"Then We Will Fight In The Shade."

Herodotus reports those as the words of Dienekes, one of the brave 300 Spartans who withstood the Persian hordes at the Battle of Thermopylae, responding to Persian boasts that their arrows could "block out the sun."

These days when it comes to fighting for a social and cultural issue like marriage it certainly feels like the sun is darkening. To a very large extent, the LGBT lobby owns the institutions of cultural influence and power: government, academia, arts and entertainment, big business, and (we will find out for sure tomorrow where we stand) the judiciary.

Comes now Eric Teetsel of the Manhattan Declaration to tell us why we continue a battle that sometimes seems as hopeless as that which faced King Leonidas and his 300. Not because we are hateful people, but because we believe in marriage as a key institution for human flourishing on so many levels.

We follow one possessing far greater splendor than Leonidas, and I am so grateful for a cultural co-laborer such as Eric, and I know there are many others in our ranks. Fine young scholars like Ryan Anderson, Sherif Gergis, the tremendous crews at Heritage and Alliance Defending Freedom, and many, many others who will not yield in their convictions. These are the kind of people I'm proud to stand with in an old-fashioned, impenetrable phalanx.

Others may well be able to block out the sun for a time.

If we must, we will cheerfully fight in the shade.