"In New Jersey, after the establishment of a quasi-marital 'civil unions' scheme, a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax exempt status when it declined, as a matter of a religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions. In Canada and some European nations, Christian clergy have been prosecuted for preaching Biblical norms against the practice of homosexuality. New hate-crime laws in America raise the specter of the same practice here."
A related specter rises, to the likely consternation of many who see religious belief as just a set of outdated, sexist, homophobic prejudices. The specter is from the '60s: anti-war protesters shouting, "Hell, no, we won't go!" See what happens when you set a precedent for defiance? Not that the Declaration's framers (scholars, editors, pastors, university and seminary presidents, broadcasters, Roman Catholic bishops and archbishops) need precedent beyond that of their own tradition, which sees the ordinances of the state as less lofty than the commands of God -- cf. Martin Luther King Jr. The declaration reprises Christ's famous reminder that God and Caesar possess very different patches of ground in this world.
A model of clarity and non-squishiness (in an age given to intellectual muddle and the desire Never to Offend), the declaration attacks the presumption and moral vacuity of the pro-choice, anti-traditional marriage agenda. It reminds us, no less usefully, that the supposedly exhausted "culture wars" aren't nearly finished.
One trouble with secularists, and even with some Christians of "progressive" outlook, is a tendency to see moral principles as malleable, changing with elections and regulations. In fact, moral principles -- at least in the normative Christian understanding -- reflect reality: God's handiwork, performed in such a way and not another; one way "right," another way not right at all.
On goes the argument. One thing it does seem progressives shouldn't count on is an Appomattox-like surrender of the opposition. If anything, the opposition strengthens -- to the relief of many, among them the Manhattan Declaration signer who writes these words.