Last month four justices of the California Supreme Court dealt a huge blow against marriage and family by approving same-sex marriage, overturning the expressed desire of millions of state voters.

Then, beginning last week, thousands of homosexual couples across the state began obtaining marriage licenses on which the words "Party A" and "Party B" replaced "bride" and "groom." Many hastily married in front of crowds of well-wishers and scattered protesters.

The court decision overruled a 2000 state ballot initiative, approved by Californians by a 61-39 percent majority, defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. To their credit, clerks in some counties protested the ruling by refusing to perform marriage ceremonies altogether rather than officiate for homosexual couples.

Writing for the minority that opposed the court's ruling, one justice stated that the court "simply does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice" (emphasis added throughout).

Another justice wrote in a dissenting opinion that the court's decision "does that which it acknowledges it should not do: it redefines marriage because it believes marriage should be redefined."

And that is indeed what has happened. The centuries-old definition of marriage as a committed legal relationship between a man and a woman has now been tossed out by four activist judges.

What's really behind the push for gay marriage? Advocates admit that it's really to further a homosexual agenda to transform society. 

As one homosexual same-sex marriage proponent wrote: "A middle ground might be to fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society's moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution."

"Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender and seeking state approval to do so," wrote another. "Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality and family, and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society ... We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and radically reordering society's view of reality."

Underscoring such statements, after the court decision was announced an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Web site gloated: "We won the marriage case in California. No need for hyperbole here; this is big ... [Gay] marriage in California will transform the discussion of marriage nationwide ... The fact that California is marrying same-sex couples will put considerable pressure on the rest of the country to recognize those marriages ... Cultural change in California is usually a preview of what is to come in the rest of the United States ... This was a prize of inestimable value."

Clearly the California court decision has major implications for the rest of the country. As one gay activist wrote: "The sheer number of [homosexual] couples who will marry (and divorce, it is California, after all), will forever change this debate. It will cause a legal mess, as many of these married couples—often with children—migrate to [other] states."

Underlying this reality is the fact that California has no residency requirement for a marriage license. Georgetown University government professor Clyde Wilcox noted that many homosexual couples will come to California to marry, then return to their home states and sue to have their marriages recognized. Thus the legal and moral chaos is likely to quickly spread throughout the nation.

We have just seen a major step forward for the gay agenda. Others will follow, probably through increasing efforts in schools to indoctrinate children into believing that homosexual behavior is perfectly normal. Children will likely even be encouraged to explore same-sex feelings and attraction. If you don't believe it, do a little research and you'll find these are already happening!

Sadly, we can expect more of the same—if not worse—in the future. Once a country, its courts and its leadership sever themselves from biblical standards of morality, the only thing they have left to rely on is human reasoning. And Proverbs 14:12 tells us where that leads: "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death."