by So, it begins…
Yesterday in California people who have a sexual behavior different from the norm decided to usurp marriage, which by definition is one man and one one woman, as their right.
Why should this bother me and you? After all, is this not a case of discrimination? Why is it that the government should prefer a specific coupling over any coupling that anyone wants? Is this not just a religious question rather than one of the state?
The answer for this lies in the foundations of this country. The Declaration of Independence states that the rights the founders recognized each of us have stem from “the Creator”, not government. It was this basis that caused them to leave England, and this was the basis for our laws today.
The fact that our law comes not from man, but from “the Creator” means that natural law and biblical codes were the foundation for our government. Those laws codified not only marriage, but penalties for adultery, sodomy, homosexuality, and other sexual perversions.
The fact that some people are seeking to legitimize these deviant sexual behaviors and seek acceptance for their lifestyle does not make the intention of the founders any different. It does not suddenly guarantee the right of marriage for these people. It does not make it equivalent to the equal rights struggle of colored people. This is a behavior.
Now, as Christians, we realize that no matter what happens, we should expect our society to get worse and to follow after sin until Christ returns. We should proclaim the truth of God’s Word, but Christ told us to expect confrontation. In this case, we have 60% of people behind us saying these people should not be married.
I agree 100%. This further illustrates the crumbling of our nation’s very backbone. But what can we do? Is there a reversal?
Of course, I can’t disagree more. I just posted about the separation of church and state issue today. You’ll have to check it out. America isn’t as Christian as you might think.
Additionally, I’m completely ok with religious institutions refusing to recognize my marriage to my partner. However, you can’t force religious beliefs of one group upon the masses, especially as more and more denominations are accepting gay unions (check out Buddhism, United Church of CHRIST, and the Episcopals for starters).
What about the religious freedom of the Buddhists or United Church of Christ congregations? Why is your religious belief the only one to matter?
I read your post (and provided those interested with a link from your last comment). Although I appreciate what you have to say (it’s interesting that I’ve never run into that treaty before!), I think there’s two things to clarify:
1. There is a difference between “Founded on Christianity” and “Founded on Christian Principles.” For a fascinating look into the Principles behind this, I encourage you to check out my ongoing series on the founding of the county entitled “We Hold These Truths“.
2. The Separation of Church and State can be interpreted in multiple different ways– neutrality, a high wall, and another one that’s slipping my mind. A quick review of court cases over the span of the country will show that the way that the court has dealt with these cases is inconsistent. Far from the “open and shut, there’s supposed to be a high wall”, it appears neutrality would be more along the lines of what the founders intended.
If you look at the other treaties and laws that were constructed around the founding you’ll see that there was funding to Christianize the Indians, establish a chaplaincy program and declare national days of Thanksgiving to God. Hardly the disinterested in Christianity bunch.
As far as the intent of the founders, I believe that if you asked them if a homosexual couple could be married, I believe that they would say “no” after they mulled through what it meant to be a homosexual couple. The concept would be foreign to them. Why? Because their understanding of law was shaped by common law and the Bible.
I wonder when the idea of murdering your neighbor will suddenly be recognized as a “religious moral wrong” and will be removed from the law books, on the basis of separating church and state.
MML
Still totally in disagreement. However, you never answered my question about the religious freedom of those groups who accept homosexuality as a gift from God.
As for the murder thing— as I’ve said numerous times before, you can be a GOOD person but not follow a specific religion. You don’t have to look to the bible in order to find out what it means to be a good person.
I completely disagree with being a “good” person. There is none who is good, none who is righteous without Christ. When we stand on that scale of good vs bad before the most Holy God, none of us will tip the scale towards GOOD, unless we have had our BAD washed away, and forgiven in Christ.
Tell me MusicGuy,
Have you ever told a lie? Even ONCE?
Have you ever taken something that wasn’t yours?
Have you ever committed adultery? What about looked on a woman to lust after her?
If you have answered yes to any of these then how can you be called “good”?
Meg
Oh please, answer one more,
Have you ever hated someone? Maybe someone who did you wrongly?
hmmmm. Something about you who has no sin throw the first stone. Or something like that.
According to your theory, not one of us is the least bit good, as I’m sure you’ve done all of the above as well. That is utter BS.
Oh, and it’s definitely NO to the lust question. I’m not the least bit attracted to women 🙂
Musicguy,
I don’t want to pick on you, but you’re missing the entire foundation of Christianity here and replacing it with a system of legalistic dogma and condemnation.
However, you also touched on the topic of absolute truth. This is a philosohpical question that everyone has to come to terms with eventually and although I’m not about to get into a great discourse on the topic, I can assure you that there is one Truth which is objective and self-existant. Truth does not rely upon the beholder, neither does it change between cultures. Truth is not democratic in nature, it is autocratic. In other words, even if everyone in the world chooses to believe that the sun does not exist, it still exists.
I just wanted to say that to address your arguments that other denominations and religions accept homosexuality as a gift from God. Wherever there are two opposing virtues, one thing is sure: they are not both correct. (That leaves room for the both being wrong of course.)
You are right, you CAN be a GOOD person without following a specific religion. In fact, you can’t follow a religion and be a GOOD person at all! Religion is a construction of man. It is a set of rules and ordinances that claims absolute authority in people’s lives. God is not found in a religion. God is found by His Word that is Christ Jesus, the Risen One.
The law is not given to men to tell them what they must do to be GOOD, it’s given to men to tell them that they are NOT good! If God is perfect, how can that which is imperfect come into union with God? For imperfection to unite with perfection would cause perfection to become imperfect. Perfection however is a stronger virtue than imperfection and therefore it’s impossible for the two to unite.
Man is imperfect, something some belief systems deny. But it’s true even if the whole world believes it is not true. God understands this and created us knowing we would sin and make ourselves incapable of uniting with God. But part of perfection is also Love, and so He Loves us and that Love means that God desires unity with us. So God sent His Son to take on sin though He is perfect. When sin is taken onto a spirit it causes the spirit to die. Therefore the Son died spiritually as well as physically. But because the Son is perfect and blameless, without sin, He was resurrected. All that God requires of us is to put our faith in His Son whom He sent to redeem our spirits. But to do that we have to first admit to God and to ourselves that we are not GOOD. Then we put our faith in Christ and His work on the cross for our redemtion from sin. At that time the Holy Spirit enters into us, which is God living inside us, and causes our souls to heal, grow and live more abundantly than we are otherwise capable.
Yes Musicguy, we’ve all done those things… That’s the whole point of Christianity! The idea is to stop acting like we’re all ‘OK’ or ‘GOOD’ and come to terms with our flaws and to seek out the solution to those flaws. The solution is Christ, Chrisitans are those who’ve come to terms with their flawed nature and found the answer to the problem of sin. It doesn’t make us sinless, just forgiven.
As for homosexual marriage? It doesn’t exist. I say let the government ‘marry’ two men or two women because the government does not define marriage, God does.
In fact, I think it’s folly for Christians to look to the government as the moral and ethical authority or vanguard. I believe that many have taken their eyes off Christ as the vanguard of their faith and have turned to the government and it’s laws.
Who afterall will be brought to Christ because they were turned away from homosexual ‘marriage’ by a secular government? As if a guy’s going to go to the courthouse to get married to his lover and upon being turned away he’s going to say, “The government won’t marry us! This must be wrong! I need Jesus!”
If the Word of God and the Commandments and the Law are not enough to convict a man of his sin then the United States Government is not going to do any better.
Ah!! My favorite: the “absolute truth” argument, used almost exclusively but Christians, and other religious types. Basically, it’s a giant, “because I said so, and you can’t do anything about it because I said so. And because I said so, it must be so, because I said so” And on and on and on.
As someone with a strong believe in moral relativism, I can’t help but laugh at your attempt to push the “absolute truth” idea around as if it were the only school of thought regarding such things.
That’s right– God defines marriage for all you church folk. The rest of us rely on our government to do so, which does not espouse any one religion or belief system. No one is telling you to change your beliefs or definitions. However, when you’re beliefs infect government and infringe on my rights, we have a problem.
I grow tired of this argument here, especially now since the “absolute truth” garbage got thrown in. As if we should all just shut up and go home because, “Your “”absolute truth” said so.”
wow, totally should have proofread that better.
I think I understand how all of these things fit together for you. And I think that you’ve identified your greatest dilemma in understanding what we have to say:
Here is your solution and your greatest problem. As a person that believes in moral relativism, anything can be good at any point in time, as well as it could be bad. For example, it can be good to steal– if you’re stealing to provide for your family.
This works in that you can define yourself and anyone else is good simply by shifting the standard of where good is or redefining a bad thing good.
However, government must act under a set of rules and laws. Though these laws are flexible, in that they can change or be redefined, they must be descriptive at any point in time.
And that’s why we’re discussing the founding fathers. If they did base the laws of this country on Christianity– specifically on Biblical precept– then what the Bible has to say on any moral law is in play.
And this is also why the denominations that you mentioned are superfluous to this discussion. If a given denomination does not believe that the Bible is the authority on moral law, and the Founders did, what the former has to say is irrelevant.
God defined marriage originally (first documented understanding), but I would ask you this, Musicguy, could you find for me the first dated instance of marriage being used to define a homosexual couple? In fact, I would surmise that marriage up until the most recent times was exclusively defined as man and woman (albeit I’m sure you could find multiple wives). Point being, you’re attempting to change the definition.
You are trying to change the definition of a word that means man and woman. You have a right to get married– to a woman– just like every other guy. We’re not trying to force government to infringe your rights, we’re trying to uphold the moral values we believe in– the same as you are. Except yours may be up for grabs depending on the situation.
Please remember that the bible was once used to justify slavery. Excuse me for not jumping on the bible boat head first.
At the end of the day, I don’t care if you call gay marriage gfeirnds93493nvvdsmnf3q9fdsds. As long as gfeirnds93493nvvdsmnf3q9fdsds involves me getting the same exact rights and priveldges of the traditionally married folk. Things change over time, whether you want them to or not. The fact of the matter is that tolerant, imclusive people (and churches for that matter) are winning this fight. You can bleat all you want, but your RELIGIOUS laws will stay in your church, while secular, rational law will govern this land.
People interpreted the Bible to justify slavery. But the same book said that the Creator looked upon all people equally (hence “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence). If you really want to go on a rabbit trail, we could talk about how people are still in slavery– the new masters being the credit card!
Why do you deserve the same exact rights and privileges of the traditionally married folk? Why does your behavior warrant the rights?
Part of the reason– whether looking back it was a good idea or not– that marriage was given to the states to license and to give benefits to was that there was a benefit to the state to have stable married monogamous heterosexual relationships. They produce children, they curb disease spread, they create good citizens.
What benefits do homosexual unions give the states? You could say that they adopt children, but statistically homosexual unions are less stable than heterosexual ones.
To me, all the benefits are for you, the individual, and not for the state. This is purely a secular argument, not a sacred.
And, by the way, if you’re saying my religious laws will stay in my church, does that mean that we can expect the law protecting those that kill in self defense to disappear? How about tort law? Death Penalty? Perjury? Rape? Incest?
All of this law comes from common law extending from the Bible. Certainly these will not disappear entirely.
“but statistically homosexual unions are less stable than heterosexual ones”
Bring out the statistics, my friend. Find me studies that have been peer reviewed, published in scientific journals, and are readily accepted by mainsteam scientists.
You bring up a whole new topic Musicguy! The ‘domestic partnership’ topic! Hey, Man-in-Gap! Write an entry about this one! At my company, a fortune 500, the benefits can be added to an undefined domestic partner, there’s some period of time of co-habitation required and then anyone I choose can be added. This obviously is designed for homosexual relationships and for unmarried heterosexual couples who want to insure each other but technically it could work for heterosexual, same sex platonic roomates! Pretty cool huh?
But I digress.
Musicguy, you say people have used the Bible to justify slavery. Well, people also used the secular constitution to justify slavery. Furthermore, people have used secular thought to justify genocide. National Socialism in Germany wasn’t a religious movement and neither was Stalin’s regime. In fact, the USSR was far more secular during it’s most oppresive era than the USA has ever been.
My point is simply that secularism is in no way morally superior to a religious system, and certainly is not superior to a faith in Christ.
Secondly, I’d also like to point out that just because the truth exists and is given to the world in no way suggests that the world cannot take the truth, distort it and use it for evil purposes. In fact, this is exactly the description of satan, AKA the ‘god’ of this world.
Satan does not just make up whole new lies, he takes a piece of the truth and presents it in a false way. This is far more effective than a black and white lie. Nobody likes a lie, but if the lie is so similar to the truth that one is able to bend their conscience to include it, then the enemy has won. This is the best way to deceive people.
That’s what satan has done. He’s taken the truth about love, that love is selfless, and has turned it into a meaning that says something like ‘true selflessness means not enforcing your own narrow-minded ideals upon others.’ While true love is not forceful, it does not compromise itself to appease another, which in the sense of virtues is an anti-virtue.
Statistics are wrong 100% of the time anyway. And as far as statistics about marriage, did you know that there is no difference in the divorce rate of couple within the ‘Church’ as there is without it? I say this to throw you a proverbial bone Musicguy, because Truth does not need statistics to back it up, neither is it founded on statistics. Rather, statistics, if true, reflect Truth.
Quoting MInTheGap:
“Why do you deserve the same exact rights and privileges of the traditionally married folk? Why does your behavior warrant the rights?”
I propose a more appropriate question here.
Why do married couples deserve the rights they are given by the government?
It seems to me that marriage has it’s own rewards, not the least of which is two incomes and one rent!
Do you have any idea how hard it is to be single in America? ESPECIALLY for those without a higher education! Seems to me the man-made help should go to the ones who need it the most not the ones who have the most natural help.
Afterall, what is a wife to a man but his help-mate(meet in the KJV)? If a wife is a help, then isn’t a single man without help?
Married men have their wife to encourage them. Single men have no such comfort.
Married men have their wife’s body to satisfy them. Single men have no such comfort.
Anyway, I’m half serious about that and half joking. I AM single, and so it’s easy for me to see the down sides of being single. However, I do realize that the rewards of marriage are hard earned.
But I think that this is the way homosexuals are feeling. They see the pie married couples are getting and they want a piece. That’s human nature, a nature given to us by God, whether it be mis-focused or not.
NEWSFLASH: America will never return to it’s ‘puritan past’. In fact, even the puritans weren’t so great once you research them to any extent! The end is coming because the enemy has dominion over this world, power ceded to him by … MAN! … the wretches! God Himself testifies that these things will come, so as Christians we should stop obsessing over them and start focusing on the truly important things: The work of GOD! Which is what? (I’ll never tire of quoting this!)
“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” John 6:29 baby! OH! You gotta love it!
Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died on the cross to forgive you of your sins? Then you will be raised! Prepare yourself for your resurrection! But it is the Holy Spirit given to you which will convict you of sin.
Love,
Art
Did you forget about my statistics?? I’m still waiting!
“Bring out the statistics, my friend. Find me studies that have been peer reviewed, published in scientific journals, and are readily accepted by mainsteam scientists.”
I started doing some research regarding stats in European Countries (I believe that it was Denmark) that have legalized gay marriage, and I was preparing to write a new post on the topic rather than continue the thread here in the first post I have ever written; however, time constraints and other topics were pressing– not a good excuse, I know, but it’s a reason.
I will endeavor to write that post shortly to keep you from waiting much longer. Until them, I apologize for the wait.