Over the Top and Through the Looking Glass

It's time for the Through the Looking Glass Award, and we've got a couple of candidates this morning.

First, the "Family" "Research" Council, on Day Four of their twenty-one day prayer and fasting vigil leading up to oral arguments in Obergefell et al. before the Supreme Court. This one's good:

Today, we must pray for each member and the collective court:

-- May those Justices who fear God, prepare and rule in the fear of God (2 Sam 23:3),

-- May the literal fear of God fall upon those Justices who do not fear Him.

-- May the Fear of God be upon each member’s staff: their clerks, their assistants, their friends, their families and all who influence them.

-- May they collectively sense the very power and presence of God hovering over them, warning them of his righteousness and justice; warning them that they must give an account to the Supreme Judge of the World for their actions.

-- May they receive visions and dreams like Abimelech, Pharaoh, Pilate’s wife, Belshazzar; Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, warning them of what will come to pass if they rule wrongly in this important case. May they be shown the consequences of their decision.

-- And finally, may they, like Balaam, who was warned by God’s voice not to take an assignment from Balak, to curse the Jews, be rebuked supernaturally as Balaam was, by a dumb donkey speaking, and an angel of the Lord, his sword drawn, ready to kill Balaam. When he met Balak to fulfil his contract, he could only speak the words God commanded him – to “bless and not curse” the Jews. May that power fall upon the entire court, in such a way that those who now lack the fear of God will be moved by the fear of God to vote in a way they would not otherwise have voted. Take the time to read 1Samuel 22-24, and God will stir you to pray. Read all of Hebrews 11 and He will give you faith to believe for Him to move upon these men and women in miraculous ways.

Prayers like we’ve always prayed will not do today, this is life or death. In Acts 4:23-31.

God has supernaturally intervened to save America at crucial moments throughout our history, and had he not, our nation would not even exist today.

I have to say, a religion founded in fear doesn't really inspire a lot of respect -- at least not from me, but then, I don't respond well to authority.

But, "God has supernaturally intervened"? I'd really like to see some evidence of that -- and I don't mean one of David Barton's fantasies.

And just exactly how is someone else's marriage a matter of "life or death"?

And if you want to do some interpretation of the story of Balaam, which group is a better fit for the Jews?

And, again regarding Obergefell, et al., another amicus brief, from a group of "religious organizations". This section is just overflowing with something:

Representative democracy matters to religious organizations and people of faith.

Unless the vote doesn't go their way, in which case, they run to -- you guessed it -- the courts. (I understand someone's still trying to overturn same-sex marriage in New York.)

Their capacity to build communities where their values are respected and their ways of life protected depends on the plu­ralism that our democratic institutions foster and secure. The fundamental liberty of religious believers to participate with other free citizens in deliberating about and shaping the character of their common destiny has been protected by this Court’s determina­tion to read the Constitution as a charter for “people of fundamentally differing views.”

Considering the lack of tolerance on the part of these organizations for "fundamentally differing views," this is beyond laughable. We are talking about denominations that have spend a great deal of energy and resources attempting to deny equal rights to others throughout their histories.

To de­clare an unprecedented constitutional right to same-sex marriage would deny people of faith who support traditional marriage the liberty to participate as equal citizens in deciding which values and policies will govern their communities.

First, I have to ask whether any of the groups filing as amici on this side of the question have any capacity for reading comprehension at all. This is not about whether there is a consitutional right to same-sex marriage, but, as the Court quite plainly stated, it's about whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to treat same-sex couples the same as opposite-sex couples in regard to marriage laws. As to their liberty to "participate as equal citizens," see my previous comment.

We urge the Court to trust the people and their democratic institutions to resolve the marriage issue, as it has on other divisive issues so many times.

Right -- just the way those democratic institutions resolved the divisive issues of slavery, segregation, voting rights, women's rights, interracial marriage, stuff like that.

I'm hard put to decide which of these efforts is more deserving of the Through the Looking Glass Award. Care to offer an opinion?