1. Sanctity of Life

In Adams’s time, the common belief was that only God could take someone’s life and no one had a right to decide to take someone else’s life, whether it was an unborn baby or someone suffering from a disease. So they saw no reason to address this specifically in the Constitution. This worked well until 1973 when the Supreme Court created a woman’s constitutional right to have an abortion. In more recent years there has been a movement to allow assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is legal in Oregon. It is now being considered in many states, so how long will it be before it is legal in all states? Today it is assumed that these rights are part of the Constitution, even though there is no amendment that states that. We no longer believe that God creates the right to life.

2. Marriage

From Adams’s time until recently, marriage was viewed as a covenant relationship between a man and a woman. Any other definition was unheard of. Today marriage is being redefined as a contract between consenting adults. With this definition anything goes: same-sex marriage, incestuous marriage, polygamy, and any other combination that strikes your fancy. This is a perversion of the phrase “the pursuit of happiness.” Our Founding Fathers defined this concept as the pursuit of a virtuous life, not doing whatever you want.

Here's another way the Constitution is being attacked: It specifically states that it is the function of Congress to enact laws for this country, but we have seen in recent years that federal judges now create laws where they see fit. In several states, we have seen the legalization of gay marriage simply because a federal judge decided it should be legal. Our Revolutionary War was fought because we believed there should be no laws made without representation, and yet here we are today with that exact thing happening. Since it has been allowed to happen, where will it stop? Will assisted suicide be next, or will our religious freedoms simply be taken away by a judge who doesn’t like Christianity? Or judges may even begin to use Sharia law to judge and totally ignore the Constitution.

By the same token, it seems that laws can now be declared unconstitutional by other parts of the government than the Supreme Court. In the early 1800s a case, Marbury v. Madison, was brought to the Supreme Court to decide if a law was constitutional or not. Many, including Jefferson, believed the court did not have that responsibility. The decision in this case settled that declaring it was the Supreme Court’s constitutional responsibility to make those declarations. Until recently that is how the constitutionality of laws was determined. Recently we had President Obama’s Attorney General declare that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional and the administration would not defend it, even though it is still a law and they took an oath saying they would defend the laws of the land. So we are right back where we started. If this trend continues, we will have chaos in our government.

Well, maybe we just don’t need the Constitution. After all, President Obama once stated that he felt that all the Constitution did was tell him what he couldn’t do. But if it was tossed what would replace it? I’m afraid in this time of relative truth all that’s left is tyranny created by those with the most power. If we throw it away we throw away our freedom with it.

As Christians we need to stand with Joshua and say, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” As Americans we need to stand with Patrick Henry and say, “Give me liberty or give me death.”