
As I said, \u201canything goes.\u201d It can hardly be otherwise if individual autonomy is the definition of freedom.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2015 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I can\u2019t get the Cole Porter song \u201cAnything Goes\u201d out of my head. Even worse, I hear Justice Kennedy singing it. The two words that come to mind after reading about the Supreme Court making same-sex marriage the law of the land are \u201canything goes.\u201d Justice Kennedy\u2019s majority opinion has positioned our culture near the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[460,1094,3696,3372,3476],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}