Given the public outcry about the federal court's order for the removal of Judge Roy Moore's Ten Commandments display, I'm surprised there isn't as much alarm about the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision to sanctify gay marriage.

 In the Moore case you have a federal court telling a state court that it can't symbolically recognize the God of the Bible as the source of our laws (or otherwise). In the Massachusetts case you have a state court ruling that the Bible can't be the source of our laws. I think the latter has even graver implications.

 Follow me on this. There is little question that the institution of marriage between a man and woman was ordained by the Bible.

 Genesis 2:24 says, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." That is a prescription for man and woman to be joined, not man and man or woman and woman.

 The Massachusetts Court ruled that because the Massachusetts Constitution "affirms the dignity and equality of all individuals" and "forbids the creation of second-class citizens," homosexuals have a right to marry.

 This should be no surprise, as it is a result of a logical progression in our jurisprudence toward radical individualism -- the rights of the individual trump everything else -- including the interest of the majority in establishing a moral and stable society.

 Since the United States Supreme Court in its recent sodomy case (Lawrence vs. Texas) reaffirmed the Court's earlier pronouncement that "Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code," it's hardly a surprise that a state court is following suit. The Massachusetts court is doing precisely that: forbidding the state legislature from mandating a moral code -- at least one with Biblical roots.

 The oft-repeated lie that "we can't legislate morality" has finally born its poisonous fruit. Of course we can legislate morality. We always have. We must. Try looking at the criminal code of any state or the federal system and tell me it isn't based on morality. Look further into our civil law and try to deny that much, if not most, of tort law and contract law, not to mention property law, are rooted in our traditional (Biblical) moral beliefs.

 It is not just for mercantile reasons that men are prohibited from breaching contracts. And punitive damages in tort law are awarded not to compensate the victim, but to punish the tortfeasor. Punishment -- that's a moral concept. Continued...