Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Homosexual Marriage

I was reading an article in Newsweek titled “Will My Marriage Last?” David Jefferson of Newsweek writes “On Tuesday, Californians will head to the polls. How millions of strangers cast their votes will affect the most intimate parts of my life.” He goes on to say, “I got married on Saturday. I'm just hoping it lasts through next week. Few newlyweds enter a marriage with such low expectations (except for maybe Britney Spears, whose 2004 Vegas quickie was annulled after two days). But my new spouse, Jeff Bechtloff, and I are gay men living in California. And like thousands of couples who've tied the knot since the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage this spring, we rushed to get wed before voters could decide on Nov. 4 whether or not we should.”
He goes on to say, “It's difficult to explain how it feels now, as Jeff and I face the possibility that our marriage could lose its validity come next Tuesday. The absurdity of having the most personal aspect of your life determined by a ballot proposition is best summed up by the slogan on a T-Shirt I saw a gay man wearing this month: CAN I VOTE ON YOUR MARRIAGE? Proposition 8 would change the state Constitution to stipulate "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
A few paragraphs later, David Jefferson writes, “Look, I'm a realist. ‘All men are created equal’ may be the cornerstone of what we call “liberty,” but it has taken a couple of centuries for the American populace to digest the meaning of those words, and I suspect it will take centuries more. When my mother was born, women didn't have the right to vote. When my sister was born, ‘separate but equal’ was the law in the South. When I was born, blacks and whites couldn't marry in several states.”
What I would like to point out here is the need for discernment because David Jefferson of Newsweek has just created a slight of mind. He has cleverly changed the argument from an argument regarding identity. He is right it’s wrong to be sexist and it is wrong to be racist but he has taken that argument which has to do with identity and used it as an argument for a behavioral lifestyle. So he’s confusing identity and behavior. In other words, he has cleverly made a category mistake.
This is once again my way to tell you how critical it is for us to exercise discernment skills. To see arguments for what there are. Are they cogent? Are they clear? Are they concise? Are they correct? Or are these arguments slight of hand and slight of mind?
We need to learn discernment skills so that we can use our well-reasoned answer as an opportunity to share the truth. Not truth that stifles, not truth that paints or caricatures God as a cosmic kill joy. But the kind of truth by which God places parameters around our life so that our joy may be complete.
The problem today is a lot of people want to be God. They want to be the final court of arbitration. They want to decide what sin is and what sin is not. They want to decide which behaviors are ok are which behaviors are not ok. But we have a Creator and an owner’s manual. And we say He, not I, is the final court of arbitration.
Even if I don’t agree, I bow the knee, I submit to the one who spoke and the limitless galaxies leaped into existence because He is a far more brilliant intellect than I. We don’t want to do that, we want to say, “Has God said?” and then make the rules of the game ourselves and determine right or wrong not based on a final court of arbitration but on the size and scope and strength of the latest lobby group.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's amazing that one who is of God and spiritual has developed an outlet for individuals or companys don't agree with your percieved beliefs. Doesn't being spiritual fulfill you with a sense of humbleness? It wasn't more than 50 or so years ago that people were killed for differences of religous beliefs, attacking those opposed to yours is the same thing, don't you think? As opposed to the public display of punishment its done with intellectual property.

Let me ask you something. Are you so identified with the thought that if you let it go you will essentially lose a big piece of yourself? Are you incapable of being self-aware and objective to let your percieved set of belifs, mental labels, and self applied identity that will uncontaminate your somewhat hateful mind to those that don't agree with you. How can one have absolute truth if one cannot be objective about all things?

- BERT
myspace.com/themoneyman
Check Out Blogz N Videoz On Site

Anonymous said...

I ALSO FIND IT INTRIGUING HOW YOU AND MOST PEOPLE WILL PICK AND CHOOSE WHAT IS AND ISN'T OK IN YOUR RELIGION. YOU SEEM TO TAKE JUDGEMENT TO EVERYONE ELSE NOT IN LINE BUT WHAT ABOUT YOU BEING GAY. MOST SPIRITUAL PEOPLE FOLLOW THE LAWS OF THE LAND WHEN IT COMES TO BEING CORRECT!

TIMES ARE CHANGING AND I DON'T CARE BUT YOU SHOULD REALLY TURN YOUR EYE BALLS AROUND BECAUSE THE BIBLE IS AGAIN THE UNION OF MALE AND MALE. I ALSO CAUSE I FORGOT. AND INDENTIFY YOUR WEAK

Anonymous said...

This is not about agreeing with him but agreeing with what the Bible already says and that union between the same sex is a sin. It's in there and that has never changed. If we allow this to become a common law over the whole of the country who is to say polygamy is wrong or incest. I mean once you start with one thing that another can happen and before you know it, there is no write and wrong, there is no moral fabric as everything breaks down and chaos reigns. Once the traditional family unit breaks down society will fall apart.

Hugh McBryde said...

Annonymous, Polygamy, by which I take it you to mean Polygyny, is not wrong. That would be from a Biblical perspective.

With the Obama administration on the horizon and the prospect of huge numbers of liberal judges appointed, I think you'd better be ready to have that debate, in the pews.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, i meant Polygyny.

Adam and Eve had established the very foundation of marriage between one man and one woman that is biblical and no other institution is accepted. There is nothing more to understand because this is final on the subject. The reasoning behind one man and one women makes perfect sense and is logical.

You really need to read up on the Bible more and understand the laws at the time and circumstances certain individuals were under to have several wives but this by no means makes it biblically final and write.

Hugh McBryde said...

Adam and EVE established that? I would think that God did.

However, what you suggest is that Adam and Eve represent a mandate with regard to marriage, and that mandate among other things, would be that we HAVE to marry.

Clearly, that is not so, since both Christ and Paul stated being UNMARRIED had virtues.

So it's an archetype? Why then is Adam and Eve's nakedness not an archetype? Why is it that marrying someone made from your own body is not an archetype? I would remind you that Adam and Eve's marriage type is only possible for THEM, and them alone. For the rest of us it was mandated that at least in the first generation AFTER Adam, someone had to marry their own sister and that was as "forbidden" by the marriage of Adam and Eve as Polygyny was and so we ALL marry differently than Adam and Eve.

Perhaps such differing types of marriage were NOT forbidden by the marriage type of Adam and Eve. That seems to me, to make more sense.

I tire of people playing the "Parent" card on me and saying I need to read the Bible more. On the one hand, of course I do. On the other, how many times would you have me read it, cover to cover? Would thirty be enough?

If it was in fact true that for a time the laws allowed for it, then how again do you argue the "archetype" of Adam and Eve? It is instructive to US, but not to the generations immediately AFTER Adam and Eve? That I don't get either.

When was it that someone said "thou shalt not be polygynous any longer for it displeaseth the LORD?"

It was entirely righteous and indeed necessary to marry siblings early on in Biblical history, but then God comes along a clearly puts a stop to it.

Where is this commandment to cease and desist from Polygyny?

Anonymous said...

BDP said: "TIMES ARE CHANGING AND I DON'T CARE BUT YOU SHOULD REALLY TURN YOUR EYE BALLS AROUND BECAUSE THE BIBLE IS AGAIN THE UNION OF MALE AND MALE. I ALSO CAUSE I FORGOT. AND INDENTIFY YOUR WEAK"

What in the world are you trying to say? Is this even English? Do you use punctuation marks in your world or do you still use grunts and squeeks to communicate? Read the bible and then get back to us.



-Jay

Tami Lynn said...

Many thousands of people call them selves Christians... let's put them aside for a minute. Instead let's look at those who desire to love the Lord their God with all their heart soul mind and strength. That is my desire. God's word, the Bible, therefore is my guide to pleasing Him. I love it. I love how it guides me. I don't always please Him but I desire to. I don't believe homosexuality is right for me to practice because it is too clear in scripture that it grieves the God I love.

Now, if you don't desire to please God in all you do and say then the Bible will not be precious to you. Instead it will be foolishness.

God has called me as one who loves Him to follow His teachings. I do not expect those who do not love God to follow His commands.

I don't judge those who are homosexuals, I merely have the discernment to understand that they have made their choice just as I have.


John 14:24 He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.

1 John 5:3 This is love for God: to obey his commands.

Love is not about duty it is about opportunity!

Union of male and male is a sin, that bothers me because sin grieves God. I desire to please not grieve Him.

If you don't care if you please or grieve God then sin shouldn't matter one way or another to you.

Leviticus 20:13
" 'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.


Tami

Anonymous said...

Wow. You guys are just amazing. I almost don't know what to say.

I think you need to examine the context of your Bible verses instead of picking one out and throwing it at random. You say you don't judge those who are homosexual, but you are going to point them out whenever you see one and tell your children, "Look, that person is going to Hell because they are gay."

Do you really know any people who are gay? Did you know there are THOUSANDS of gay people in Christ centered relationships in this country? You don't care because it is easier for you to play God and damn them all to Hell.

The Bible is actually talking about idolatrous worship in the form of sexual relations in the passages that are most often quoted to gay people. ANY sex, according to the Bible, when performed as idolatrous worship makes the ACT and the person commiting the act abominations. No where does it talk about people in committed relationships - wait, yes it does! The eunuchs! The ones who did not reproduce....hmmm Could all those eunuchs in the Bible have been GAY?

What difference would it make if 2 gay people were to get married and have the same LEGAL benefits as heterosexual people? If you are so against gay marriage, don't have one. Just don't prevent others from having one either. Marriage is a choice, not pre-determined by God. Adam and Eve were NOT married, there is nothing in the Bible stating they were married, but they were togther as a couple. I believe that would be considered a "common-law" marriage that is legal in SOME states here in the USA.

If you really want to protect the sanctity of heterosexual marriage, make infidelity a crime!

I certainly wish I had the chance to vote on YOUR marriage!

Hugh McBryde said...

Frankly I'd prefer the government were out of marriage altogether, but they're not usually known to pull their nose out of a mess once they've stuck it in.

Historically "Anonymous," marriage was not the province of the church, or the state. By the time the Roman Catholic Church was done mucking about with marriage, the Puritans had reached the point where they regarded church weddings as a "satanic ritual."

I'd just settle for having marriage contracts, essentially "Civil Unions" for all with the terms of dissolution spelled out in the "prenup" as it were.

I'd greatly prefer the government just butt out.

Anonymous said...

I think that would be a great idea Pharisee!

Hugh McBryde said...

It may surprise you Anon, to know that I, as an ultra conservative Bible Thumping Christian, have absolutely no concern with preventing you from entering any form of civil union nor would I mind the "downgrading" all marriages to essentially amount to a civil union.

What you do is what you do. If I am correct if you end up calling your unions "marriage" and they're not, no amount of saying they are marriage or the state agreeing with you will make it so.

You would simply experience frustration inside the walls of my church with getting any of us to recognize it as such. You can go anywhere else, say anything you want and have as many people as you wish agree with you, outside that church context. You may even find churches that agree with you, I simply demand the religious freedom to not agree with you in the context of my worship and my actions in my own home and in the privacy of my own mind and my freedom to state all of this publicly.