Where Obergefell Took Us In The Past Decade
Family is the fabric of any healthy society, and redefining marriage erodes that fabric at its seams. When the legal meaning of marriage is untethered from Scripture and nature, the consequences ripple through culture, law, and daily life. For those of us who see marriage as God-ordained, this is not a matter to shrug off.
Preserving marriage as God designed it matters because societies that honor natural marriage protect children and prize stable homes. This is not a “live and let live” issue for believers who understand the stakes for future generations. The debate is about law, truth, and what we teach the next generation to expect.
The Most Slippery Slope
When the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), it rewired the legal landscape and began a chain of cultural shifts. Calling all unions “marriage” removed the gendered definition that guided civilization for millennia and sent a clear legal lesson that gender is optional in marriage.
Law is didactic; it tells a people what is right to honor and pursue, and for a decade the wrong lesson has been taught on the most basic human institution. Once the gender distinction was erased, the Overton window widened until behaviors and practices once rejected moved into the mainstream. That erosion has had real consequences for policy, schools, medicine, and the language we use about family.
The results are tangible: men in women’s sports, medical protocols that treat biological sex as negotiable, and bizarre cultural moments like men pretending childbirth or “chest feed.” Institutions from academia to health systems have sometimes embraced these shifts, and platforms have silenced dissent instead of fostering debate. Children have become the most vulnerable casualties when social experiments override time-tested truths.
The slogan “love is love” was never the whole story; it masked a broader agenda that reshaped public norms and pressured institutions to conform. What started as access and recognition expanded into a redefinition of gender roles, parenting, and the meaning of family. That cascade matters because law and culture teach our children what human flourishing looks like.
Threat To Religious Liberty
Legal recognition of same-sex “marriage” has also triggered clashes over conscience and worship. Almost immediately after Obergefell, people of faith found themselves in courtrooms for living out long-held beliefs about marriage and ministry.
Davis was jailed, sued, and held personally liable post-Obergefell because she refused to sign her name to “marriage” certificates that violated her Christian beliefs as she awaited a religious accommodation. Her case is now before the Supreme Court.
If the Court agrees to hear Davis v. Ermold, it could return the question of marriage to the states and create space for conscience protections. That possibility shows why believers must be both bold and faithful, defending religious liberty without abandoning civil engagement. Christians should prepare to speak the truth in love while also advocating for laws that protect conscience and the rights of parents.
Marriage, from a biblical perspective, is a sacred union ordained at creation: one man and one woman for life, made for companionship, procreation, and mutual support. No court ruling or statute can erase the theological reality that underpins that institution. When law aligns with divine design, society benefits; when law departs from that design, the common good suffers.
The fight for marriage is worth fighting because it is about the kind of world we leave to our children. Preserving the biblical definition of marriage is not merely cultural nostalgia; it is a defense of social order, childhood, and the conditions for flourishing. We must act with conviction, clarity, and compassion as we seek to protect families and future generations.