Posted on 07/01/2008 9:32:52 AM PDT by Sopater
How Same-Sex 'Marriage' Will Harm Christians
That is what they are telling us. But that is not what they mean. If same-sex “marriage” becomes the law of the land, we can expect massive persecution of the Church.
As my friend Jennifer Roback Morse notes in the National Catholic Register, “Legalizing same-sex ‘marriage’ is not a stand-alone policy . . . Once governments assert that same-sex unions are the equivalent of marriage, those governments must defend and enforce a whole host of other social changes.”
The bad news is these changes affect other liberties we take for granted, such as religious freedom and private property rights. Several recent cases give us a sobering picture of what we can expect if we do not actively embrace—and even promote—same-sex “marriage.”
For instance, a Methodist retreat center recently refused to allow two lesbian couples to use a campground pavilion for a civil union ceremony. The state of New Jersey punished the Methodists by revoking the center’s tax-exempt status—a vindictive attack on the Methodists’ religious liberty.
In Massachusetts, where judges imposed gay marriage a few years ago, Catholic Charities was ordered to accept homosexual couples as candidates for adoption. Rather than comply with an order that would be harmful to children, Catholic Charities closed down its adoption program.
California public schools have been told they must be “gay friendly,” as Roback Morse notes. But it will not stop with public schools. Just north of the border in Quebec, the government told a Mennonite school that it must conform to provincial law regarding curriculum—a curriculum that teaches children that homosexuality is a valid lifestyle. How long will it be before the U.S. government goes after private schools?
Even speaking out against homosexuality can get you fired. Crystal Dixon, an associate vice president at the University of Toledo, was fired after writing an opinion piece in the Toledo Free Press in support of traditional marriage . . . Fired—for exercising her First Amendment rights!
Promoters of same-sex “marriage” seem to go out of their way to target Christian businesses and churches. Their goal, it seems, is not the right to “marry,” but to punish anyone who disagrees with them.
Clearly, there is a spiritual battle going on here: Christians are under attack because they are a public witness to the fact that a holy God created us male and female, and we will always put obedience to Him and His laws above obedience to any earthly demand for loyalty.
The coming persecution of Christians is one more reason why we need to get involved with efforts to pass laws at the state and federal level defining marriage as a legal relationship between one man and one woman. We must protect, not only genuine marriage, but also many of the freedoms we now take for granted: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom to use private property the way we see fit—all are under threat.
And we must tell our friends and neighbors why gay “marriage” is not just about equality: It is about forcing religious believers to accept the validity of the homosexual lifestyle—or else.
This is part two of a two-part series.
Click Here for part one.
It’s not all about “equal rights.” It’s about destroying the nuclear family.
Colson is excellent as always. I think he’s absolutely correct on this point, too, and that the “gay marriage” thing will be the way they finally manage to attack the Christian church directly. So far, they’ve just had to content themselves with trying to suppress any public expression of Christianity, but this will let them attempt to enforce their law within the churches.
Exactly...
And we should all know that the long-term goal of the gay activists is to have legalized group marriage, with any number and any gender of partners.
They see legalized two person same-sex marriage as a transitional step on the way to legalized polygamy and group marriage. Once the legal concept of same-sex marriage is established, then they will move on to more lawsuits to force recognition of group marriage.
I found this information troubling, but you can look it up if you are interested. And think about it, the same legal arguments can be made for group marriage and polygamy as for same-sex marriage. If it’s “discriminatory” to restrict marriage to a man and a woman, it’s also “discriminatory” to restrict marriage to two people. Legally speaking, I don’t see how we can stop the steamroller in the years ahead to completely change what marriage is when you change the definition of it.
One of the things that floors me about liberalism is the contempt it has for property rights. A person who owns something should have control over it, insofar as they don't violate any law. If they pass on opportunities to make money with that property so be it.
The idea that a racist should be forced by government to accomodate blacks at their restaurant, or that a Christian should be forced to rent out an apartment to an unmarried couple, makes a laughingstock of property rights - and never mind whether you agree with the position each property owner takes! The point is, it is THEIR property. Not yours. Not the governments. And not the petty tyrants that sue them to use other people's property.
You know, I never seem to hear that old song anymore where they sing;
The purpose of a man is to, love a woman,
and the purpose of a woman is to, love a man...
“The Game of Love” by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders.
To comply with the new rules, of course, Wayne would have to change the name of the band to the Genderbenders and the lyrics to “The purpose of a man is to take it in the keister”, etc.
There will be and already is persecution. There are key things that should alarm even non Christians. The primary thing being that gay activism has expanded far beyond the idea of tolerance to force acceptance and indoctrination in public schools. This is not just as Christian issue it is an issue for anyone who desires that their children not be fed gay propaganda. What homosexual activist are trying to do is build a foundation of phony and ambiguous science to support their anti-intuitive behavior. No one starts out thinking homosexuality is right behavior. Rather most have an instinctive disdain for it because it runs so contrary to what is normal sexual behavior. One does not have to be Christian to understand human mating.
There is also the incidence of disease and abuse that far exceeds anything in the heterosexual community. Homosexual males that “come out of the closet” increase their risk of contracting AIDs and other serious diseases to almost certitude if they choose to participate in the larger gay subculture. There is even more risk to the mythical group that is called “young gay teens” from the homosexual lifestyle as a group of behaviors than there is from any other single risk normally associated with teenagers.
All those things aside there is absolutely no reason to restructure what are considered normal sexual relationships or marriage law to accommodate those who choose same sex relationships. They can do what they like in the privacy of their homes as they always have. What they can not is indoctrinate our children and have their aggressive sexual subculture be accepted in the public space. It has never been about equal rights something which they always had. (I’ve yet to have someone monitor my sexual behavior in the bedroom) It is about them having the right to a level of sexual exhibitionism in the public space that not even is accepted generally in the heterosexual world. It is this desire that has fueled the growth of the adult sex industry and has spilled over making it harder to question even the most obscene displays or shield children from exposure to the most fringe behaviors.
I’m Orthodox, and my priest has brushed off the gay marriage thing by saying it won’t happen in our church. The Orthodox teaching is that marriage is a sacrament instituted by God and involves one man and one woman. It cannot be defined in any other way, and the Orthodox Church cannot practice it in any other way.
In the United States, we appreciate the freedom to adhere to and practice the teachings of Orthodoxy, as guaranteed by the Constitution. However, we do not need the Constitution to be faithful and, if the day should come when the government forbids us to adhere to and practice any of the teachings of Orthodoxy, then I hope that none of us will have to ask ourselves where our loyalties will lie.
This past Sunday, the Epistle reading was II Cor. 11:21-12:9, part of which details St. Paul’s own persecutions. If persecution comes, we are in good company with the saints that have been persecuted before us, and we have the same God who will stand by us.
The persecution is already here. Fascists are trying to force normal people to violate their principles or lose their jobs, reputation, and go to jail.
Bwaaaa haaa haaa! Excellent! “take it in the keister”! Hilarious!!
Ask your priest if he requires couples to have a government-issued marriage license before he will perform this "sacrament". When he tells, you "no", ask him why. Churches have an awfully weak claim to the idea of marriage as religious ritual when they refuse to perform it without written permission from the government.
There is no reason for government to have any involvement whatsoever in approving, defining, recognizing, or licensing any kind of marriage.
He requires a license because marriage is a civil contract as well as a sacrament. When he peforms a wedding, he is performing that sacrament and he is acting as a functionary of the state as the primary witness to the marriage. That primary witness role is there for clergy of religious groups that do not have a sacramental understanding of marriage and, of course, for judges, justices of the peace, etc.
So is marriage primarily a civil or a religious institution? I would say that it is primarily a civil institution that can have a religious dimension, and that varies according to a particular religion’s understanding.
The Church’s role in marriage goes back to early times. Whether the early Church had a complete understanding of marriage as a sacrament is up to question. But the Church was involved in marriage, pre-Constantine, and that role obviously was expanded when clergy also became state functionaries. I don’t know when the arrangment we currently have came into being, but it is obviously a relic or Christendom.
I don’t necessarily see a problem with the system we have, except when a state arrogantly decides to deconstruct and redefine a basic social institution —in a way that it has never been defined before anywhere— a forces everyone to go along with it. If the state ever comes to the point that it forces churches to comply and marry whoever shows up at the churchdoor, or face discrimination or “hate crime” charges, then it has made the First Amendment a dead letter and, as far as I am concerned, annulled its contract with the people. It is by defintion a tyranny that free people —”endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights”—must oppose.
The problem isn’t the government sanctioning too many types of arrangements, it’s that it sanctions too few, and in a way that interferes with what churches would otherwise do in accordance with their beliefs. Just because you don’t happen to approve of the additional ones that this particular government is currently considering sanctioning doesn’t mean that the overall scheme of having government decide who may participate in a marriage isn’t utterly vile.
In our own country’s history, this scheme was used not so long ago to prohibit interracial marriages. In China, it’s currently used to prohibit marriages under a certain age (something like 26 for women and 28 for men, last time I checked), and the ages are chosen to support the government’s coercive birth rate reduction scheme — without marriage, sex and births are illegal (the former prohibition is not enforced; the latter is). It is not at all unforeseeable that the government would try to prohibit marriages to people who haven’t paid their taxes or who own government-ordered child support. About the only thing preventing government from trying that right now is the fact that such a small percentage of citizens regard marriage as essential, so that it wouldn’t have the government-desired effect.
Neither personal relationships nor religious relationships are any of the government’s business, as long as the relationships involve consenting people of an age that is regarded by the society as “adult” for other purposes. If monogamous, heterosexual marriage is really so uniquely wonderful, it ought to be able to thrive without being propped up by government.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.