My opposition to the same-sex marriage amendment has very little to do with homosexuality. I really don’t think adding this amendment to the
My previous post on this issue shows that my concern about the amendment lies primarily with the fact that it leaves the spiritual institution of marriage in the hands of the State by forbidding the creation of civil unions. The creation of civil unions is our only hope for returning the administration of marriage to the Church, leaving the State to administer a godless legal union between any pair of people. While there is plenty of popular support for keeping marriage between a man and a woman, there is significantly less popular support for limiting the role of the government in our lives by getting the State out of the marriage business, and this amendment extinguishes all hope of that development.
Does anyone else find it odd that this issue is even being addressed at the polls? Why should the definition of marriage depend upon a popular vote at the ballot box? The reason is that the State is, for some odd reason, the institution that gets to be in charge of keeping track of who pledges (or pretends to pledge) life-long faithfulness to whom. This is just silly. Why should a secular institution be charged with the administration of a spiritual rite? History should have taught us that secular institutions tend to be poor guardians of spiritual rites, and the State has already shown itself to be a poor guardian of marriage. It freely endorses marriages between people who refuse to make a vow of life-long commitment at the wedding, and it freely administers divorces on the grounds of simple incompatibility.
The only reason it doesn’t seem odd to us that the State would administer a spiritual rite is that it has always been that way, and there hasn’t seemed to be much of a problem with it until the past few decades. Recently, though, the popular conception of marriage has been diverging from its Biblical design, and that has been causing concern among Christian believers.
However, the Christian response to the State’s mishandling of marriage has been odd. Rather than reducing the power of the State over the institution of marriage, Christians have been quick to place even more faith in their government’s ability to administer the sacrament as God intended. In fact, this particular constitutional amendment is about reinforcing the State’s monopoly on marriage, strengthening the State’s grasp on marriage by expressly forbidding the creation of any benign legal unions that might take its place.
What would happen if the State were given the responsibility of administering baptism and gave legal benefits to people who had been baptized? Would we fret over the increasing number of people who pretend to commit their lives to Christ just to obtain the legal benefits? Would we worry about new statistics showing that more and more baptized “believers” were “falling away” from the faith? Would we pass constitutional amendments about who could and who could not be baptized, trusting in our government’s ability to faithfully administer the rite as God intended as long as the Christian community just made enough noise about the matter?
The answers are obvious. We should not trust the State to administer baptism, and we should not trust the State to administer marriage. If people want the legal privileges of being considered jointly in the eyes of the State, that has nothing to do with marriage and should be of no concern to followers of Christ. But as long as civil unions are illegal the State will continue to misuse the spiritual institution of marriage to obtain its secular ends.
The State must do its job of protecting the liberty of its citizens, and the Church must do its job of showing Christ to the world. Any confusion of the two roles is detrimental to both. Civil unions give the State the power to provide legal benefits to any pair of people who choose to be recognized jointly, appropriately making no assumptions about whether or not those people are sexually active. The Church, then, continues in its age-old function of performing the sacrament of marriage, uniting man and wife in a life-long commitment of love and faithfulness. The civil union safely removes the institution of marriage from the secular hands of the State, restoring it to its rightful place.
In order to keep this possibility alive, though, we need to vote “No” on the same-sex marriage ban amendment at the ballot box.
3 comments:
Jeff said: The Church, then, continues in its age-old function of performing the sacrament of marriage, uniting man and wife in a life-long commitment of love and faithfulness. The civil union safely removes the institution of marriage from the secular hands of the State, restoring it to its rightful place.
I think that people who are interested in legislating marriage generally see these laws as tools for forestalling what they see as the moral decay of the nation. It might be helpful to explain whether you think legislation should be used to enforce the morals of the majority.
J. Kevin Parker said: That is quite a theological leap, sir. Both Old and New Testaments clearly teach that God hates the sin of homosexuality, monogamous or otherwise. Granted, He hates divorce, fornication, and all other sexual sins as well. The Christian and her church need to proclaim with perspicacity that the only God-honored sexual relationship is a marriage between one man and one woman.
Actually, the theological leap is taken by those who read, or fail to read, the few scriptures that mention homosexual sex, and then infer that God hates monogamous homosexual relationships. (Not to mention polygamous heterosexual relationships, such as those modeled by the OT patriarchs.)
Because Jeff says that his opposition to the same-sex marriage amendment has very little to do with homosexuality, I won't go very deep into this issue, but I'd like to pose the following questions for your consideration:
1. In the broad view of scripture, is homosexual sex a major issue or a minor issue?
2. In the few scriptures that mention homosexual sex, is the real issue sex, or something else, such as hospitality, temple prostitution or idol worship?
3. When you consider an Old Testament scripture that mentions homosexual sex, do you interpret it in the same way that you interpret other OT legal scriptures (mildew, food regulations, etc), or do you give it special prominence?
4. Historically, has the church extended the love of Christ to homosexual people? And if not, what restitution needs to be made for this sin?
5. What changes need to be made in the church so that homosexual people are given the same acceptance that we give to, say, greedy people?
A society sets their rules to facilitate having some sort of order and ideally to be prosperous. Nature tells us, and probably studies show, that the best chance of raising a productive citizen is via a male and female marriage. I would support a marriage amendment not only because of religious convictions but because I think it truly is what most people want to be expected as a cultural norm in this country.
Amiable brief and this fill someone in on helped me alot in my college assignement. Thanks you as your information.
Post a Comment