The Narrow Path Ministries

From my blog today...
http://www.matthew94.blogspot.com/

Recent developments in California & NY state dictate that homosexual couples from our community in Appleton, NY can fly out to the west coast for a marriage ceremony that will be recognized when they return home. Intense email forwards, message-board discussions & verbal angst make clear that many evangelicals are outraged. But, if outrage is the game, I'm outraged at the outrage.

Are the planks removed from our eyes and I missed it? Is 'Christian' marriage suddenly a far more secure institution than pagan marriage? Has our context changed so much that it is now inappropriate to let God be the one to judge those outside the church while we refrain from judging those inside? Are we really more concerned with a union performed in the eyes of the state than we are in the dis-union performed in front of a holy God?

I am persuaded that, at least, until the Christian church is a truly salt and light when it comes to the institution of marriage, we have no voice worth listening to when it comes to public policy. Instead of outrage over our belief that the world is quickly heading toward a giant waterfall, shouldn't we be concerned to right our own nearly sunken ship?

Our hope for the purification of the institution of marriage is not found in public policy, but in 20, 25, 40 & 50 year anniversaries. After I preached on this subject yesterday I had 3 couples come up to me excited to share that they, indeed, had just celebrated such milestones (40, 50 & 50). Praise the Lord!

Ah, but it's so much easier to point the finger!

Good post Matt. It reminds me of a popular bumper sticker (especially in Colorado Springs, CO) which says: "Focus on your own damn family."

I posted my views on the topic of Gay Marriage here:
http://dannycoleman.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... en-if.html

Right on Matt!

Matt wrote:Has our context changed so much that it is now inappropriate to let God be the one to judge those outside the church while we refrain from judging those inside? Are we really more concerned with a union performed in the eyes of the state than we are in the dis-union performed in front of a holy God?

Matt, this is not a matter of "judging" anyone. This is a matter of protecting the very definition of "marriage". It is entirely unnecessary for homosexuals to pretend that they are entering into marriage. For they can't enter into marriage as it has been historically defined. Why not? Because such a couple is not "a man and a woman".

My objection is not a "judging of those outside the church". Nor is it "pointing the finger". Nor is it "taking the speck out of another's eye when there is a log in my own.

My objection is that such a "marriage" is an attack on the very institution of marriage and family. If homosexuals want a more permanent union (which, by the way, is relatively rare), and one that will be recognized legally, let their union be called a "joining" or some other such term. I don't object to them having the same legal privileges as married couples; I object only to calling them "married". However, that is precisely what they want; for they want their lifestyle to be considered as normal as that of heterosexual unions and therefore have the term "marriage" applied to it.

If a federal or state government permits the term "marriage" to be applied to homosexual unions, how far will the slippery slope of this redefinition go? Will polygamy become recognized as "marriage"? Will arrangements for group sex become recognized as "marriage"? Will the practice now termed "incest", if it becomes a permanent arrangement be labelled "marriage"? Indeed, how about bestiality? Will a person be able to marry his or her dog or goat or horse?

As I see it, traditional marriage must be preserved by our whole society, not only by Christians. If we allow the concept of marriage to evolve far beyond traditional boundaries, our society is going to deteriorate at a much faster rate.

Hmmm. Some of those arguments sound mighty familiar, Paidion:

The purity of public morals, the moral and physical development of both races….require that they should be kept distinct and separate… that connections and alliances so unnatural that God and nature seem to forbid them, should be prohibited by positive law, and be subject to no evasion. - (A declaration that the Supreme Court of Virginia used to invalidate a marriage between a black man and a white woman in 1878)

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix. - (Virginia trial judge upholding conviction of Mildred and Richard Loving for interracial marriage, quoted in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 3 (1967))

Allowing interracial marriages “necessarily involves the degradation” of conventional marriage, an institution that “deserves admiration rather than execration. - (A U.S. representative from Georgia quoted in Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1996)

Interracial marriages would be a “calamity full of the saddest and gloomiest portent to the generations that are to come after us.” - (Tennessee Supreme Court, quoted in Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune, May
19,1996)

[If interracial couples have a right to marry], all our marriage acts forbidding intermarriage between persons within certain degrees of consanguinity [siblings, first cousins, etc.] are void. - (Perez v. Lippold, 198 P.2d at 40 (Shenk, J., dissenting, quoting from a prior court case))

The underlying factors that constitute justification for laws against miscegenation [inter-racial marriage] closely parallel those which sustain the validity of prohibitions against incest and incestuous marriages. - (Source: Perez v. Lippold, 198 P.2d at 46 (Shenk, J., dissenting, quoting
from a prior court case))

[T]he State's prohibition of interracial marriage . . . stands on the same footing as the prohibition of polygamous marriage, or incestuous marriage, or the prescription of minimum ages at which people may marry, and the prevention of the marriage of people who are mentally incompetent. - (Excerpted United States Supreme Court oral argument transcripts from Loving v. Virginia, from Peter Irons and Stephanie Guitton, eds., May it Please the Court (1993) at 282-283, quoting Virginia Assistant Attorney General R. D. McIlwaine, arguing for Virginia's ban on interracia marriage)

Hi Paidion,

My objection is that such a "marriage" is an attack on the very institution of marriage and family. If homosexuals want a more permanent union (which, by the way, is relatively rare), and one that will be recognized legally, let their union be called a "joining" or some other such term. I don't object to them having the same legal privileges as married couples; I object only to calling them "married". However, that is precisely what they want; for they want their lifestyle to be considered as normal as that of heterosexual unions and therefore have the term "marriage" applied to it.

Let's say that your idea caught on of having the same union, but just calling it something different, let's use your word, "joining." And let's say that in every way "marriage" and "joining" were the same, just the different names. I don't think society would continue to see joinings as less normal as marriages; I believe the lines would blur until the two words became synonymous. I think that's just the way society is.

You say:

...that is precisely what they want; for they want their lifestyle to be considered as normal as that of heterosexual unions...

I think that many heterosexual unions, marriages, are not normal and haven't been for quite a while. In too many cases the word "marriage" does not carry the meaning of a lifelong commitment and solemn vows are taken lightly and viewed as archaic sentimentality. I think the word "marriage" is already tarnished and may have lost its meaning long before "homosexual marriage" co-opted it. We started sliding down the slippery slope long ago and we're just marking our progress here. The problem is that those of us who call ourselves the Church have mirrored society instead of being the counter-example way too much of the time and in the process lost our voice.

As I see it, traditional marriage must be preserved by our whole society, not only by Christians. If we allow the concept of marriage to evolve far beyond traditional boundaries, our society is going to deteriorate at a much faster rate.

I agree with the notion that when marriages and families crumble, society crumbles. We just may be railing at the wrong problem if what we want to do is save our society. I believe it's gong to deteriorate, and probably pretty quickly, anyway.

Mort Coyle, something bothers me when the arguments for and against interracial marriage are used as an argument for homosexual marriage; I just haven't figured out what it is yet.

I agree with Paidion that it is bad for our society to allow for homosexual marriages. I wish we were the kind of nation that stuck closer to God's definitions. My post wasn't about whether or not homosexual marriage is a good or bad thing (I think it's bad). My post was about where our focus, as Christians, should be. I think it is far more important for us to work on marriages in the church than to put the bulk of our focus on the world is up to in these regards.

I don't like the word "marriage" being used for same-sex unions—though, of course, no Christian should object to interracial marriages. They are not the same thing. There is nothing in the Bible forbidding interracial marriage, since all humans are of one race. But all humans are not of one gender, and the definition of marriage (affirmed by Moses, Jesus and Paul) speaks of a man [male] leaving his parents' home and taking a wife [female], so that the two become "one flesh" (Gen.2:24/Matt.19:5/Eph.5:31).

Jesus specifically spoke of this "one flesh" union as "what God has joined together" (Matt.19:6). No one can argue that God would not join a white man with a black woman in marriage (Num.12:1). Likewise, no Christian can seriously claim that God would join a same-sex couple together in a union that He calls an abomination (Lev.18:22; 20:13).

I honestly pity those who struggle with same-sex attraction, since neither same-sex marriage nor same-sex fornication is a legitimate option for them—but then neither is fornication an option for straight people. For very many, neither is marriage.

I agree with Matt, Michelle, and others, though, that the term "life-long" is as central to the definition of marriage as is the phrase "male and female." The church does not sacrifice the definition of marriage any more by allowing same-sex unions than it has long ago done in its permitting of unjustified divorce.

Mort Coyle, something bothers me when the arguments for and against interracial marriage are used as an argument for homosexual marriage; I just haven't figured out what it is yet.

Perhaps it's because Gay Marriage should be argued for or against on it's own merits (or lack thereof, if you prefer).

My point in bringing up those quotes about inter-racial marriage was simply to point out that the "slippery slope" argument has been used in the past in the same way it is being used now. It was as fallacious then as it is now. It is a very weak argument to use, and one that is prone to sensationalism and hyperbole.

Marriage is not a monolithic thing. Rather, marriage is a social status, a legal status and a religious status. For many--perhaps most--Americans, it is primarily the first two. An Atheist couple doesn't care much about the Christian institution of marriage. They care about the legal and social institutions. America is not a Theocracy. Never has been. If a couple chooses to define their marriage strictly within a legal and social rubric, that is their right.

Marriage, in the legal sense, is a contractual arrangement between two people to adopt a legal status which confers upon them certain legal rights. There are hundreds of rights, privileges, and protections under the law afforded to married couples. When my wife and I were married, we had a ceremony at a church, but we also signed a legal document. In the eyes of the law that made us married; the Christian marriage ceremony itself was optional.

If a church or denomination chooses to be more selective about how it defines marriage, that is certainly within their rights (and may be necessary in order to remain faithful to their teachings). I can't honestly go into a Catholic church and take Mass because I'm not a Catholic. In a similar vein, Adam & Steve may be a legally married couple in the state of California, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can go to the First Baptist Church and receive a Christian marriage ceremony.

I think Steve Gimbel, a philosophy professor at Gettysburg College, put it well when he said:

"This has nothing to do with churches, synagogues, mosques, or temples. If a religion wants or doesn't want to perform a ceremony binding any given couple together in they eyes of their god(s), they may choose to or not to at their own discretion. It's your club, run it how you will. But this is a question of whether we deny rights, privileges, and protections under the law to honest, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens."