[The Urban Sombrero]

And under Christ, what is our responsibility to our neighbor who is overtaken in a lifestyle that we both know precludes him from any hope of God's forgiveness? Knowing only the blood of Christ will wash away, or cover our sin at the judgment, are we just supposed to give them a figurative pat on the head and embrace such as our equal in God's eyes? Or are we supposed to point them to the cross or, and I'll borrow your reference for this one, help them to look up at the serpent on the staff and live? But your argument would more aptly be presented in Sunday School than in trying to base pursuit of happiness legislation upon.

The practices you described, are all acts which are protected under the freedom of religion clauses of the first amendment. Any thing, or extrapolation past that construct is a literal house of cards. To say man's law is higher than God's law was never the framer's intention. I guarantee if there were anything to the idiom, George, Thomas, James and friends, would all turn over in their graves every time some self absorbed judge or lawmaker took steps to overrule God's Word.

We can establish punishment for crimes against society, and we should. But only the supremely arrogant would dare to repeal DADT, (which BTW was a compromise conceived in deference to God's Word to give the homosexual a kind of social buffer). And then continue to dream up and pass ever expanding legislation while at the same time, declaring people suffering from that sexual deviancy, as is so clearly defined in Scripture, a protected class under the US Constitution. You asked an absurdly rhetorical question earlier; would I under the US Constitution disallow adultery? Answer; Nope it's none of my business, nor is another man's bent for homosexuality. Still it would make no more sense then, to declare adulterers a protected class and carve out special rights for them backed up by federal legislation, than it does having done so for homosexuals. One is God's purview, one is man's,

Equal protection under the law is a function of justice. Two men come to the court and ask that the state grant them the protection of marriage. Upon what grounds does the state deny them this protection? The state says, "You may not pursue happiness in this manner." Why not? Two consenting adults of the same sex come asking. Upon what grounds are they denied? Are you sure Thomas Jefferson would dismiss this question as out of hand? Would he, in fact, say, "Why, by God's natural law, only a man and a woman may marry." Or, is it also plausible that the mind that was in Jefferson might also come to the conclusion that civil authority, operating under the Equal Protection Clause, should not tell two consenting adults they cannot marry, as that stricture takes the teaching and authority of a religion and uses it to limit the freedom of citizens? It is not beyond logic to think so, or to also question whether an 18th century man, no matter how enlightened, could possibly entertain how a society might evolve over the course of hundreds of years?

I do not believe that granting homosexuals the right to marry under the Equal Protection Clause compromised essential liberty at all in this nation.