Two days after the Revolutionary War’s climatic surrender at Yorktown, British soldiers laid down their arms before a line of their victorious American adversaries. It was a bitter turn of events for the favored-to-win Redcoats, and though historians debate it, some say their shame was accompanied by a few bars of an old English nursery song called “The World Turned Upside Down.” Its lyrics went like this:

If buttercups buzzed after the bee;

If boats were on land, churches on sea;

If ponies rode men and grass ate the cows;

And cats should be chased to holes by the mouse;

If the mammas sold their babies to the gypsies for half a crown;

Summer were spring and t’other way round;

Then all the world would be upside down.

Recent events have many in our nation humming a similar tune. While debates rage about the legal ramifications of Friday’s Supreme Court’s ruling – was it constitutional? overreaching? a case of judicial activism? – it’s hard to get past the topsy-turviness of it all, the downright upside downness of it all.

Truth is, I’d like to just ignore the whole mess. There are certainly other things I could write about this week, like the Bingo rounds I watched at Brook Manor, or maybe the fireworks we took in at the Reservoir. How about that funny dog riding in the buggy at Bass Pro Shops? Pet stories, you know, are usually a hit.

But no. I can’t seem to. When the highest court in our land takes a stand in direct contradiction to the laws of the Bible – when America does an about-face on a given that has stood since Creation – who can ignore it? But of course, Obergefell v. Hodges is not the first time this has happened. I wonder, what did newspaper columnists write about in 1973 when the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down? Pet stories?

As I watched my granddaughter and an assortment of other children climb and slide and laugh at a Chick-fil-A play area Saturday, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the previous day’s landmark case will affect all their tomorrows. The judges voting nay during those deliberations certainly held nothing back when describing what lies ahead. In his dissent, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Friday’s ruling “will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy.”

Vilify, by the way, means to treat negatively.

Need further clarification? Chief Justice John Roberts’ words might be of some help: “People of faith can expect no comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today.”

Pretty blunt, and it sounds like anyone trying to swim against the cultural current may soon be making some tough decisions. What’s the cost of a conviction? Is it worth losing job security? Reputation? Court fines?

So as rainbow flags wave and Christians wonder if tolerance training camps are in their future, I cast my lot with writer Andre Seu Peterson, who chooses to give the popular LGBT acronym another meaning – let God be true – as in the “let God be true though every man a liar” of Romans 3:4. She says in WORLD Magazine that “my LGBT means that even if I am the last person on earth who still believed what the Bible says about the proper use of our bodies, I will choose to believe God over every other word, theory, testimony, report, feeling, persuasive argument and complicated theology.”

Ahhh. Some rightside up thinking in our upside down world.

 

Wesson resident Kim Henderson is a freelance writer who writes for The Daily Leader. Contact her at kimhenderson319@gmail.com.