Last week, Rep. David Jolly, a Republican from Florida, spoke at Rodney Howard-Browne’s ongoing “Celebrate America” revival meeting in Washington, DC which was organized in order to bring about a Third Great Awakening in America by lighting “fires right in the belly of the beast” so that God can “cast a Gospel net across the capital.”
Speaking about 46:00 into the gathering, Jolly told the crowd that he grew up the son of a preacher and accepted Jesus as his Savior at five years old and now his faith serves as the foundation of his views about government.
“I subscribe to a view of freedom that is rooted in the tenets of faith,” Jolly declared, explaining that human beings are granted liberty and freedom by God and then decide how much power to turn over to the government in order to protect those rights.
As members of Congress, he said, “we don’t apologize for our Christian faith, we own our Christian faith, we share our Christian faith” because elected representatives have the responsibility “to do what we believe is right for the future of our country and reflect the biblical principles as we act upon that.”
Jolly concluded by asking the audience to pray for all elected leaders “because we are at a point in world history where man cannot get us out of this alone and it’s going to take a divinely inspired wisdom from the Lord Jesus Christ and as I said at the beginning, we don’t apologize for that.”
Saying that the only reason he is in Congress at the moment is because that is where God wants him to be, Jolly promised that “I will work every day to reflect the biblical principles and faith principles we all believe in and I will do my part to join you in leading this country in what we believe is the right direction based upon the foundation of faith and I will do that until the same Hands of Providence that brought me to this office lead me out of it”:
That was all pretty standard Religious Right language, which is why we didn’t even bother writing it up when we first watched it yesterday … but that was before Jolly announced his support for marriage equality:
Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) announced his support for gay marriage Monday, saying that he believes it is “fully appropriate” for a state to recognize both same-sex marriages and “traditional” ones, even though he, as a Christian, believes in the the latter.
When asked by The Washington Post whether he supports gay marriage, in light of a Florida judge’s decision last week to overturn the state’s ban, Jolly said that his personal views on marriage are that it should be limited to one man and one woman. But, he added, states should not be defining the “sanctity” of marriage.
“As a matter of my Christian faith, I believe in traditional marriage,” said Jolly in a statement to The Post. “But as a matter of Constitutional principle I believe in a form of limited government that protects personal liberty. To me, that means that the sanctity of one’s marriage should be defined by their faith and by their church, not by their state. Accordingly, I believe it is fully appropriate for a state to recognize both traditional marriage as well as same-sex marriage, and therefore I support the recent decision by a Monroe County Circuit Judge.”
When a member of Congress can cater to a Religious Right event and then, a week later, announce his support for government recognition of gay marriage, it starts to become increasingly obvious that anti-gay activists’ fight against marriage equality is on its last legs.
