Laying Down the Law on Yoga Mats and Marriage

For many years we lived in a culture that was deeply guided in its legal prudence by the biblical revelation of God. In 1890 the Supreme Court of the United States defined religion as “one’s views of one’s relation to his Creator, to the obligations they impose of reverence for his being and character and obedience to his will.” There was no other definition of God but that of a personal Creator. That definition restrained evil, even in the highest courts of law. But not any more.

Last week two legal decisions indicated where our culture is and where it is going.

The Supreme Court last week gave a massive boost to the legalization of same sex marriage. Judge Kennedy cast the deciding vote because of his clearly subjective belief that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of 1996 was essentially motivated by “animus [hate] against homosexuals.” Essentially Justice Kennedy, with unbelievable hubris, accused of being motivated by hate: the 342 House members and 85 Senators and President Bill Clinton who voted for DOMA, plus anyone today and the millions in past history who defend heterosexual monogamy. Among other things, this ruling places the highest legal institution in the land in the same dubious category as the angry left wing Southern Poverty Law Center, which has illegitimately posted many conservative groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council on its list of “hate groups.” So much for the legitimacy and objectivity of the judicial branch of government.

A few days later, in San Diego, an equally discouraging ruling was made by the presiding judge in a case brought against the Encinitas Union School District arguing that yoga taught in its elementary schools was religious. Att. Dean Broyles for the prosecution showed that this was one of the most egregious examples of “entanglement” of “church and state” in recent jurisprudence, since the program was

1. financed by a half a million dollar grant from the very religiously-Hindu Jois Foundation, which clearly states the religious character of its yoga, and

2. taught by people preselected and certified by Jois, some of whom were trained at the Jois Foundation in Mysore, India! Nevertheless, the yoga-practicing judge ruled that the program was nothing more than non-religious physical exercise.

How far we have come since 1890! The god of gay marriage and yoga is not the transcendent personal Creator of Scripture, but the divine self within, who creates its own reality and the laws to go with it. So, losing the God of Scripture is not merely a religious event. It means we lose the objective source of law. Thus the US legal system, for so long the admiration of the rest of the world, is more and more a legal fiction, no longer to be trusted to bring justice to the land. It is now capable of leading the world into untold levels of unrighteousness.