Same-sex marriage still does not exist.

Yes, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion, 5-4, covering Obergefell v. Hodges and three other cases, which effectively makes “same-sex marriage” the law of the land.  But five “justices” or 50 million Facebook “likes” cannot change what is woven into the fabric of creation.

Of course, something did change on that balmy Friday at June’s end in the Summer of #LoveWins.  When the majority opinion written by Reagan appointee Anthony McLeod Kennedy (serial killers have three names; see Lawrence v. Texas) was promulgated, conservatives in America heard the death rattle of the pretty fiction that ours is a Christian nation, and that we are one election and GOP victory away from recovering prominence and dominance.

Because—forget about the loss of federalism, states’ rights, and strict constructionism.  This decision, and the sight of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue bathed in rainbow light, have us soaring to the heights of a Cloud Cuckoo Land never imagined before in the history of the world.

I’m not here to disparage politics or urge quietism.  Hold every politician’s feet to the fire, point out every inconsistency in the left-liberal logic that screams on television and the World Wide Web, and call for whatever constitutional or legal remedy you can think of.  Praise every Bobby J and Jim W, Republican or Democrat, who publicly recognizes this devastating decision for what it is.

But let us be sober and vigilant.  The sober part means that we recognize just how de profundis is our cry.  Think about all of those graphic rainbow makeovers from people you know and from nearly every corporation that sells you your household products.  Think about the number of ostensibly conservative clerics whose response to this generation’s Roe moment was no big whoop, mind your homophobia, all sin is the same, and don’t be Chicken Little.

Think of all of the young people who (polls reveal!) claim resolutely to believe, personally, in “traditional marriage,” but combine that with an equal and opposite conviction that same-sex “marriage” doesn’t hurt anyone.

In days gone by, no matter what Enlightenment propaganda was being spouted by this or that politician or poet, a belief in the natural law was held in consensus, at least latently, by the people of this country.  Despite a bloody revolution in the 1860’s that radically remade the government founded in the late 18th century, that natural-law consensus remained.  Orthodox Christianity is not essential to that consensus, as witness the pagan Greeks and Romans, but in our case the erosion of Christianity has meant the erosion of belief in the natural-law foundations of all civil law and traditional civil authority.  Christ fulfills the Law, but renounce Christ, and the foundation crumbles.  We are now left with a puny, wheezing social contract, by which the voting majority decides which dissenting minority it will eat for dinner, with soy beans and a ten-dollar latte.

Winning the next election, then, is the least of our concerns.  Instead, we must, in vigilance, turn our hearts toward home, church, and community.  We must drink deeply of the well of theology and history once again, teaching our children what marriage is, where law comes from, and how to survive on a hostile and lawless frontier, where the outlaws wear the badges.