The battle over marriage in our nation was taken to another level with the ruling by a federal judge in Boston that the federal law defining marriage as one man and one woman is unconstitutional.
Judge Tauro accomplishes this task by essentially presupposing the most decisive points that he should have been obliged to establish in an argument. A good third of the judge’s opinion was spent in showing all of the benefits that would be denied to spouses of same-sex couples in the federal government. They would be denied those benefits simply because Congress, which has the sole authority to legislate the federal code, stipulated that every reference to marriage in that code would be a reference to a legal union of a man and a woman. And yes, the consequence of that stipulation in the meaning of marriage does mean that no companion of the same sex can have the standing of a spouse to receive benefits in the form of retirement, pension, medical care, to the extent those benefits are conferred on spouses and members of the legal “family.”
But to compile the litany of benefits foregone is not to make the case that they have been withheld wrongly, without justification. An argument must be supplied. Judge Tauro wanted to argue that the withholding of benefits was illegitimate because the distinction between a marriage composed of a man and a woman, and a marriage composed of people of the same sex, is an illegitimate, unjustified distinction. For Judge Tauro that distinction treats differently people who are in the same situation — i.e., people who claim to be married, as indeed they may claim right now under the laws of Massachusetts.
I find it curious that advocates argue there is no rational basis for defining marriage as one man and one woman. Ignored are the facts that children do do better with their mother and father. That homosexual unions are notoriously unstable and don't provide a good environment for raising children. That society's weaken and decline when the sexual mores are loosened. That homosexual behavior is inherently unhealthy and granting it marital status is putting the state's stamp of approval on unhealthy activities. All conveniently ignored.
Expect another shot at marriage when the federal judge hearing the challenge to Prop 8 in California comes out with his expected pro-homosexual marriage ruling shortly. These decisions will no doubt help make marriage a political issue in the fall's elections across the country.
I've found gay activists become upset when one points out the harmful, unhealthy aspects of homosexual behavior. One's accused of being mean spirited, homophobic, hateful, unloving, etc., etc.
In fact, the loving thing to do is to point out when a person is doing something harmful to him or herself or to others. That's true when a parent sees his or her child doing something harmful.
It's also true when addressing issues on a societal level. One example is the issue of smoking. Another is homosexuality and homosexual behavior. Rather than promoting acceptance of homosexual behavior in schools or grant it social status and privilege via homosexual marriage, civil union or domestic partnerships, we should be discouraging the activity.
This point was made here in the context of the debate over recognizing homosexual unions in the Lutheran Church body, ELCA.
Another example of what happens when homosexual marriage is legalized is the expansion of government. In Washington, DC which recently began legalizing same sex marriage, it's meant Christian charities which subscribe to Christian principles are marginalized and shut out of government efforts to help the needy.
The debate over marriage is about far, far more than what consenting adults do behind closed doors. In fact, it’s not about that at all. Witness the debate over Washington D.C.’s same-sex marriage law. The Left frames it as a simple matter of individual rights, but it’s really an opportunity to increase the jurisdiction of government and squeeze out private, religious charities.
In this case, Catholic Charities’ foster care program is getting the squeeze. The District has refused to provide a religious exemption to religious charities not willing to fudge their non-negotiable teachings on marriage. So the charity is going to lose $2 million in public funding, which means it has to close its operation in D.C. Dozens of other Catholic Charities programs now hang in the balance.
Councilman David Catania, author of D.C.’s same-sex “marriage” bill, shrugged off the Church’s impact. “[Catholic Charities doesn't] represent, in my mind, an indispensable component of our social services infrastructure.”
Perhaps Catania doesn’t know that in the “last year alone, more than 124,000 people were fed, housed, treated, legally defended, or adopted as a result of Catholic Charities programs,” or maybe he thinks his cause should trump the well-being of such recipients. Or, maybe he thinks that the D.C. government can do a better job. We’ll see about that.
This incident causes me to question (once again) the wisdom of private religious charities receiving public funding, even for programs with secular purposes. I don’t think it unconstitutional to receive such funding. It’s just dangerous for religious charities that don’t want to become secular.
But more importantly, the incident shows that the debate over the definition of marriage is not about privacy, but about the relative role of the state, civil society, and nature of American public life from top to bottom. To put it bluntly, to impose a new definition of marriage on society, traditional religion must by necessity be purged from public life.
That means a further secularization of charity.
And as Richards' notes, it points out the problematic consequences of religious groups receiving government monies to help the poor. Liberals aren't concerned with helping the poor as much as they are with pressing their ideological agenda.
I spoke to a University of Minnesota graduate class last week. The discussion was on what's best for children. I said kids need a mother and a father. One of the students said what's really important is parents who love one another, whether same or opposite sex; a favorite argument of homosexual marriage advocates.
My view is certainly love is an important element in a marriage and in the raising of children, but there's more to parenting than parents liking and caring for one another. There's also providing the unique contributions which only a mother and a father can bring to their child's life; something homosexual couples can not provide. By definition the biological mother or father is missing from a same sex parenting couple. Is that important? Certainly. Here's a brief article pointing that out.
Proponents of same-sex marriage believe love is all children really need. Based on that supposition, they conclude it’s just as good for children to be raised by loving parents of the same sex, as by loving parents of the opposite sex. But that basic assumption—and all that flows from it—is naively simplistic and denies the complex nature and core needs of human beings.
According to decades of research, the ideal family structure for children is a two-parent, mother-father family.(1,2,3) That research consistently shows that children raised in such families are more likely to thrive—psychologically, mentally, and physically—than children reared in any other kind of family configuration.
Extensive research also reveals that not only mothers, but also fathers, are critical to the healthy development of children. Swedish researchers reviewed the best longitudinal studies from around the world that assessed the effects of fathers on children’s development. Their review spanned 20 years of studies and included over 22,000 children, and found that fathers reduce behavioral problems in boys and psychological problems in girls, enhance cognitive development, and decrease delinquency.(4)
It’s clear that children benefit from having both a male and female parent. Recent medical research confirms genetically determined differences between men and women and those fundamental differences help explain why mothers and fathers bring unique characteristics to parenting that can’t be replicated by the other sex. Mothers and fathers simply aren’t interchangeable. Two women can both be good mothers, but neither can be a good father. One-sex parenting, whether by a single parent or a homosexual couple, deprives children of the full range of parenting offered by dual-sex couples.
Only mother-father families afford children the opportunity to develop relationships with a parent of the same, as well as the opposite sex. Relationships with both sexes early in life make it easier and more comfortable for a child to relate to both sexes later in life. Overall, having a relationship with both a male and female parent increases the likelihood that a child will have successful social and romantic relationships during his or her life.(5)
The research on the positive influence of homosexual headed households on children is flawed, limited and put children at risk of negative outcomes.
Moreover, existing research on children reared by homosexuals is not only scientifically flawed and extremely limited (6,7,8) but some of it actually indicates that those children are at increased risk for a variety of negative outcomes.(6) Other studies find that homosexually parented children are more likely to experiment sexually, experience sexual confusion, and engage in homosexual and bisexual behavior themselves.(5,6,9) And for those children who later engage in non-heterosexual behavior, extensive research reveals they are more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders, abuse alcohol and drugs, (10) attempt suicide, (11) experience domestic violence and sexual assault, (12) and are at increased risk for chronic diseases, AIDS, and shortened life spans.(13,14,15)
It shouldn’t be surprising that studies find children reared by homosexuals are more likely to engage in homosexual behavior themselves (16,9,17) since extensive worldwide research reveals homosexuality is primarily environmentally induced. Specifically, social and/or family factors, as well as permissive environments which affirm homosexuality, play major environmental roles in the development of homosexual behavior.(18,19,20,21) There’s no question that human sexuality is fluid and pliant.(22) Consider ancient Greece and Rome—among many early civilizations—where male homosexuality and bisexuality were nearly ubiquitous. That was not so because most of those men were born with a “gay gene,” rather because sexuality is malleable and socially influenced.
Same-sex marriage no doubt will increase sexual confusion and sexual experimentation by young people. The implicit and explicit message of same-sex marriage is that all choices are equally acceptable and desirable. So even children from traditional homes—influenced by the all-sexual-options-are-equal message—will grow up thinking it doesn’t matter whom one relates to sexually or marries. Holding such a belief will lead some—if not many—young people to consider sexual and marital arrangements they never would have contemplated previously....
To date, very little research exists that assesses long-term outcomes for homosexually parented children. According to Charlotte Patterson, a self-proclaimed, pro-same-sex-marriage researcher, there are only two longitudinal studies of children raised by lesbians.(23) And no long-term studies of children raised by homosexual men. A professional organization dedicated to the welfare of its patients cannot and should not support drastic change in social policy based on just two, small and non-representative longitudinal studies.
The conclusion is children certainly need love but they also need their mother and father.
Certainly homosexual couples can be just as loving toward children as heterosexual couples, but children need more than love. They require distinctive qualities and complementary natures of a male and a female parent. The accumulated wisdom of over 5,000 years concludes that the ideal marital and parental configuration is composed of one man and one woman. This time-tested wisdom is now supported by the most advanced, scientifically sound research available.
It's interesting that all DFL candidates for governor in Minnesota have staked out a position more liberal than the majority of voters in Maine. They support homosexual marriage.
Eric Black in a MinnPost column entitled, "All DFL guv candidates back gay marriage: A wedge issue in the making?" points out the uniformity of DFL candidates for governor in favor of homosexual marriage. And as the title points out, this could be a wedge issue in the governor's race. My response is: I certainly hope so.
The unanimity of DFL gubernatorial candidates on the issue points out the influence homosexual activists have on the DFL party and apparently none of the candidates have moral sensibilities on the nature of marriage being between a man and a woman. And if they do or did, they've certainly been submerged by political ambition. They realize they can't be the DFL candidate for governor if they don't toe the line on homosexual marriage.
Some are more outspoken on this than others.
Some of the Dem candidates bring this up even in their brief two- or three-minute summaries of what they will do as governor. Former state Rep. Matt Entenza features prominently in the "issues" section of his campaign website that he co-authored the first bill that would have "redefined the legal definition of marriage to explicitly include two persons of the same gender." Others don't bring it up unless asked. But when asked, all say they will sign a same-sex marriage bill, although I gather the most current term for the idea is "marriage equality" (which is not an unreasonable term, but certainly has the whiff of the political Marketing Department about it).
None of the Republican gubernatorial candidates favor legalizing same-sex marriage.
In other words, leaving aside for the moment the Independence Party nominee (there are still no publicly known candidates from that party), the 2010 election will offer Minnesotans a fairly clear choice on, among other issues, gay marriage.
This story is all about movement, specifically movement on the political thinkability of gay marriage. If it seems intuitively obvious that the DFL would nominate a gay marriage advocate for governor, allow me to point out that it is unprecedented. With one possible exception, no major-party nominee for governor of Minnesota has ever been four-square for legalizing same-sex marriage.
The possible exception is state Sen. John Marty, who was the DFL nominee in 1994 and who is running for the nomination again this year (and who says that he expects to sign marriage equality into law within about three years). Marty says he has favored full equality for gays for many years, and did so in 1994, but doesn't recall whether his published positions that year included explicit reference to marriage....
Black interviews DFL state Senator Tom Bakk from the Iron Range who says he now supports homosexual marriage but believes economic issues will be the key ones in the upcoming election.
I think economic issues will be key in lots of people's minds, but marriage will be important to many people as well.
I would argue the two are intimately related. Unless we have strong marriages we won't have a strong economy. The family is the foundation of our economic system. If families are breaking up that ultimately leaves our economy vulnerable. So it's short sighted, at best, to think it's just about the economy and ignore what's happening to marriage and families. Homosexual marriage is an arrow pointed right at the heart of the institution of marriage in our society.
Time magazine last month came out with a tremendous article on marriage in America, "Is there hope for the American Marriage?"
The writer, Caitlin Flanagan, begins by tweaking conservatives, pointing to the affairs of conservative politicans Sanford and Ensign. But then goes on to highlight the problem.
In the past 40 years, the face of the American family has changed profoundly. As sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin observes in a landmark new book called The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today, what is significant about contemporary American families, compared with those of other nations, is their combination of "frequent marriage, frequent divorce" and the high number of "short-term co-habiting relationships." Taken together, these forces "create a great turbulence in American family life, a family flux, a coming and going of partners on a scale seen nowhere else. There are more partners in the personal lives of Americans than in the lives of people of any other Western country."
Then she goes on to point out the shifting idea of marriagel from sacrifice and raising children to romance and self satisfaction.
An increasingly fragile construct depending less and less on notions of sacrifice and obligation than on the ephemera of romance and happiness as defined by and for its adult principals, the intact, two-parent family remains our cultural ideal, but it exists under constant assault. It is buffeted by affairs and ennui, subject to the eternal American hope for greater happiness, for changing the hand you dealt yourself. Getting married for life, having children and raising them with your partner — this is still the way most Americans are conducting adult life, but the numbers who are moving in a different direction continue to rise. Most notably, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in May that births to unmarried women have reached an astonishing 39.7%.
Does this shift matter? Absolutely.
How much does this matter? More than words can say. There is no other single force causing as much measurable hardship and human misery in this country as the collapse of marriage. It hurts children, it reduces mothers' financial security, and it has landed with particular devastation on those who can bear it least: the nation's underclass.
She then goes on to point out the importance marriage regarding poverty.
The poor and the middle class are very different in the ways they have forsaken marriage. The poor are doing it by uncoupling parenthood from marriage, and the financially secure are doing it by blasting apart their unions if the principals aren't having fun anymore.
The growing tendency of the poor to have children before marriage — the vast majority of unmarried women having babies are undereducated and have low incomes — is a catastrophic approach to life, as three Presidents in a row have tried to convince them. Bill Clinton's welfare-to-work program encouraged marriage, George W. Bush spent millions to promote marriage, and Barack Obama has spoken powerfully on the need for men to stay with their children: "We need fathers to step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception; that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one."
Are dads important and should they be married?
That prompts the question, Does the father have to actually be married to the mother of his children to have a positive effect on them?
"Not if he behaves exactly like a married man," says Robert Rector, a senior research fellow of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation. If a man is willing to contribute 70% of his income to the child's upbringing, dedicate himself around the clock to the child's well-being and create a stable home life — a home life that includes his actually living there with mother and child — he might be able to give his child the boon of fatherhood without having to tie the knot. But that rarely happens. When children are born into a co-habiting, unmarried relationship, says Rector, "they arrive in a family in which the principals haven't resolved their most basic issues," including those of sexual fidelity and how to share responsibilities. Let a little stress enter the picture — and what is more stressful than a baby? — and things start to fall apart. The new mother starts to make wifelike demands on the man, and without the commitment of marriage, he is soon out the door.
Few things hamper a child as much as not having a father at home. "As a feminist, I didn't want to believe it," says Maria Kefalas, a sociologist who studies marriage and family issues and co-authored a seminal book on low-income mothers called Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage. "Women always tell me, 'I can be a mother and a father to a child,' but it's not true." Growing up without a father has a deep psychological effect on a child. "The mom may not need that man," Kefalas says, "but her children still do."
Does family break up affect children? Absolutely.
The reason for these appeals to lasting unions is simple: on every single significant outcome related to short-term well-being and long-term success, children from intact, two-parent families outperform those from single-parent households. Longevity, drug abuse, school performance and dropout rates, teen pregnancy, criminal behavior and incarceration — if you can measure it, a sociologist has; and in all cases, the kids living with both parents drastically outperform the others.
Does divorce harm children? You bet.
This turns out to be true across the economic spectrum. The groundbreaking research on the effects of divorce on children from middle- and upper-income households comes from a surprising source: a Princeton sociologist and single mother named Sara McLanahan, who decided to study the fates of these children with the tacit assumption that once you control for income, being part of a single-parent household does not adversely affect kids. The results — which she published in the 1994 book Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps — were surprising. "Children who grow up in a household with only one biological parent," she found, "are worse off, on average, than children who grow up in a household with both of their biological parents, regardless of the parents' race or educational background."
The most significant part of the article was Flanagan got it right on the fundamental purpose of marriage -- the next generation not adult pleasure.
The fundamental question we must ask ourselves at the beginning of the century is this: What is the purpose of marriage? Is it — given the game-changing realities of birth control, female equality and the fact that motherhood outside of marriage is no longer stigmatized — simply an institution that has the capacity to increase the pleasure of the adults who enter into it? If so, we might as well hold the wake now: there probably aren't many people whose idea of 24-hour-a-day good times consists of being yoked to the same romantic partner, through bouts of stomach flu and depression, financial setbacks and emotional upsets, until after many a long decade, one or the other eventually dies in harness.
Or is marriage an institution that still hews to its old intention and function — to raise the next generation, to protect and teach it, to instill in it the habits of conduct and character that will ensure the generation's own safe passage into adulthood? Think of it this way: the current generation of children, the one watching commitments between adults snap like dry twigs and observing parents who simply can't be bothered to marry each other and who hence drift in and out of their children's lives — that's the generation who will be taking care of us when we are old.
Flanagan lays out the purpose of marriage and the damage to society and individuals when it breaks down. She also, without even mentioning it, totally under cut the basis for homosexual marriage. How? By pointing out how indispensable a mom and a dad are in the lives of their kids and pointing to the purpose of marriage being fundamentally about the next generation, procreation and doing what's best for children. Something same sex marriage inherently can not do. It's not about a self fulfillment and personal happiness -- the guiding principles of homosexual marriage. It's not about me but the next generation.
It's interesting that since the Left's social agenda is now the agenda in Washington, DC, the public is turning against homosexual marriage. At least that's what several major public opinion polls show.
...the issue of same-sex marriage has occupied center stage politically for the past several years. Maine recently became the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage, and legislative efforts to pass similar laws are underway in other states as well. But a majority of the public (54%) remains opposed to same-sex marriage, reflecting a small but significant increase in opposition since November 2007, when 49% opposed it. Just 35% favor it.
The poll found 33 percent favor marriage for same-sex couples, down somewhat from a high of 42 percent in April, and another 30 percent support civil unions. A third of Americans think there should be no legal recognition of a same-sex couple’s relationship. Views in this poll are similar to those found back in March of this year.
In a May Gallup poll, support didn't change from 40% while opposition grew from 56% to 57%.
Polls go up and down but in this time when liberalism is on the ascendancy, the support for homosexual marriage is actually going down, not up. I find it also interesting how some of these pollsters analyze the results. One can find liberal bias again. CBS says support for same sex couples is "down somewhat" from 42% to 33%. That doesn't sound like a "somewhat" to me. That sounds like "a lot" to me.
Not all African American Pastors agree with President Obama's comparison of "the plight of homosexuals to that of blacks during the Civil Rights Era."
Ken Hutcherson, Pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland Washington says,
"'There is nothing, nothing that compares between what the Afro-Americans went through and what homosexuals are going through now.'
Hutcherson expresses disgust with evangelicals who still support President Obama, despite his promotion of policies that are at odds with scripture. He says such individuals are part of the "evangellyfish" movement in America."
Despite the relentless drumbeat in favor of homosexual marriage by elites and the mainstream media, the American people don't seem to be jumping on the band wagon.
A Gallup poll released Wednesdayfinds that a solid majority of Americans don't support legalizing it.
Americans' views on same-sex marriage have essentially stayed the same in the past year, with a majority of 57% opposed to granting such marriages legal status and 40% in favor of doing so. Though support for legal same-sex marriage is significantly higher now than when Gallup first asked about it in 1996, in recent years support has appeared to stall, peaking at 46% in 2007.
They point to stronger support among younger Americans while older Americans don't.
Younger Americans have typically been much more supportive of same-sex marriage than older Americans, and that is the case in the current poll. A majority of 18- to 29-year-olds think gay or lesbian couples should be allowed to legally marry, while support reaches only as high as 40% among the three older age groups.
Some argue this is evidence that it's only a matter of time before broader society accepts it. I don't think that's the case. Marriage is a profoundly moral issue which I believe, people intuitively believe is between a man and a woman and homosexual behavior isn't normal. I think as the public debate continues and the facts get discussed regarding the nature and benefits of marriage and the problems associated with homosexual behavior, the public support for homosexuality and homosexual marriage will diminish in the minds of young people. We're already seeing that happen with the abortion issue where young people are becoming more conservative than their parents. I think the same thing can happen on the marriage issue.
And of course, the moral relativism which inundates our cultural thinking will also have to be addressed. The notion that I can be personally opposed to homosexual marriage but embrace it for society just doesn't hold up. Marriage is a moral, law of nature which can't and shouldn't be relativized. It's like saying I'm personally opposed to rape, murder, lying or stealing but I wouldn't want to impose my views on the rest of society. In the final analysis, it doesn't make sense.
Another thing to note in the polling is the intensity level of proponents and opponents. 48% of all people say legalizing homosexual marriage will change society for the worse. More than three and a half times those 13% who say it will make society better.
A separate question in the poll found close to half of Americans, 48%, saying that allowing legal same-sex marriages would change society for the worse. That is more than three times the 13% who believe legal gay marriage would change society for the better. The remaining 38% say it would have no effect on society or do not have an opinion on the matter.
These results are essentially unchanged from a Gallup Poll conducted six years ago.
This suggests people who understand the nature of marriage are much more aware of the negative problems associated with its redefinition and will be difficult to persuade otherwise.
Here are some interesting anecdotes on what's happened in Massachusetts since homosexual marriage was legalized by that state's highest court in 2003. This demonstrates that homosexual marriage is about much more than allowing a few homosexual couples to get married.
On November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court announced its Goodridge opinion, ruling that it was unconstitutional not to allow same-sex “marriage.” Six months later, homosexual marriages began to be performed.
The public schools
The homosexual “marriage” onslaught in public schools across the state started soon after the November 2003, court decision.
At my own children's high school there was a school-wide assembly to celebrate same-sex “marriage” in early December, 2003. It featured an array of speakers, including teachers at the school who announced that they would be “marrying” their same-sex partners and starting families either through adoption or artificial insemination. Literature on same-sex marriage – how it is now a normal part of society – was handed out to the students.
Within months it was brought into the middle schools. In September, 2004, an 8th-grade teacher in Brookline, MA, told National Public Radio that the marriage ruling had opened up the floodgates for teaching homosexuality. “In my mind, I know that, `OK, this is legal now.' If somebody wants to challenge me, I'll say, `Give me a break. It's legal now,'” she told NPR. She added that she now discusses gay sex with her students as explicitly as she desires. For example, she said she tells the kids that lesbians can have vaginal intercourse using sex toys.
By the following year it was in elementary school curricula.Kindergartners were given picture books telling them that same-sex couples are just another kind of family, like their own parents. In 2005, when David Parker of Lexington, MA – a parent of a kindergartner – strongly insisted on being notified when teachers were discussing homosexuality or transgenderism with his son, the school had him arrested and put in jail overnight.
Second graders at the same school were read a book, “King and King”, about two men who have a romance and marry each other, with a picture of them kissing. When parents Rob and Robin Wirthlin complained, they were told that the school had no obligation to notify them or allow them to opt-out their child.
In 2006 the Parkers and Wirthlins filed a federal Civil Rights lawsuit to force the schools to notify parents and allow them to opt-out their elementary-school children when homosexual-related subjects were taught. The federal judges dismissed the case. The judges ruled that because same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, the school actually had a duty to normalize homosexual relationships to children, and that schools have no obligation to notify parents or let them opt-out their children! Acceptance of homosexuality had become a matter of good citizenship!
Think about that: Because same-sex marriage is “legal”, a federal judge has ruled that the schools now have a duty to portray homosexual relationships as normal to children, despite what parents think or believe!
In 2006, in the elementary school where my daughter went to Kindergarten, the parents of a third-grader were forced to take their child out of school because a man undergoing a sex-change operation and cross-dressing was being brought into class to teach the children that there are now “different kinds of families.” School officials told the mother that her complaints to the principal were considered “inappropriate behavior.”
Libraries have also radically changed. School libraries across the state, from elementary school to high school, now have shelves of books to normalize homosexual behavior and the lifestyle in the minds of kids, some of them quite explicit and even pornographic. Parents complaints are ignored or met with hostility.
Over the past year, homosexual groups have been using taxpayer money to distribute a large, slick hardcover book celebrating homosexual marriage titled “Courting Equality” into every school library in the state.
It’s become commonplace in Massachusetts schools for teachers to prominently display photos of their same-sex “spouses” and occasionally bring them to school functions. Both high schools in my own town now have principals who are “married” to their same-sex partners, whom they bring to school and introduce to the students.
“Gay days” in schools are considered necessary to fight “intolerance” which may exist against same-sex relationships. Hundreds of high schools and even middle schools across the state now hold “gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender appreciation days”. They “celebrate” homosexual marriage and move forward to other behaviors such as cross-dressing and transsexuality. In my own town, a school committee member recently announced that combating “homophobia” is now a top priority.
Once homosexuality has been normalized, all boundaries will come down. The schools are already moving on to normalizing transgenderism (including cross-dressing and sex changes). The state-funded Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth includes leaders who are transsexuals.
I think the more people hear about the implications of homosexual marriage the more they will be concerned.
The only thing that stands in the way of the legalization of homosexual marriage are pastors who are faithful to God’s design for marriage and family. In Minnesota there are thousands of pastors who have remained faithful but many others have been taken captive by secular dogma.
You know you are a pastor that has been taken captive if…
You believe it’s “hateful” to disagree with a persons’ sexual behavior. You believe you can’t love someone if you disagree with a persons’ sexual behavior. You believe that homosexual sex is healthy. You believe that scientific studies confirm that homosexual sex is healthy.
You know you are a pastor that has been taken captive if…
You believe “civil rights” trumps God’s design for marriage. You believe God’s design for marriage should not influence our marriage laws. You believe that God’s design for marriage is nothing more than a list of “benefits and legal rights.” You believe that the definition of marriage is a secret plot to elect republicans.
You know you are a pastor that has been taken captive if…
You believe that God’s design for children to have a mother and a father is strictly a religious belief. You believe that a child’s need for a mother and a father is not scientific. You believe “two loving people in a committed relationship” are the same as a mother and a father.
You know you are a pastor that has been taken captive if…
You believe that God’s design for marriage is “intolerant” or “homophobic.” You believe “all you need is love.” You believe that God’s design for marriage is not scientific. You believe that God’s design for man, woman and marriage is strictly a religious belief. You believe God’s design for man and woman is not scientific. You believe that legalizing homosexual marriage will improve God’s design for marriage.
You know you are a pastor that has been taken captive if…
One of the consequences of legalizing homosexual marriage will be the promotion of homosexual marriage and acceptance of homosexual behavior. With the experience of Massachusetts which has court mandated homosexual marriage, we now have a track record of what to expect.
Here's an example of a book used to promote acceptance of homosexual marriage in a Massachusetts public school. It's called, "King and King."
Here are some excerpts from that book.
Here's the cover of the book, "King and King" that was read to second graders -- without any parental notification. As you can see, it's clearly written to normalize homosexual romance and "marriage" in the minds of very young children.
The book starts out with the Queen nagging her unmarried son, the prince, that he needs to get married: "When I was your age, I'd been married twice already." Interesting message for young kids.
The Queen brought in several princesses from various places. They're all portrayed in a rather nasty manner. And the prince, of course, didn't like any of them. On this princess from Africa: "Boy, those long arms will certainly come in handy when waving to the people," said the prince. <
But then one princess brings her brother along. The book describes the prince's reaction to her brother in these the two pages below: "At last, the prince felt a stir in his heart. It was love at first sight." (As the princess, naturally, looks confused.)
A few pages later (after a whirlwind courtship) the two princes are shown holding hands a their 'wedding'. As the text describes: "The wedding was very special. The queen even shed a tear or two." (Note: We've noticed that 'their parents shedding tears at their wedding' is a theme that homosexual activists in Massachusetts bring up a lot.)
The book goes on to describe how they're not not just princes, but 'King and King." And just to rub it in, the last page shows a male-to-male kiss. The message for kids here is pretty clear. . .
By the way, this book is published by Tricycle Press in San Francisco -- the same company that publishes "Who's in a Family"
This sort of thing will be coming to Minnesota once homosexual marriage is legalized.
There was an interesting op/ed piece in the New York Times on efforts to reach a compromise or accommodation between supporters and opponents of homosexual marriage. I view it as wishful thinking and reminiscent of efforts to reach accommodation on the slavery issue via the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which allowed some states to remain free and some slave. It ultimately didn't hold up.
The authors, David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch, are on different sides of homosexual marriage. The former against and the latter for it. Yet they think we can reach a compromise on the marriage issue. They write:
We take very different positions on gay marriage. We have had heated debates on the subject. Nonetheless, we agree that the time is ripe for a deal that could give each side what it most needs in the short run, while moving the debate onto a healthier, calmer track in the years ahead.
It would work like this: Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill.
I don't see room for compromise on this issue, because it addresses the fundamental moral question of the nature of marriage. We can't redefine marriage, because it's not ours to redefine. It's rooted in the created order and the nature of God. We're only fooling ourselves if we think we can violate a fundamental principle of nature and not suffer the consequences. Ultimately, truth will prevail on this issue. Either with re-embracing the true understanding of marriage in our culture and society or we will embrace the chaos resulting from efforts to redefine fundamental human relationships and continue to decline as a society.
In the meanwhile, efforts like the above proposal, which is really just a step down the road towards homosexual marriage, sow the seeds of it's own instability and is unsustainable. I think Lincoln's view on slavery and freedom coexisting is salient in the debate over homosexual marriage and man-woman marriage. Lincoln said our nation would either be all free or all slave. In the same way, we'll be either an all man-woman marriage society or one which eliminates marriage by embracing homosexual relationships.
One aspect of the homosexual marriage debate is the impact homosexual headed households will have on children. Homosexual activists love to showcase lesbian headed households with young children. But beyond the emotional images, how do homosexual headed households really impact children? Negatively, according to Dr. Rekers, a psychiatrist at the University of South Carolina Medical School. I recently came across his 80 page paper on scientific research given in defense, a few years ago, of Arkansas and Florida laws prohibiting homosexuals from adopting children.
His points were threefold. Homosexual headed households result in the following: 1) higher stress levels on children. 2) significant instability of households is not healthy for children; homosexual relationships are much more unstable than those headed up by a man and a woman. 3) role model deficit; kids need a mom and a dad in their lives. Something homosexual households inherently lack.
The negatives of homosexual households on children are merely another reason for not recognizing homosexual marriage -- a central purpose of marriage is the raising of children. If society wants to truly do what's in the best interest of children then it won't encourage placing children in relationship settings which aren't in the best interest of children.
Of course, I can already hear the responses of advocates of homosexual marriage and homosexuality in general. "But heterosexual relationships are getting divorced in record numbers. What about the lesbian couple who've been together for 25 years compared to the heterosexual couple who get divorced after 6 months?" What about it?
One doesn't look to the exception to overturn the general rule. It's like pointing to the 90 year old lady who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day until the day of her death and compares her to the exercise, health food fanatic who dies of lung cancer at age 25. Does this prove that smoking is not harmful for the person? Of course not. One needs to look at the general effects of the behavior not the exception. So too with homosexual household versus households headed by a man and a woman.
And then of course there will be the charges that one's being cruel and hateful to suggest that homosexual households aren't healthy for children. In fact, the opposite is true. If one desires to protect and do what's in the best interest of children - some of the most vulnerable members of our society, the loving thing is to speak the truth and advocate for what's best for children. If one remains silent and does not defend the interests of children when it's within one's power to do so, that's the exact opposite of love and compassion.
Senator Marty has scored the trifecta when it comes to the sex revolution.
He's chief author or author of:
SF 120 "Marriage and Family Protection Act" which legalizes homosexual marriage in Minnesota and would require Minnesota to recognize homosexual marriages from other states. SF 273, "The Responsible Family Life and Sexuality" bill which mandates all Minnesota public schools grades 7 through 12 promote condom use among Minnesota teenagers. And along with it will come the invariable promotion of alternative sexual behaviors like oral and anal sex.
SF 115, the "Reproductive Privacy Act" which codifies abortion on demand from conception through all nine months of the pregnancy.
What do all these bills have in common? For one they use misleading and deceptive titles. Redefining marriage out of existence is anything but "marriage and family protection." Promoting sexual activity among teens is anything but "responsible family life and sexuality" education. And "reproductive privacy" does not do justice to the reality that the unborn child in the womb would be utterly defenseless from those who are empowered to destroy their lives in the womb from conception through nine months.
And second, they all seek to further the goals of the sexual revolution -- unrestrained sexual behavior free from consequences. The problems are the consequences aren't free for either the participants or third parties. Abortion kills a human being and often leaves the woman having the abortion dealing with guilt, remorse, depression and/or physical side effects. Sexually transmitted diseases leave one with permanent disease conditions which if not treated can lead to infertility and in some cases death. Out of wedlock births often means poverty and children raised without a mother or a father which in turn often means poorer educational performance and criminal activity.
What Senator Marty is seeking to do is codify protection and thus encouragement of these behaviors in state law.
I almost forgot. He's also author of SF 97, the bill legalizing smoked marijuana for medical purposes. But that's for another day.
The ruse that homosexuals just want to be left alone is finally over. Back in 1993 the late Senator Alan Spear was adamant that adding sexual orientation to the state's Human Rights Act had nothing to do with homosexual marriage. All homosexuals really wanted was to be left alone. They didn't want to lose their job because they were homosexual. Tolerance was the mantra.
Well, in 15 years the cats out of the bag. Tolerance is no longer the goal but rather endorsement and legally enforced acceptance of homosexuality is the goal through homosexual marriage recognition.
Yesterday, Senator John Marty introduced SF 120 which is misleadingly called the "Marriage and Family Protection Act." (But who's surprised?) In fact it has nothing to do with protecting marriage and family and everything to do with undermining the foundations of marriage. It would repeal our state's DOMA or Defense of Marriage Act or Law and redefine marriage from "a man and a woman" to "two persons."
The stepping stone of civil unions is being shunted aside as unacceptable and they're after the whole enchilada -- marriage.
Frankly, I welcome the debate. If it's truly a debate then the truth will win out sooner rather than later. I believe, however, what the proponents will offer up is more emotion than substance. Why? Because the facts aren't on their side and homosexual marriage is about desire and want not need.
Homosexual marriage advocates are giving up their incremental strategy of civil unions as a stepping stone to redefining marriage to include homosexual partners. According to a Star Tribune news story, " Big push for same-sex marriage coming in '09", OutFront Minnesota and Senator John Marty plan to introduce and hold hearings on a homosexual marriage legalization bill.
To date, lots of homosexual groups, figured they should push for a recognition of homosexual marriage by the incremental approach. That's what they did via special legal protections under discrimination laws and domestic partner benefits proposals. The logical next step would be civil unions. Well, the new head of OutFront Minnesota told a reporter that civil unions are unacceptable. They're a separate but unequal counterpart to marriage and they don't want it. They want traditional marriage to be eliminated and replaced with a fundamentally different definition recognizing homosexual couples. They think it will take them not too many years to achieve.
Frankly, I welcome more public discussion and debate on the issue. The more there is the better off we are on the marriage side. Why? Because homosexual marriage is build on a lie that somehow homosexual unions can constitute and fulfill the purposes of marriage as established by God and rooted in nature. In other words, the truth is not on their side.
It's like the legislature seeking to define a cat as a dog by passing a law saying it's so. We may want to believe it's so and even act on that belief but it doesn't change the reality of the way things actually are.
I think homosexual marriage advocates say time is on their side. It's inevitable we'll have homosexual marriage in our nation, they say. In the long run, time isn't on their side. In the short run, they may have some successes but in the long run it won't work out. An analogy is the failed experiment of the Soviet Union. They thought they could create the workers paradise through socialist, government ownership economic system. It looked like they might succeed with the growing power of the Soviet empire. But alas, it collapsed after 70 years, because the system was based on lie. The system was rotten at its core.
The same will be true with homosexual marriage whether in Canada, Europe or other parts of the world. Marriage is foundational to the health of society and the well-being of people, particularly children. Homosexual partners can't replace a mom and a dad. The notion is built upon a lie; it will fail. The question is when.
Even in the short term, I don't believe homosexual marriage is inevitable in Minnesota or our nation. The reality of homosexual marriage as revealed in other states will only become more evident as time progresses. The problems children experience. The fragility of the homosexual relationships and health implications will only gain broader societal awareness.
And I think this will only become more apparent to young people. In today's culture, it's cool to be for homosexual marriage. But when one looks a little closer at the true nature and purpose of marriage, the picture changes.
I think that's what has happened with the abortion issue. Young people are becoming pro-life. They see the pictures and hear the horror stories of post-abortion effects. They see it isn't the answer to personal difficulties or circumstances.
The same will happen with homosexual marriage. When they capture a vision of benefits of marriage, the nature of the man and woman relationship, and the impact of homosexual marriage in undermining the marriage vision, they'll go the other direction.
Again, there's power in the truth which none of us can change whether we'd like to or not. That goes for marriage as much as anything else. If we're smart as individuals and a society, we'll find out what the truth is and line our lives up with it.
That's one of the favor lines of homosexual marriage advocates. We love our partners, and therefore, we should be allowed to marriage.
That statement may have a superficial appeal, but it's fundamentally flawed understanding of what marriage is all about.
If love was the defining and exclusive consideration of why two people should be allowed to marry there is no reason for preventing a parent and a child to marry. Or two siblings. Or any other range of loving relationships.
Yet we understand these relationships do not constitute a marriage. The same goes for best friends, athletic teammates, coworkers, and neighbors. The list could go on and on. Love can be expressed in these relationships but that doesn't make them a marriage. While love is certainly vitally important to a marriage, it's about much more than that.
Marriage is built on the unique complementary contributions of a man and a woman. They bring unique attributes to a marriage relationship -- things which go beyond love. Not only for their particular relationship but also for the unique fruit of their relationship -- children. A man and a woman are essential for procreation but they also bring their uniqueness together in the raising of their children.
One example, is the importance of a father in the life of a boy. The absence of fathers in the lives of their sons has been enormously destructive for them and society. Males from fatherless households are much more likely to join gangs, do poorly in school and act out in a host of other ways.
A homosexual relationship in a lesbian context precludes a father figure. While a homosexual male relationship precludes a mother.
Yes, love is an essential ingredient in a successful marriage, but a marriage is about much more than just love. Another essential, foundational ingredients are a man and a woman.
Last session, along with several of my colleagues, I introduced legislation to legalize same-sex marriages in Minnesota. Now we are asking for a hearing on the legislation in the Senate Judiciary Committee during the 2009 legislative session.
Minnesota's law prohibits gays and lesbians from marrying the person they love. Our legislation would repeal that prohibition and extend equal marriage rights to all people regardless of sexual orientation.
This effort is made with no illusion about the difficulty of passing the legislation. In the November election, several states passed voter initiatives banning same-sex marriages. California's initiative actually took away the existing right for gay couples to marry.
His comments contain the usual homosexual marriage canards about homosexuals not having "equal marriage rights." Homosexuals can already marry it just must be to a person of the opposite sex; they're seeking to redefine the institution.
And then he emphasizes the emotional side, having homosexual couples "briefly tell their story. Have them talk about their love, the challenges they face as parents, the problems they encounter because they are not allowed to marry. Opponents would have equal time to voice their concerns. "
Yet then he turns around and seems to be suggesting the exact opposite: "the Judiciary Committee could break past the heated rhetoric on the issue with a candid discussion, conducted in a civil tone. Discussions help to inform and educate people. With all of the divisiveness over gay marriage, a civil discussion might bring people closer together."
I've thought the tone of past committee hearings was rather civil given the strong emotion surrounding the issue.
He says that opponents are just worried that homosexual marriage "will hurt their own marriages, I'd like to ask them to tell us how. I'd really like to know whether they feel my marriage — Connie and I just celebrated our 28th anniversary — would hurt their marriage too."
I personally have never been concerned about nor have I argued that homosexual marriage would affect my marriage. What it does do is redefine the institution of marriage, as it has existed from time immemorial, out of existence. It would no longer exist. One effect is it would now mean that children, legally speaking, would no longer be understand to need both a mother and a father. One or the other would be superfluous in a homosexual marriage. This situation has already been devastating to society and would only worsen by sanctioning same sex marriage.
Senator Marty goes on to say that as a Christian his faith leads him to promote homosexual marriage.
If opponents say they believe gay marriage is sinful or morally wrong, I'd like to tell them why I, as a Christian, believe we should not just allow, but actually encourage gay couples to marry. It is because of my faith, not in spite of it, that I think we should promote marriage and work to strengthen families of gay couples as well as heterosexual couples.
To say the Christian faith supports same sex marriage is ludicrous.
The Scriptures are unambiguous about homosexual behavior being morally wrong and sinful and the nature of marriage being between a man and a woman. The testimony of Christians and the Christian church throughout history only affirms this view of homosexual behavior and marriage. The view by a few that homosexual marriage is not inconsistent with Christian teaching is simply heretical.
Next Senator Marty tries the usual secular argument that pro-traditional marriage supporters are simply trying to impose their religious views on the rest of society.
I would like to ask my colleagues who oppose this legislation why they consider it acceptable for Minnesota's government to endorse their religious beliefs about gay marriage and enforce them over the religious beliefs that thousands of other Minnesotans have. Every member of the Senate took an oath of office to support the Constitution of the United States, and each of us understands that government should treat all people in a fair, non-discriminatory manner.
There's a degree of hypocrisy in Senator Marty's comments. He has just argued his view of Christianity promotes same sex marriage and via his bill he wants to impose his position on society.
The fact is traditional marriage isn't being artificially imposed on society. It was reaffirmed through the passage of the 1996 state DOMA bill through both bodies of the legislature and signed into law by then Governor Arne Carlson.
Marty seeks to provide reassurance that churches won't be required to perform same sex marriages. Their religious liberties will be protected. And he draws the fallacious analogy of same sex marriage to inter-racial marriage.
Opponents worry that their churches would be required to perform gay marriages. But we can reassure them that the freedom of religion that would allow gay marriages is the same freedom of religion that allows them to perform marriages only for couples they choose to marry. We could point to the U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down laws prohibiting interracial marriage – a decision that was strongly opposed by many Christians at the time — and remind them that the churches objecting to those marriages have never been forced to solemnize them.
First, homosexual marriage advocates often argue that opposing homosexual marriage is tantamount to opposing inter-racial marriage. If they truly believe that then it's very reasonable to assume that if homosexual marriage is the law of the land then churches which oppose homosexual marriage will be stripped of their nonprofit tax status and be subject to anti-discrimination laws. In the 1980s, Bob Jones University which at that time didn't allow interracial dating was stripped of their tax status. (They recently apologized for their policy.) These actions would certainly be infringements on religious liberties.
It would mean the indoctrination of all public school children into the notion that marriage no longer a man and a woman and to think otherwise is wrong and bigoted. It would undermine parental rights and religious liberties as we already see happening in other state's which sanction homosexual marriage or, I should say, were forced by their courts to sanction it. Second, homosexual marriage and inter-racial marriage bans are analogous only in that they are both anti-marriage -- homosexual marriage by negating the presence of a man or woman in the relationship and interracial marriage bans by seeking to keep particular men and women from marrying because of their skin color. This is of course the exact opposite of what pro-homosexual marriage advocates would like you to believe or understand about inter-racial marriage bans which were truly anti-marriage.
Senator Marty says, "A Senate hearing that confronts these issues with a civil discussion will not end all opposition to gay marriage, but it will help break down the misunderstandings that exist."
I'm all for a civil discussion to give all the facts out on the table. I more this issue is debated and discussed the better.
He concludes by saying,
I'm confident that most Minnesotans, even those uncomfortable talking about homosexuality, will recognize the fundamental fairness of allowing every adult to choose his or her own marriage partner.
Here Senator Marty, I'm sure unintentionally, points out where this effort to redefine marriage will eventually lead. To allow "every adult to choose his or her own marriage partner." Why limit it to unrelated folks? Why not family members? Siblings? Father and daughter? Mother and son? And of course, why one person? Weren't polygamous relationships sanctioned in cultures throughout history and even in some societies today. If all these folks love each other, why shouldn't they be allowed to marry one another?
This shows the chaos of the position advocated by homosexual marriage advocates like Senator Marty.
Advocates for homosexual marriage in the liberal intelligentsia realize a major roadblock to achieving their goal is that pesky book the Bible and the influence it holds on millions of Christians and Jews and even Muslims.
Generally, I think they're dismissive of these uneducated, unenlightened folks who take serious a book written a couple of thousand years ago by often uneducated people bound to "superstitious" beliefs about miracles and supernatural happenings.
Be that as it may, they figure they better address the claims of this book because of its influence. They see the influence churches, including black churches, played in the battle in California over Prop 8. "All the religious rhetoric, it seems, has been on the side of the gay-marriage opponents, who use Scripture as the foundation for their objections." They realize their better address the Bible on this issue.
When they do, they attempt to debunk and deconstruct the clear meaning the the texts by trying to read into the text their own biases.
Such is the case with the Newsweek cover story, "Our Mutual Joy: Opponents of gay marriage often cite Scripture. But what the Bible teaches about love argues for the other side" written by a Lisa Miller.
The first paragraph of the article cynically looks at a couple of biblical ideas and stories and distorts their meaning.
Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel-all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments-especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple-who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love-turn to the Bible as a how-to script? Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.
Miller suggests both the Old and Testaments take a low view of marriage. This is ridiculous. To suggest the model or ideal for marriage in the Old Testament is polygamy is ridiculous. Genesis 1 points out that the ideal is one man and one woman. The effects of the fall can be seen in the distortion of all areas of life including family and marital life. The fact that people engaged in less than the ideal does not mean that has become the ideal.
In the New Testament, Jesus reaffirms the ideal of marriage is a one man, one woman relationship and says the reason God allowed unilateral divorce in the Old Testament was their stubborn, hard hearts. Matthew 19
Similarly, Miller says Paul had a similar low view of marriage. That marriage was a last resort for those who can't control their lusts.
Paul's comment that it was better for a person not to marry was due to the crisis and difficulties facing the people he was communicating with. In fact, Paul analogies marriage between a man and a woman to Christ and the church. Marriage is a beautiful, powerful institution ordained by God.
Miller then seeks to address the view that the Bible defines marriage as between one man and one woman by saying it doesn't and no right thinking person would want their marriage to look like a biblical marriage.
First, while the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman. And second, as the examples above illustrate, no sensible modern person wants marriage-theirs or anyone else's -to look in its particulars anything like what the Bible describes.
First, Jesus clearly does define marriage as a lifelong relationship between one man, one woman. And her second assertion merely distorts what the Bible actually says about marriage. There are a lot of bad things mentioned in the Bible, e.g. murder, rape, betrayal and so forth but that doesn't mean the Bible affirms them; it's merely describing what sinful people do.
She then asserts the relativist thinking that the Bible is a "living document" with no fixed meaning that needs to be reinterpreted in light of today's changing circumstances.
Biblical literalists will disagree, but the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2,000 years because its truths speak to us even as we change through history. In that light, Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be (civilly and religiously) married-and a number of excellent reasons why they should.
Of course, if the Bible doesn't have a clear definition of marriage and the models of marriage it provides are what no sensible person would want, why does the Bible even need to be considered in the debate? She then argues the other side by saying the Bible is "powerful" and "speaks truth to us" 2,000 years later. See how she's simply throwing arguments at the Bible which are contradictory and mutually exclusive?
She says the Bible never addresses woman to woman sex. Wrong. See Romans 1:26.
She says Paul really wasn't talking about homosexuality. She references "progressive scholars" to support her argument.
Paul was tough on homosexuality, though recently progressive scholars have argued that his condemnation of men who "were inflamed with lust for one another" (which he calls "a perversion") is really a critique of the worst kind of wickedness: self-delusion, violence, promiscuity and debauchery. In his book "The Arrogance of Nations," the scholar Neil Elliott argues that Paul is referring in this famous passage to the depravity of the Roman emperors, the craven habits of Nero and Caligula, a reference his audience would have grasped instantly. "Paul is not talking about what we call homosexuality at all," Elliott says. "He's talking about a certain group of people who have done everything in this list. We're not dealing with anything like gay love or gay marriage. We're talking about really, really violent people who meet their end and are judged by God."
Unfortunately for her, such arguments have no basis in fact, merely speculative efforts to dismiss Paul's meaning as found in the text and clearly understood by Christians consistently since the text was written.
She makes the false assertion that
Religious objections to gay marriage are rooted not in the Bible at all, then, but in custom and tradition (and, to talk turkey for a minute, a personal discomfort with gay sex that transcends theological argument).
And we need "A mature view of scriptural authority requires us, as we have in the past, to move beyond literalism. The Bible was written for a world so unlike our own, it's impossible to apply its rules, at face value, to ours."
Again let's move beyond "literalism" she says. And she uses the usual liberal "literalism" smokescreen to say we need to change the meaning of the text. How do you move beyond historical events that occurred? Are they simply not be taken literally and thereby can be dismissed as not statements of fact?
She includes a smattering of liberal, e.g. progressive religious figures who support her pro-homosexual marriage views and concludes by saying that if we really loved as Jesus taught us to we'd support homosexual marriage.
Of course, Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law but fulfill it. Matthew 5:17 (A law which clearly forbids homosexual behavior.) And the New Testament definition of love, in part says, "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. I Corinthians 13 In a biblical understanding of love, those who do not rejoice at wrongdoing such as homosexual behavior are acting in the spirit of biblical love while those who do rejoice in homosexual behavior are not.
