What comes after the black-robed social engineers?

By Augusta Chronicle

Gay rights supporters cheered and danced outside the U.S. Supreme Court Friday after it ruled same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry anywhere in America.

The celebration likely will go on for days, and understandably. It's a historic decision.
But the victory comes at great expense to the republic.
That's because one of the most landmark rulings in the court's 226-year history is based largely on the political whims of five unelected judges, rather than the Constitution -- which the justices are sworn to uphold.
"By all means, celebrate today's decision," Chief Justice John G. Roberts wrote in dissent. "But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it ... For those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority's approach is deeply disheartening."
Indeed, a wonderful day for the gay-rights agenda -- a horrible day for democracy.
Obergefell v. Hodges gives plenty of Americans -- including those with little to no opinion on gay marriage -- cause for concern. As with the King v. Burwell ruling on Obamacare the previous day -- a ruling which proves the letter of the law apparently no longer matters -- Obergefell signals the historically restrained Supreme Court has opened wide its windows to let in the prevailing political winds of the day to sway its jurisprudence.
Justice Antonin Scalia called the 5-4 decision a "threat to American democracy," saying it was "constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine."
As Roberts alluded, the court has created a national right that doesn't exist in our Constitution. The court's slim majority subverted the democratic process in nearly three-dozen states, and set up an inevitable collision with one of our most fundamental of rights: the First Amendment's guarantee of religious liberty.
What will happen when churches decline to marry homosexual couples? Does the newly divined constitutional right to same-sex marriage supersede the church's age-old right to practice its religion in accordance with what it believes to be the word of God?
Will the Internal Revenue Service revoke churches' tax-exempt status as punishment for violating a gay couple's civil rights? Will the Federal Communications Commission pull the plug on faith-based programming if the broadcasters advocate traditional marriage? Will federal student loans be yanked from students attending faith-based colleges and universities that, too, might be claimed to be violating gay rights?
These questions aren't merely hypothetical -- there are already examples of business owners who have been economically punished or socially castigated -- and even bullied into closing -- for merely holding to the traditional convictions on marriage. And that was before Friday's ruling.
Remember, Chick-fil-A was the subject of a short-lived far-left firestorm after one of its owners merely expressed support for traditional marriage in an article. What might such businesses now endure with the weight of the law against them?
Of what value are civil rights in a society where deeply-held religious beliefs protected by the First Amendment can be so easily endangered?
The court may have settled the same-sex marriage debate, but the ruling's legal ramifications on society are not yet fully known. They'll likely be huge.
In the meantime, we would hope Americans on both sides of the issue can treat one another with the respect that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy says gays and lesbians have for the institution of matrimony.
"It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage," Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. "Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."
It's that last point that most conservatives disagree on.
Gay marriage, at least as imposed by the five justices, lacks a constitutional basis -- and so does this ruling. This was a
legislative issue that the five justices wrested from the people Friday.
Chief Justice Roberts most succinctly summed up the court's overstepping its bounds Friday: "Today, five lawyers have ordered every state to change their definition of marriage. Just who do we think we are?"
Good question. Are they justices of the court or social engineers with lifetime appointments?