The culturally relevant progressive gurus within evangelicalism who desperately want to be popular are going to try to move towards the culture rather than be marginalized, and the church administrations, pastors, and theological professors who follow them around like besotted puppies are going to want to do the same.

December 7th is a day of great importance to US history. President Roosevelt famously described December 7th, 1941 as a “a date which will live in infamy” because it was on that day that the Japanese successfully launched a devastating surprise attack on America’s Pacific fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. Although most Americans haven’t yet realized it, December 7th, 2012 is also a date that will live in infamy, because on that day the issue of same-sex marriage in the United States was formally decided when the Supreme Court decided to take up two key cases related to same sex marriage. The first case is related to the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the second is related to California’s Proposition 8.

To be sure, the Supreme Court has not decided or even heard the cases yet, but in the age of a politicized judiciary, that isn’t necessary. The mathematics of voting on the court are clear. The court has four liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, and three conservative justices, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Normally the “swing vote” on social issues is Anthony Kennedy, but he has a long record of vociferously defending “gay rights.” Chief Justice Roberts position on these matters isn’t clear, but given his interest in maintaining the credibility and “relevance” of the court, and the moderate course he is trying to plot for the court, it is unlikely that he will support the conservatives. Even so, the best that can be hoped for in both cases is a 5-4 loss.

So although I am no prophet, nor am I a son of a prophet, my prediction is that the court will decide in favor of same-sex marriage in both cases, by a 6 to 3 margin in the case of DOMA and a 5 to 4 margin in the case of Proposition 8 and as a result, all state laws and constitutional amendments banning same sex marriage will be struck down and same sex marriage will become legal throughout the USA. While there has been some discussion of the states attempting to formally “nullify” the decision of the Supreme Court, no state nullification attempts have ever been successful and the last time a state attempt to nullify a Supreme Court decision was seriously discussed was in reference to desegregation, something state legislatures will be reminded of again and again by the media. The upshot of this is that it won’t happen, and further that all attempts to legally enforce any sort of comprehensive sexual morality in the USA are doomed to failure from this point on.

Heterosexuals will be quick to blame the same-sex marriage victory on the alliance between homosexual activists, liberal politicians, and the media but the actual battle was lost long ago. It was actually lost the moment American heterosexuals succeeded in formally disconnecting sex from marriage . The idea that anyone would be able to limit the sexual revolution to heterosexual adultery and fornication was like saying, “Don’t worry, we’re only going to let one or two evils out of Pandora’s box.”

Conservatives will no doubt immediately begin unrealistically attempting to legislatively overturn these decisions via constitutional amendments that have no hope of being ratified. But rather than vain attempts at trying to fight a lost battle in the public square and business world to the last man, we need to turn our attention to defending against the next serious line of attack. With the battle for same-sex marriage and the imposition of the gay agenda won in the public sector, the real battle is now going to be over our attempts to enforce sexual morality in the church and in the home.

Advocates of the gay agenda are not going to be satisfied to merely have the ability to marry, they will be working to extirpate any remaining traces of institutional “intolerance” and “discrimination.” Obvious targets will be secular organizations like the Boy Scouts but churches, universities, private schools, and individual families will also come under an increasingly merciless attack. Anyone who doesn’t bow to the LGBT agenda and call “evil good, and good evil” (Isa. 5:20) is going to be demonized, marginalized, and forced to the unpopular fringes of society usually reserved for racists, fascists, and other undesirables.

In the evangelical church, this will be a two front war against attempts to impose the new amorality from without and from within. The culturally relevant progressive gurus within evangelicalism who desperately want to be popular are going to try to move towards the culture rather than be marginalized, and the church administrations, pastors, and theological professors who follow them around like besotted puppies are going to want to do the same. Whether the church stands or falls on this issue will be determined by our willingness to be reviled, persecuted, defamed, and to be as “the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things” per 1 Corinthians 4:12-13.

If we are willing to endure persecution to the end for the sake of Christ and His gospel as our fathers in the faith did in the past, if we are willing to be faithful even until death, we have Christ’s guarantee that He will give us the crown of life (Rev. 2:10). There is no question that we live in the midst of an evil day. Let us therefore hear and heed Christ’s call to “take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” (Eph. 6:13)

Andy Webb is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church America and serves as Pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, NC