"If the truth about marriage can be displaced by social and political pressure operating through the law, other truths can be set aside as well," say the nearly 50 signers of the statement, Religion News Service's David Gibson recently reported. "And that displacement can lead, in due course, to the coercion and persecution of those who refuse to acknowledge the state's redefinition of marriage, which is beyond the state's competence," they say.

According to Gibson, the new document, titled, "The Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage" -- which "comes from the group Evangelicals and Catholics Together, a coalition formed in 1994 under the aegis of former Nixon aide Charles Colson, an evangelical, and the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest" -- appears to be a "declaration of war."

Amongst the signers of the statement that has taken nearly two years to come to fruition, are megachurch pastor Rick Warren, longtime gay marriage foe Maggie Gallagher, prominent conservative Catholic intellectuals George Weigel and Robert George, Timothy George, a Southern Baptist and dean of Samford University's Beeson Divinity School; Mark Galli, editor of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today; and J.I. Packer of Regent University.

As of early February of this year, lgbtqnation.com points out, "same-sex marriage is legal in 37 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming), in the District of Columbia, and in the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo. Legal challenges are pending in the remaining states." And there will be a monumental Supreme Court decision sometime in June of this year.

Longtime journalist Frederick Clarkson noted that "Some of these leaders have been threatening civil disobedience over abortion, marriage equality, and religious liberty since at least the publication of the 2009 Manhattan Declaration. In the Declaration, the culture-warring leaders of both the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and of conservative evangelicalism threatened massive civil disobedience if they didn't get their way."

According to Clarkson, a senior fellow for religious liberty at Political Research Associates, "the published quotes from 'The Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage' suggests a group of leaders on the eve of a major battle they are about to lose -- trying to rally themselves and their followers for the rest of the war."

While "They remind themselves of their professed 'obligation to speak the truth in love,' and express regret for 'injustices against those who experience same-sex attraction,' .... their words also drip with scorn for those who do not share their views."

In the past, several of the signees have indicated that they would embrace civil disobedience and they expressed a willingness to go the jail for their beliefs.