On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed the so-called "Respect for Marriage" Act (RFMA) with a 61-36 vote.

The RFMA essentially repeals the Defense of Marriage Act signed by President Bill Clinton which federally defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. 

While stopping short of forcing states to recognize same-sex marriage, the RFMA treats marriage like your driver’s license. A "legal" marriage in one state must be recognized by all other states — provided it's between 2 people. The bill still needs to be passed by the House before going to the President’s desk, but the Democrats have the votes and are expected to fast-track it.

To get the necessary votes in the Senate, Democrats included some thinly-veiled religious liberty protections. These so-called protections earned the votes of 12 Republican senators, though the actual effect of these provisions is at best dubious.

Sadly, these faux "protections" also earned the approval of some evangelical commentators, particularly former National Review Institute fellow, David French.

In an article in The Dispatch, French recounts his changing opinions about how our civil law should treat marriage. In 2004, he supported the Massachusetts’ Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage. In 2015, he was concerned that Obergefell was the beginning of the end for religious liberty. Now in 2022, he’s writing to “support the Senate’s version of the Respect for Marriage Act.”

French defended his changing positions over the years in three points:

First, he grants that “there are progressive Americans who most assuredly do not believe there are good faith objections to same-sex marriage, even on religious grounds.” Because of this, he’s concerned that there are real threats to religious liberty. I can appreciate his point here, though our views certainly diverge from this point forward.

Second, and magically in spite of the progressive Americans he identifies in his first point, French claims that “constitutional protections for religious freedom are more robust than they were in 2015” when the Obergefell decision required all states to recognize same-sex marriage licenses. According to French, this means there is less to be concerned about.

And third, French seems to think the RFMA is necessary because “millions of Americans have formed families and live their lives in deep reliance on Obergefell being good law. It would be profoundly disruptive and unjust to rip out the legal superstructure around which they’ve ordered their lives.” According to French, the RFMA is a “legal backstop for LGBT families in the unlikely event the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell.”

French appears to think his argument is a tactical one. As long as we can shore up religious liberty, he says, the federal redefinition of marriage is okay.

Yet, French’s tactics are absurd. While the RFMA is touted as providing religious liberty protections, it does not allow government officials to follow their conscience, and it clears the way for future legislation which outlaws all dissent to same-sex "marriage." In fact, it’s already been tried with the so-called "Equality" Act, supported by more than half of the current U.S. House and Senate, combined.

While the RFMA is touted as providing religious liberty protections, it does not allow government officials to follow their conscience, and it clears the way for future legislation which outlaws all dissent to same-sex “marriage.”

Ironically, French titled his article, “Why I Changed My Mind About Law and Marriage, Again.” I’d argue that he has not changed his mind about law and marriage at all. It seems French’s fundamental belief has always been the same — and it can be summed up by the absurd “coexist” bumper stickers you see driving around town.

In case you've missed them, the leftists sporting these stickers make it clear with their actions that as long as we all tamely accept everything they demand, no matter how perverse, we can all "coexist" just fine.

French's opinion about certain legislative agendas has changed based on his faith in our country’s commitment to some sort of pluralistic religious liberty. It seems French's commitment to his untenable brand of pluralism has always been his guiding light on this topic.

In short, he’s not changed his mind about law and marriage — he’s been tossed to and fro by the shifting circumstances of our political climate. He’s attempting to tactically coexist in the short-term — no matter the mental contortions he must execute to do so, or what his repeated capitulation will cost in the future.

Tactics aside, French’s first principles are concerning:

Was it just to build the legal superstructure French is so passionate about protecting? Was Obergefell not profoundly disruptive to society? Can a society that operates on a fundamental deception about the order of the world be truly ordered in any sense?

Can a society that operates on a fundamental deception about the order of the world be truly ordered in any sense?

In Matthew 19, the Lord Jesus said, ““Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?” (Matt. 19:4-5, NKJV).

Christ is not saying anything new here. He is pointing back to the beginning. God made mankind male and female, therefore they shall be married and become one flesh. This is foundational to the way all human society works — including in 21st-century America.

But that is not true about homosexual relationships: For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due” (Rom. 1:26-27, NKJV, emphasis mine).

These verses come from the Bible, but they are not some separate form of “religious truth.” They are the foundational order of the world which is plain in all creation.

I grant that all societies must be pluralistic in one sense — relationships always have disagreements. But we can’t have an ordered civil society if we have fundamentally disordered the most important civil relationship on earth.

A pluralism that demands fundamental disorder is at odds with any civilized society.

This is where David French’s argument fails.

You can no more form a flourishing society around same-sex "marriage" than around, for example, human sacrifice or genocide. They’re all fundamentally out of sync with the way God made the world and what He’s revealed in His Word.

You can no more form a flourishing society around same-sex "marriage" than around, for example, human sacrifice or genocide. They’re all fundamentally out of sync with the way God made the world and what He’s revealed in His Word.

Human sacrifice, genocide, abortion, and euthanasia treat death, our greatest enemy, as a moral good and defy God’s command, “thou shalt not murder.”

Pornography, prostitution, and same-sex “marriage” discard the created order for sexual union and defy God’s command, “thou shalt not commit adultery.”

Bribery, corruption, and fraud ignore that this world operates on truth and defy God’s command, “thou shalt not bear false witness.”

When we institutionalize any of these things, we accelerate our society towards destruction.

The RFMA will push the pedal a little closer to the metal.

In the end, French himself said it best: “Here I am in 2022 trying to square the same circle that I was trying to square in 2004 and in 2015."

French is trying to square the proverbial circle — he’s trying to create a flourishing society in the world God made on the back of a fundamental deception about the way God made the world.