Open Season on Christians after Pro-Gay Rulings

by Paul Strand, CBS News

WASHINGTON - Christians who speak out and stand up for traditional marriage are more likely than ever to be persecuted and even prosecuted for it. That's because of how the majority at the U.S. Supreme Court wrote their June 26 pro-gay marriage rulings.

The high court majority attacked the motives of those who came up with the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996. DOMA enshrined traditional marriage in federal law and prevented federal benefits from going to same-sex couples.

"The avowed purpose and practical effect of the law here in question are to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the United States v. Windsor ruling.

"DOMA writes inequality into the entire United States Code," he added.

According to Ken Klukowski, director of the Center for Religious Liberty, the rationale for this ruling basically undermined the motive of those for traditional marriage only.

"The Court said that the federal Defense of Marriage Act is literally irrational, that it was just the fruit of bigotry and beknighted souls rather than the thoughtful actions of elected, national leaders," he said.

Evangelical Visits to BYU Signal a New Evangelical-Mormon Detente

RNS by Adelle Banks

In the picture to the left, George O. Wood, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, greets students after speaking during a lecture series on faith, family and society in the Varsity Theatre of Brigham Young University’s Wilkinson Student Center on Sept. 16, 2013. Photo by Mark A. Philbrick/courtesy Brigham Young University

(RNS) Last month, after being sure to get his caffeine fix at Starbucks, Southern Baptist leader Richard Land went where few evangelicals had dared to go before: the campus of Brigham Young University, the intellectual heart of Mormonism.
After lecturing on “family, faith, freedom and America,” Land attended a BYU football game with Mormon leaders and joined them to hear James Taylor sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Days later, George O. Wood, the general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, also visited BYU, followed by the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptists’ flagship seminary.