Randy

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Prop. 8 at the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday

Monday, March 25, 2013, 10:46 am | Randy Thomasson

It’s good, not bad, that Proposition 8, the 2008 California Marriage Amendment, will be decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.

The homosexual activists and their attorneys and unconstitutional, liberal judges defeated Prop. 8 in San Francisco federal court in August 2010 and at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in February 2012. So our side appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, and being granted the March 26, 2013 hearing, is the only way to save Prop. 8 from being killed off.

This is a severe crisis. Marriage and our Republic sometimes seem to be hanging by a thread. However, if I were a betting man, I would bet Prop. 8 is upheld, even by one vote. That would likely come from the nine-member high court’s “swing vote,” Anthony Kennedy of California. Kennedy, who believes in homosexual “rights” (but you can’t award rights based on non-immutable or changeable behavior), still might uphold traditional marriage.

You see, in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case, which struck down all laws prohibiting sodomy, Kennedy wrote three times that legalizing homosexuality does not mean the government must give formal recognition to these relationships.

What’s more, for Kennedy and the four more conservative justices on the high court, the Prop. 8 case is coming to them with a big bull’s eye painted on it. “Liberal of liberals” Stephen Reinhardt, who “struck down” Prop. 8 at the appeals court level, is the most overturned judge in America by the nation’s high court.

Prop. 8 reserved marriage licenses in California for “a man and a woman.” But the legal issues in the Prop. 8 case are more about our republic than about marriage.

Where is marriage in the U.S. Constitution? Nowhere. But the Constitution in Article IV, Section 4 says that each state is guaranteed ‘a republican form of government’ — a government under the written law, not government run by the unconstitutional prejudices of some judges.

And the Tenth Amendment says what are not federal powers, and what is not denied the states, are powers that belong to individual states. What is the supreme law of California? The California Constitution, which, because of Prop. 8, reads, in Article 1, Section 7.5, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

Therefore, the U.S. Supreme Court should uphold Prop. 8 and reserve marriage licenses exclusively for a man and a woman, not only for the sake of children and families, but for the sake of our Republic.

See the amicus brief of Liberty Counsel and Campaign for Children and Families (SaveCalifornia.com)

And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Jesus Christ in Matthew 19:4-6 NKJV

Enjoy our Prop. 8 friend-of-the-court brief

Wednesday, January 30, 2013, 4:44 pm | Randy Thomasson

Good news! Our principled attorney friends at Liberty Counsel have filed a strong friend-of -the-court brief defending California’s Proposition 8 with the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments March 26.

This very solid brief represents the moral and constitutional values of both Liberty Counsel and our organization, Campaign for Children and Families, otherwise known as SaveCalifornia.com.

Our brief’s well-thought-out constitutional arguments address the false grounds on which homosexual activists are attacking real, man-woman marriage — specifically, the 1996 Romer v. Evans Supreme Court decision striking down Colorado’s voter-approved law against special rights based on “sexual orientation.”

Here’s the summary of our arguments in the brief:

1. Romer does not dictate the the outcome in this case as Colorado’s Amendment 2 and California’s Proposition 8 are legally and factually distinguishable.

a. Proposition 8 does not target a solitary class of people of discrimination.

b. Proposition 8 does not impose far-reaching changes in the law that impact broad protections in the private and public sphere.

c. Proposition 8 is consistent with the longstanding definition of marriage in California and, therefore, is not inconsistent with any emerging trend in California to redefine marriage.

d. Proposition 8 does not single out a solitary class of people and make it more difficult for them to petition their government for assistance.

e. Proposition 8 was not passed based on a bare desire to harm a specific group of people.

2. This Court should resist any effort to treat sexual orientation as a suspect classification.

From the Brief:

“Liberty Counsel is a civil liberties organization that provides education and legal defense on issues relating to traditional family values, including marriage, across the United States.”

“Amicus Campaign for Children and Families represents fathers, mothers, grandparents and concerned individuals who believe the sacred institutions of life, marriage, and family deserve utmost protection and respect by government and society.”

Liberty Counsel’s Jan. 29 News Release | Amicus Brief | SaveCalifornia.com’s Dec. 7 News Release

“Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
Jesus Christ in John 7:24 (NKJV)

The day after: My take on California’s November 2012 election

Wednesday, November 7, 2012, 4:26 pm | Randy Thomasson

SaveCalifornia.com provides the following solely for educational purposes
and does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

Without an army, there is no defense and no opportunity to revolt against tyrants. This is true for defending territory and for defending or attaining good government.

California conservatives have no standing army, nor do California Christians, compared to the standing “armies” of the union bosses with big war chests, who consistently fund Democrat candidates and big, immoral government.

How did we get here? As a whole, the Church is either anemic or AWOL when it comes to civic responsibility. This is the consequence of believing you shouldn’t mix religion with politics, a sure recipe for immoral government. This mindset invites evil to win. For you can’t have religious freedom without political action, and you can’t have good government without Christians working to gain and maintain it.

So, without a truth standard to know what is RIGHT, and without a standing “army” to put MIGHT behind what’s right, it’s not surprising that California conservatives and Christians have not taken new ground, but have lost more ground in this election.

Today, lackluster RIGHT and missing MIGHT has resulted in Democrats apparently capturing a 2/3rd supermajority in both the California Assembly and California Senate, empowering them to directly raise taxes.

The union-backed Democrats needed only two more seats in each house. Senate Democrats have likely picked up three seats (SD 17 on the Central Coast, SD 19 in Santa Barbara/Ventura counties, and SD 31 in Riverside County). And Assembly Democrats have captured what appear to be two seats (AD 32 in Kern/Kings counties and AD 65 in north Orange County).

Meanwhile, California voters have approved:

Prop. 30 to raise taxes on all Californians

Prop. 36 to release some career criminals

Prop. 39 to give businesses more reason to leave

Prop. 40 to keep biased legislative districts

A wise historian once observed, “Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.”

Where is America right now? Probably between apathy and dependence. Where is California right now? I think in a state of dependency headed back toward bondage. What is the solution? Spiritual truth, God’s truth, applied in people’s lives and applied to political involvement.

Don’t throw your hands up and say there’s no hope. Instead, commit yourself to become more responsible or productive in the opportunities God has given you. Remember, freedom is not free.

So I ask — will pastors, who are supposed to guide and equip believers in Jesus, teach them to be holy and fruitful, courageously helping people to personally repent and politically repent of their wicked ways? Will professing Christians repent, reject ignorance, and put on love by creating a citizen army in their communities that can win future elections? (Here’s how).  Will professing Christians resign from their union to keep working but stop subsidizing immoral government? These choices are in your hands.

SaveCalifornia.com is leading and working to renew the culture by stimulating believers to be difference-makers in their communities. Together, let’s persevere and shine Jesus’ light of truth into the darkness of our culture, reaching people who desperately need God’s wisdom for themselves and their families.

“As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel.’ But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods, and worship them, then I will uproot them from My land which I have given them; and this house which I have sanctified for My name I will cast out of My sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
2 Chronicles 7 17-20 NKJV