For generations, we have given the State the power to create artificial persons, in the form of corporations, foundations, trusts and the like. Nobody is confused by this government-defined fiction. We know that a corporation is not a real human person.
Another government-defined fiction that we have allowed for generations is that the State can also define “marriage” and who is “married” and who is not. But marriage predates any State because it is God who defines not any State. Indeed, any “marriage” a State defines is just as much a legal fiction as when it tells us that a corporation is a “person” that has freedom of speech.
The State attempts to force us to recognize its power. One way is to presume the power to define who is married and who is not. We cede this power in part because we allow the State to tax incomes and estates. To administer such taxing power, the State must define who it considers to be “married” and who is not. Just as when it defines a corporation to be a “person”, as silly as this would be to God, the State does not hesitate to define anyone it pleases as being “married”, totally apart from how God would define them. Sadly, even ministers allow the State’s definition of marriage to be the controlling definition.
Jesus, who was recognized as a prophet by all three monotheistic religions, is quoted in Matthew chapter 19 that from the beginning of humanity, it was God’s intent that marriage would only be one man and one woman. Scripture in many ways and places also tells us that God defines sexual morality and that people who refuse to practice that His morality simply do not qualify for His freely given gift of eternal life. (for example, see Ephesians chapter 5). Of course, people are free to believe whatever they want, but that does not change what God clearly said to us.
If you review the arguments advanced by supporters of same-sex marriage (like at HRC.ORG), you will find that many of them are related to taxation, inheritance and medical issues, all issues controlled by the State. But existing law addresses those and any defects in the law can be easily repaired apart from the issue of “marriage”.
I don’t want a government that can tell me what I may or may not do in the privacy of my own home or relationships. In a secular Constitutional Republic with a provision that prohibits Congress from making any law respecting religion, I have to allow others to have their own beliefs and morality. I can only be an advocate for the morality and beliefs that I think are true. I take my understanding of sexual morality from Scripture and that is where I learn that God considers sodomy to be an abomination to Him.
If a State decides that two (or more) people can marry, if that is all that happened, I could live with that because I don’t have to approve, change my beliefs or what beliefs I pass on to my children.
However, once gays and their supporters have sufficient influence with a State to redefine marriage, they don’t stop there. They use the State to forbid me from acting on my morality and beliefs. In fact, the State in some cases forces me to accommodation in their practices.
If I have children in public school, the State will insist on teaching them that gay marriage is just as normal as God’s definition of marriage. You will be sanctioned as a parent if you attempt to remove your children from such indoctrination. As long as they are enrolled in government-controlled schools, they will be graded on how well they accept the State’s idea of normal, or refuse to reject God’s idea of normal.
If you run a business that could provide services to the public, you will be sanctioned if you decline to treat gays as non-gays. For example, if you run a wedding photography business, you will be sanctioned if you decline to photograph a gay wedding. This has already happened in California and New Mexico [1].
You may lose control of your own property. [2]
You might have to go out of business to stay true to your principles, so as to avoid being fined or sued into bankruptcy. [3,4]
From the article:
“Wedding vendors elsewhere who refused to accommodate same-sex couples have faced discrimination lawsuits — and lost. Legal experts said Discover Annapolis Tours sidesteps legal trouble by avoiding all weddings.
“If they’re providing services to the public, they can’t discriminate who they provide their services to,” said Glendora Hughes, general counsel for the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. The commission enforces public accommodation laws that prohibit businesses from discriminating on the basis of race, sexual orientation and other characteristics.”
To advance the legal case that a marriage between two people of the same sex is no different than a marriage as God defines it, the US Justice Department will base their arguments before the Supreme Court that a child does not need, nor have a right to a mother. [5]
In short, gays will demand that non-gays accept them as moral equals, which they are not and cannot be. When the State says they are equal it is forbidden for a private citizen to dissent from that status. In doing so, they seek to force me to give them approval for something that I will never approve of. It is that last point that galls gays the most.
Curiously, when advocates of gay marriage are asked if their policy also would allow polygamy or polyandry, they recoil in horror and insist that it does not. However, logic demands that it does. I would ask how same-sex parents are going to react in the future when, for example, Utah public schools officials require that teachers instruct the children that LDS-related polygamy is just as “normal” as same-sex “marriage”. The fact that this will be an issue will show yet again that gay “marriage” is not about marriage at all it is about forcing the rest of us to approve of repugnant sexual immorality, something that LDS polygamists never demanded.
After same-sex marriage causes polygamy to be recognized polyandry won’t be far behind. Brave new world!
[1] Refusing To Shoot Gay Marriage Is Discrimination, Says New Mexico Appeals Court
http://www.popphoto.com/news/2012/06/refusing-to-shoot-gay-marriage-discrimination-says-new-mexico-appeals-court
[2] Judge Rules Christian facility cannot ban same-sex civil union ceremony on its own premises
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/judge-rules-christian-facility-cannot-ban-same-sex-civil-union-ceremony-on
[3] Opposed to same-sex marriage, company ends wedding business
Trolley owner says move made to avoid potential lawsuit
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-ar-annapolis-trolley-suspends-wedding-servic-20121225,0,7100399,full.story
[4] Baker refuses to make wedding cake for lesbian couple and ‘calls them abominations unto the Lord’
Aaron Klein, owner of Sweet Cakes in Gresham, Oregon is the subject of a state investigation after one of the brides-to-be filed a complaint
[5] DOJ: Children Do Not Need—and Have No Right to—Mothers March 3, 2013 By Terence P. Jeffrey
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/doj-children-do-not-need-and-have-no-right-mothers
Obviously there are many in this forum who can speak more knowledgeably about this than I can, but I don't think it is correct to say that Jews consider Jesus a prophet.
I read a book once (in English) by a Hungarian scholar who was born Jewish, converted to Catholicism, became a priest, then re-converted back to Judaism. He was very respectful in his treatment of Jesus but obviously he was an atypical Jew himself.