Publisher, William L.

Armstrong
Editor, John Andrews

Volume 7, Number 8 September 2015

THE COURT HAS SPOKEN:

WHAT NOW, AMERICA?

Let us do no such thing. Let us reject the summons of

defeat, the counsels of despair, the calls to intellectually
and spiritually disarm. Let us win, swiftly and decisively,
the urgent battle before us. We can do this in three ways.

By Tony Perkins
With its decision
mandating same-sex
marriage, the nations
highest court has
unleashed chaos and
moral confusion on
our nation. Now the
question is, what are
we as conservatives
going to do about it?
As Will Rogers once
said, Even if you are
on the right track,
youll get run over if you just sit there. Today we are no
longer on the right track. Americans agree
about that by huge majorities. But, boy, are
we getting run over, and we cant just sit here.
We
We live in a time of unique peril. We are beset
by troubles on every side, and most disturbingly
from within. I dont just mean security threats
to the homeland, though the chairman of the
House Intelligence Committee has warned
were confronted with the highest threat level ever.

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Principled Ideas from the Centennial Institute

First, we must embrace anew the principles of our founding.

Ill never forget visiting the inner vault at the National
Archives Building and seeing the U.S. Senate markup of
what we now know as our Bill of Rights.
After George Washington assumed the office of president
in 1789, the first order of business for the new Congress
was amending the Constitution to address issues raised
during ratification. The House of Representatives proposed
17 original amendments, of which the Senate sent forward
12 to the states, with 10 of those ultimately being ratified.
What impressed me in looking at the original document
was that the Houses language for what later became the
First Amendment dealt solely with religious freedom and
rights of conscience. Nothing else.
Our First Freedom

must
battle in
three ways.

I dont just mean the threat to our liberties from misguided

fellow citizens, people who favor policies that relentlessly
expand the state and that undermine the civil institutions
and values that have kept our nation strong.
The Greatest Threat
As Americans today, it seems, we can choose which sex we
want to be on a given day, but we cant choose the health
care plan we want to buy for our families. We can exercise
our religious freedom within the walls of our churches for a
few hours a week, but we cannot bring our religious values
into the public square.
No, the greatest threat we face is the threat from within
ourselves. I mean the danger that we will concede the
debates before us, give up the rights we have inherited,
abandon the legacy of American freedom bequeathed to us
through blood and sacrifice.

This should remind us that religious liberty is

indeed our first freedom, and not just because
its listed first in the Bill of Rights. The framers
understood that religious freedom was a gift
granted by God, to be guarded by government.

It is this freedom that is the foundation for all

the others. Without the freedom to believe,
and live according to those beliefs, there can be no true
freedom. So you and I must resolve above all else to insist
unbendingly on our freedom to believe, to act, and to be
heard.
Second, you and I must reject the idea that history brings
a verdict about the great moral questions, the great debates
about what it means to be human. We must withstand the
taunts that on certain issues everyone needs to get on the
right side of history.
Tony Perkins is president of the Family Research Council in Washington, DC. The
Oklahoma native was previously a state legislator, a TV news reporter, and a U.S.
Marine. He gave this address at the Western Conservative Summit on June 27, 2015.
Centennial Institute sponsors research, events, and publications to enhance
public understanding of the most important issues facing our state and nation.
By proclaiming Truth, we aim to foster faith, family, and freedom,
teach citizenship, and renew the spirit of 1776.

always speak for justice. On the question of the liberty of

Dred Scott, the constitutionality of Jim Crow, the legality
of abortion on demand up to the moment of birth, the
court not only got the substance wrongit got the people
riled.
Time and again the court has read constitutional meanings
that are not there, exercised powers it does not have, and
overridden values it did not invent and cannot abolish.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. declared, echoing William
Blackstone, a law of man that contradicts the law of the
Creator is no law at all.
Five black-robed men and women may be able to overturn
the votes of 50 million Americans, but they cannot overturn
the God-given design of marriage as the union of one man
and one woman.
Severest Test
The advocates of progressive causes are really saying we
must get on their side of history. For myself, I am more
concerned about being on the wrong side of the One who
will write the final chapter of history. But the whole notion
is false.
Karl Marx believed that the dictatorship of the proletariat
was the end of history and that all other political and
economic systems would collapse before it. After the Cold
War, Francis Fukuyama proclaimed that history was ending
in the opposite waywith the triumph of the Western
democracies worldwide.
Neither Smug nor Resigned

So those should be our first two stepsthe reclamation

of first principles and the refusal to accept that history
renders any verdict that we the people cannot appeal and
ultimately reverse.
Our third step is the severest test, because this is where the
other side overreaches and we bear the brunt. Its where
they persecute anyone who refuses to applaud their victory
marchand thereby sow the seeds of their undoing.

We know how difficult this test will be because it is

already underway. Jonathan V. Last, writing in The
Weekly Standard for June 22, 2015, details what he calls
the same-sex marriage bait-and-switch.
His brilliant article focuses first on Brendan
Five black
Eich, the cofounder and CEO of Mozilla.
was driven out because he had the
robes are not Eich
temerity to make a modest contribution to
all-powerful. the campaign in favor of traditional marriage
on Californias Proposition 8.

But wiser heads know that history never just

ends. A smart poet wrote that there are no
lost causes because there are no won causes.
Instead of smug posturing (or beaten
resignation) about inevitable outcomes, our
stance must be one of indomitable striving
for truth and right outcomes in a human story that keeps
unfolding.

Our Supreme Court believes they have spoken the final

word on the fate of marriage. Barack Obama may believe
the same thing. But you and I know otherwise. The court
does not have the moral authority to redefine what it did
not create.
Historys lesson, in fact, is that our highest court is not the
seat of all truth. Sadly, weve too often seen that it does not

Its bad enough that Eich was drummed out of a company

that was his own brainchild. And its worse that this gifted
entrepreneur remains unemployed. What makes it even
more awful is the spectacle of gay marriage proponents
seeking to hound and humiliate him to this day.
Hounded and Humiliated
As Last writes, same-sex marriage advocates aim not only
to alter the nature of marriage forever, but to punish[]
dissenters . . . [to] revisit[] legal notions of freedom of
speech and association, constitutional protections for

CENTENNIAL REVIEW is published monthly by the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University. The authors views are not necessarily
those of CCU. Designer, Bethany Bender. Illustrator, Benjamin Hummel. Subscriptions free upon request. Write to: Centennial Institute, 8787
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Centennial Review September 2015 2

religious freedom, and cultural norms concerning the

family.
The Left used to fuss about banned booksnow they ban
people. In case after case, this persecution, this macroaggression on our most basic liberties, proceeds. I am to
meet soon with a young couple from Oregon, Aaron and
Melissa Klein, who owned a bakery called Sweet Cakes by
Melissa until they were driven out of business and fined an
unconscionable $135,000 for declining to make a cake for
a same-sex wedding.
Evidence has emerged that the Oregon labor commission
that imposed this monstrous fine colluded with the national
gay organization Human Rights Campaign to prosecute
the Kleins. The final irony: same-sex marriage was not even
recognized under Oregon law at the time of the incident.
Its the Left that now demands to know, Are you now or
have you ever been opposed to same-sex marriage?
At the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command in South
Carolina, Wes Modder, a Navy lieutenant commander
and chaplain, was relieved of his duties after 19 years of
distinguished service. His transgression? He accurately
answered questions from a young service member regarding
what the Bible says about
homosexual conduct.

Why put the

Kleins out of
business?

To date, this father of four,

who was months away
from reaching the 20-year
service milestone, has been
denied reinstatement. I
recently delivered more than 100,000 petition signatures
in Commander Modders behalf to the Chief of Chaplains.
The actions taken against this fine man amount to a de
facto abolition of the chaplaincy corps.
Deep Chill

The marriage issue is the proximate cause of these assaults,

but their roots run much deeper. The Supreme Courts
abortion decisions help us put this in perspective. With
its 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, the court removed the
protection of the law from every unborn child then existing
or in the future conceived in the United States.
Assaults on Conscience
The enormity of the decision spawned the intense fights
that we continue to see. But its noteworthy that within
months of that decision a diverse group of legislators, led
by Democrat Frank Church and Republican John Heinz,
worked together to pass strong conscience protections for
health care personnel and providers.
So over the decades, as Americans worked out their
disagreements regarding the sanctity of life, the contending
parties were at least able to agree from the outset that they
would not compel each other to participate in performing
or supporting acts with which they profoundly disagreed.

GOHMERT: AWAKENING NEEDED

People asked me, Why were you invited to the Summit?
Youre not running for President. No, Im not, and I
wont ever. Were not electing another bald president,
not since television became the decisive factor. You dont
have to be smart, but youve got to have hair.
So unlike many in Congress who picture themselves
in the White House, not me. Im free to speak my
mind, including my belief that Benjamin Franklin
was right when he said, God governs in the affairs
of men, and Thomas Jefferson was right when he
said the liberties of a nationare the gift of God.
Im extremely concerned; this country needs another
Great Awakening.

In Augusta, Georgia, Jennifer Keeton, an aspiring counselor

in the graduate program at Augusta State University, was
denied advancement in her chosen field. It seems that
Keeton made the mistake of publicly expressing her view
that homosexual conduct is immoral.
Like a citizen of China fallen afoul of the cadres, Keeton
was ordered to enter remediation, a kind of post-graduate
re-education camp, where she was to undergo diversity
training and even attend the Augusta gay pride parade.
When she ultimately refused, she was expelled from the
program. In 2011, a federal appeals court upheld her
dismissal. A life of service in a helping profession was cut
short.
These examples are only the tip of the iceberg. A deep chill
is descending on the freedoms of religion, association,
and education in every corner of America. You can read
a long and growing list of these cases at our website
freetobelieve.com.

Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) had the Western Conservative Summit

audience roaring with his down-home blend of humor, inspiration, and
straight talk. For video of Gohmerts salty non-candidate speech, along
with those of real presidential candidates Scott Walker, Ben Carson,
Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum, go to
WesternConservativeSummit.com.
Centennial Review September 2015 3

The Court has Spoken:

What Now, America?
By Tony Perkins

Following the U.S. Supreme

Court decision on same-sex
marriage, conservatives must stay
in the battle. They must hold to
our founding principles, with
religious liberty foremost. They
must insist that no verdict of
history can annul the law of the Creator. They must
push back when opponents quash freedom of conscience.
The bonds of family, secured by natural marriage, are the
true wealth of nations.

But thats no longer the case. Assaults on conscience

have become the order of the day. Through Obamacare,
and through Californias decision to force Christian
hospitals and institutions to fund elective abortions, we
are now seeing unprecedented attacks on conscience rights
regarding the taking of innocent human life.
These developments make clear that we have no option
to remain quiet in the landturning inward while the
storms rage without. We may not be interested in the winds
of the liberal agenda howling across the fruited plain, but
that agenda is interested in us and in our children.
Renewal, not Retreat

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Colorado Christian University
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media people in the wake of the shootings of the Mother

Emanuel Nine by an evil and racist youth in Charleston,
South Carolina, on June 17. The press was stunned at
what they saw and heard in that church that week, the
grace that was expressed.
In the wake of this vicious crime, William Gregorie, a city
councilman and trustee of Emanuel AME, typified the
response of many when he said, Were not a church that
hates. Were a church thats full of forgiveness. We feel that
when you hate, you lose, and you let evil in.
I can tell you that we at the Family Research Council feel
the same way today about the disturbed young man who
entered our headquarters three years ago this summer
and shot our building manager, Leo Johnson, meaning to
kill and wound dozens more. We want no
vengeance upon himwe only want him to
will
know the victory of the cross.

Now is the time to stand tall. We treasure our religious

heritage and our right to worship. But our religious liberty
is not merely a harbor of refuge. It is a port
from which we sail, a rock from which we
We
proclaim. It is not a place of retreat. It is
never, never
a starting point for individual and national
renewal.
give up.
The fact that these policy fights are not over
is the first thing that will surprise our opponents. And we
have more surprises for them. As bitter as it is to see our
Constitution so abjectly distorted and subordinated to the
policy preferences of a tiny majority of judges, we will not
steep in bitterness. We will battle on with resolution and
reason, rigor and righteousness. But the fight we wage to
regain our civic culture will be a civil fight.
We will continue to confound those who would bring any
harmspersonal, financial, or physicalagainst us. We
pray that these harms will not come, not because we fear
them but because any acts of evil do even more grievous
harm to the perpetrator than they do to the victim.
Forgiveness in Charleston
Many of us are Christians, and that alone should distinguish
how we act and how others see us. I have talked to many
Centennial Review September 2015 4

True Wealth of Nations

So let us resolve, you and I, to work and

pray and patiently seek solutions on this
marriage issue that will make this a better, stronger, and
more harmonious nation for everyone who lives here.
The natural institution of marriage was not designed
as a punishment for anyone. It has been honored and
protected through the millennia for the rewards it offers to
every man and woman who unite in marriage and to the
children who issue from their love. We must aim to restore
those bonds as the core of family and community life, the
true wealth of nationsnow and for centuries to come.
I ask in closing: Are you ready to get off the wrong track?
Do you refuse to be run over? Now is the time to stand
in tribute to those who have gone before us, for our
brothers and sisters, and for generations yet unborn. We
work for faith, family, life, and freedomand we will
never, never give up.