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To: FromTheSidelines
1. Why should Government get to dictate what is marriage?

Government doesn't dictate what is marriage. The dictionary does.

2. Why should a marriage only be proper if Government accepts it?

Because "proper" means; "fulfilling all expectations and criteria."

3. Should the church accept a marriage of a gay couple, just because the Government says that marriage consists of gay couples?

No. Red herring. And no theologically based churches do.

4. Why should we leave an institution to the hands of Government if Government will misuse and pervert that institution?

Strawman. No one is "leaving" the institution of marriage to the hands of government. Marriage has always been, and will always be, a sacrament celebrating the union of a man and a woman. For legal purposes, all governments -- even secular ones -- recognize it as so.

Now one more question to you: What does a gay couple in Maine have to do with marriage?

70 posted on 07/31/2011 8:04:11 PM PDT by Flycatcher (God speaks to us, through the supernal lightness of birds, in a special type of poetry.)
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To: Flycatcher
Government doesn't dictate what is marriage. The dictionary does.

So you support gay marriage. From Merriam Webster's dictionary:

1: a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage
b : the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock
c : the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage

2: an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities

3: an intimate or close union

The dictionary now defines marriage to include same-sex unions. Do you accept marriage as that? I do not.

Because "proper" means; "fulfilling all expectations and criteria."

Is a commitment in the church, before God and all gathered, not fulling all the expectations and criteria of God and the church? No? We need to wait for a signed piece of paper from the Government to complete it?

Then we have, in fact, given Government dominion and power over marriage.

No. Red herring. And no theologically based churches do.

But the dictionary - which dictates what marriage is, according to you, does. So the church is wrong, because it disagrees with the dictionary?

Now one more question to you: What does a gay couple in Maine have to do with marriage?

Because for a short time, gay marriage existed in Maine - per the dictionary definition of the word.

I refuse to recognize such unions as marriage; they are a union, and a civil one at that, but they are NOT marriage. Am I "hung up" on a word? Perhaps. But words mean things. If we use one word for marriage, and the evil, abhorrent thing that Government does uses the same word, then it becomes that much harder to draw a line between Christ, the church, and the secular world.

Words have meanings. Reserve and protect those which relate to the most sacred that we have.

77 posted on 07/31/2011 8:17:07 PM PDT by FromTheSidelines ("everything that deceives, also enchants" - Plato)
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