Same-sex marriage is not the final nail in the coffin for

In the turbulent crossroads of modern civilization, where faith and law meet and often clash, the commentator and thinker Ben Shapiro declared words that resound with the fire of conviction:
"Same-sex marriage is not the final nail in the coffin for traditional marriage. It is just another road sign toward the substitution of government for God. Every moral discussion now pits the wisest moral arbiters among us — the Supreme Court, President Obama — against traditional religion."

These are not the words of idle criticism, but of warning — a warning spoken from the ancient tension between divine law and human law, between what is eternal and what is temporal. Shapiro, in his reflection, does not speak only of marriage, but of a far greater concern: the replacement of God’s authority with that of government, the slow shifting of moral judgment from the sacred to the political. His tone echoes the lament of prophets and philosophers who, through the ages, have seen what happens when societies forget the source of their moral compass. He reminds us that the crisis of any age is not born in its politics, but in its loss of reverence for higher truth.

The meaning of this quote reaches beyond the subject of same-sex marriage, which here serves as a symbol — a signpost in the long road of cultural change. Shapiro argues that the deeper issue lies not in the redefinition of marriage, but in the redefinition of authority itself. For thousands of years, moral law — the sense of right and wrong, justice and sin — was believed to flow from God, written into the conscience of mankind. But in the modern world, as nations grow more secular, that sacred role is increasingly assumed by institutions of human design: by courts, by presidents, by legislatures and councils who claim the power to decree what once was divine. The question that Shapiro raises, therefore, is one of foundation — whether morality can survive when its source is no longer sacred, but bureaucratic.

The origin of this concern lies deep in the history of Western civilization. From the days of Moses, who received law from the mountain, to Aquinas, who argued that human law must serve divine reason, societies have wrestled with the balance between faith and rule. Shapiro’s words are born from this same inheritance, echoing the warnings of Alexis de Tocqueville, who foresaw that democracy, without religion, might one day worship itself — that men, in their pursuit of equality, would raise government to the status of God, demanding from it the answers once sought in prayer. Shapiro’s observation is thus both modern and ancient — a continuation of the eternal question: who, or what, is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong?

History offers countless examples of what happens when that question is answered wrongly. In the French Revolution, the cry for liberty turned against its own source when the people cast off not only monarchy but also God. Churches were burned, altars defiled, and a new “Goddess of Reason” was enthroned — yet what followed was not freedom, but blood. In rejecting divine authority, the revolutionaries sought to build a moral order of their own making, one governed by man’s wisdom alone. But without the compass of the divine, morality became mutable, and justice was swallowed by vengeance. So it is with any age, Shapiro warns, when government becomes the high priest of morality: the sacred becomes politicized, and truth becomes negotiable.

Yet his statement is not a condemnation of law itself. Shapiro does not call for rebellion against government, but for the restoration of balance — a reminder that law is just when it recognizes its own limits, when it serves what is higher than itself. The danger lies not in human governance, but in its pretension to moral omnipotence — when it no longer enforces right but defines it. The ancient sages understood that when kings or judges claimed the mantle of divine authority, tyranny soon followed, for man is a flawed creature, and power magnifies his flaws. Shapiro’s warning is therefore not a sermon of intolerance, but a plea for humility — that governments remember they are servants, not gods.

His message also invites introspection among the faithful. For religion, too, must not retreat into silence, nor shrink from public life. In times of moral confusion, the faithful must become both witness and guide — not through coercion, but through steadfast example. As in the days of Daniel, who kept his faith in the courts of Babylon, or Thomas More, who held fast to conscience even before the crown, there will always be those who stand between the city of man and the city of God. Shapiro’s words are thus a call to courage: to hold faith in a time when the world would trade it for policy, to defend truth not with anger, but with clarity.

So let this teaching be remembered for all generations: governments rise and fall, but the moral law endures. When rulers claim the throne of God, they unmake both justice and freedom. When people surrender their conscience to decree, they cease to be free souls and become subjects once more. The role of the citizen, therefore, is not to abolish government, but to guard its humility — to remind it that it governs bodies, not souls; that it may legislate conduct, but not truth.

Thus ends the teaching: honor the law, but worship not the lawmakers. Let faith and conscience remain free, for they are the pillars of all true liberty. And as Ben Shapiro warns, never allow the voice of government to drown the whisper of God — for when that whisper is lost, no constitution, no court, and no ruler can restore what has been forgotten.