I can't adequately express how perturbed I get over spiritual pansies in contemporary pulpits who pussyfoot around the critical issues of our time. Here is a perfect example of the kind of thing that perturbs me. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, recently stated that the people and judges of Alabama are duty-bound out of "respect for the law" to submit themselves to the ruling of a federal judge, Callie Granade. Judge Granade took her gavel in hand and single-handedly overruled the voices of 697,591 Alabama voters who went to the polls to prohibit the legalization of same-sex marriage in their state. Of course, by single-handedly striking down the will and voices of the people of Alabama, Judge Granade showed a total disrespect for the law overwhelming passed by the people. It seems to me that in today's America contempt for the law is being regularly perpetrated by black-robed and gavel-armed judges, who brazenly overrule the will of the people and overturn the laws of our land with their personal opinions under the guise of anything they disagree with being "unconstitutional."

The bone I have to pick with my fellow Southern Baptist, Mr. Moore, is over the difference between our definitions of the law. He apparently believes the law is whatever some judge says it is, regardless of whether or not that judge has any legal precedence or constitutionality upon which he/she bases his/her opinion. This dangerous belief of Mr. Moore's turns judges into kings, the bench into a throne, and gavels into scepters. It also transforms America from a country ruled by law to a country ruled by lawyers. What Mr. Moore is really calling for is not "respect for the law," but respect for a lawless judge attempting to dictate her personal opinion upon the people of Alabama under the guise that our Founding Fathers intended to guarantee homosexuals the right to marry under the United States Constitution. Anyone who believes our Founding Fathers could have imagined such a thing, much less intended it, is an order of fries short of a Happy Meal!

Just in case you think I'm crazy—most people do anymore—permit me to share with you a warning issued to our nation long ago by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson once said, “To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.” He went on to warn that granting the judiciary alone “the power of declaring what the law is” makes it into “a despotic branch” of government, makes judges into “despots” and makes the Constitution into “a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.” According to Jefferson, this notion of judicial despotism must be rejected, lest the judiciary “slyly and without alarm” accomplish “what open force would not dare attempt”; namely, the undermining of our Constitution and the overthrow of our government. Too bad we've failed to heed Jefferson's warning and are now foolishly bowing before judicial despots, who have transformed government by the people and for the people into their tyrannical rule over the people.