In a direct mail piece sent out this week, the Family Research Council warns that a “crackdown” on Christians in the wake of the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling has begun and urges supporters to contribute “as generously as possible” to help FRC fight the “onslaught.”

Calling the Obergefell ruling a “tragedy,” FRC president Tony Perkins warns that the “enemies of biblical truth and devotion to the same … are circling ready pounce, and protection for Christians is urgently needed.”

This protection, he writes, comes in the form of the so-called First Amendment Defense Act, which would sanction discrimination against LGBT people, single mothers and others in a wide range of private and public services.

The crackdown has begun.

I told you barely eight weeks ago that I believed a crackdown was coming and your own religious freedom would be in jeopardy. I didn’t really know it would hit this fast and hit this hard.

But here it is.

…

Some state government agencies and officials are already penalizing people for their moral and religious convictions about marriage!

What we are seeing are the side effects of a tragedy. It was a tragedy in the first place that the justices voted, but the slimmest of majorities, 5 to 4, to force a redefinition of marriage on all 50 states, invalidating the votes of over 50 million Americans.

This cataclysmic determination was made not by the overwhelming vote of the people throughout America—they voted otherwise—nor by elected lawmakers—but by five unelected liberal lawyers wearing black robes. They simply agreed that this would be settled policy—and not on the basis of the text of the Constitution, but based on their own personal analysis and apparently their own policy preferences.

Result: The First Amendment, and your freedoms that are protected under it, are under attack.

…

This can’t wait. This is not just a matter of “holding the line.” This is a matter of turning back a huge assault and protecting your fundamental freedoms.

What we’ve witnessed since the same-sex marriage ruling is a colossal push toward snuffing out your most cherished freedom, your religious freedom—your right to believe—crushing your constitutional rights as a Christian by forcing you to embrace practices that contradict biblical truth.

…

The onslaught is under way!

It is a tragedy that the moral and religious beliefs of people and faith-based organizations should need to be protected from oppression by our own federal government, especially given our nation’s history of recognizing, respecting and protecting those beliefs.

…

Ironically, individuals and nonprofit organizations could face the loss of tax-exempt status, disqualification, loss of professional license, or be punished by the federal government simply for believing in marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as President Obama himself professed just three years ago.

Yet now, in the wake of the high court’s same-sex marriage decision, enemies of biblical truth and devotion to the same—the President’s own allies—are circling ready pounce, and protection for Christians is urgently needed.