Posted on 06/15/2015 8:43:57 AM PDT by xzins
Christians are often asked by gay activists why they oppose same-sex “marriage.” “How does our marriage hurt you?” they ask.
Well, I can think of one significant way it will hurt us: It will destroy religious freedom and free speech rights.
The handwriting is on the wall in Canada, which legalized same-sex “marriage” in 2005, in effect completely changing its true meaning. Since then, as Michael Coren notes in National Review Online, “there have been between 200 and 300 proceedings … against critics and opponents of same-sex marriage.” Of course he means legal proceedings.
For instance, in Saskatchewan, a homosexual man called a state marriage commissioner, wanting to “marry” his partner. The commissioner, an evangelical Christian, declined to conduct the ceremony for religious reasons. He simply referred the man to another commissioner.
But that was not enough for the gay couple. Even though they got their ceremony, they wanted to punish the Christian who had declined to conduct it. The case ended up in the courts. And the result? Those with religious objections to conducting such ceremonies now face the loss of their jobs.
Canadian churches are also under attack. Coren writes that when Fred Henry, the Roman Catholic bishop of Calgary, Alberta, sent a letter to churches explaining traditional Catholic teaching on marriage, he was “charged with a human-rights violation” and “threatened with litigation.”
Churches with theological objections to performing same-sex “wedding” ceremonies are being threatened with the loss of their tax-free status. In British Columbia, the Knights of Columbus agreed to rent its building for a wedding reception before finding out that the couple was lesbian. When they did find out, they apologized to the women and agreed to both find an alternative venue and pay the costs for printing new invitations. But that wasn’t good enough. The women prosecuted, and the Human Rights Commission ordered the Knights of Columbus to pay a fine.
Of course, the lesbians knew perfectly well what the Catholic Church teaches about marriage, but they sought out a Catholic-owned building, anyway.
As Michael Coren puts it, “it’s becoming obvious that Christian people, leaders, and organizations are being targeted, almost certainly to create legal precedents”—precedents intended to silence and punish anyone who dares to disagree with so-called gay “marriage.”
If you think this couldn’t happen here, think again. This year [2012] we’ve seen ObamaCare attack the autonomy of Catholic churches by attempting to force them, in violation of Catholic teaching, to pay for contraceptives and abortifacients for church employees. And just last week, a lesbian employee of a Catholic hospital in New York sued the hospital for denying her partner spousal health benefits.
This is what we need to tell our neighbors when they ask us, “How does gay ‘marriage’ hurt us?” It means that those hostile to our beliefs will attempt to bend us to their will to force us to not only accept gay “marriage,” but to condone it as well.
This is why I urge you to join the half-million Christians who have signed the Manhattan Declaration. Please sign it yourself by going to manhattandeclaration.org.
You and I must demonstrate love to our gay neighbors, of course, remembering that we are ultimately engaged in spiritual warfare. But we should boldly stand up when our rights as citizens and the demands of our conscience are threatened.
You will be assimilated or you will be persecuted.
OK I’m already irritated with something unrelated to the story.
What the hell is with this “Here’s why” crap? Vox is the first to use it now I’m seeing it all the time.
Rush played an audio of a lesbian activist a week or so ago, it isn’t about marriage, it is intended to destroy the institution of marriage. The LGBT whatever groups want marriage gone.
It's HOMOSEXUAL marriage
Why do we keep calling it what it isn't. If they're so damn proud of being sodomites, then call it HOMOSEXUAL marriage.
If the Supreme Court decides in favor of gay marriage, then it is knowingly turning Christians over to persecution.
We must not forget that when retaliation becomes a reasonable response. They started the war.
FIGHT FOR YOUR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Sensible words, represent much strife for all, not just Christians.
These folks “think” that they are doing a good thing, they will hide behind anything, but it comes down to atheists. They got a huge boost with the libertarians and are playing the feminists for fools with what seems like a bunch of woman-hating gay men in charge.
There’s no reasoning with them, that’s a waste of time because of some weirdo emotional attachment to anything that frees them from oversight by God or anyone else. The only thing you can do is to outflank and destroy them. It is what it is.
Thank you......HOMOSEXUAL. If they are proud of hat they dobhy are they embarrassed by the correct terminology for what they do?
Basically... because the phenomenon that it’s part of, does not, nor does it show any signs of being satisfied to, stand alone in a vacuum. It isn’t just “a bunch of people screaming that it is from hell.”
This measure is one appeasement that doesn’t buy peace.
The more difficult thing is “if you believe the bible is true, act like it, and that includes what it says for people in your situation when facing those who don’t.”
Frankly, I think the boycott craze is barking up the wrong tree, and too weakly to do any real good. If it really disgusts you that this list of 1001 companies have tried to make capital out of the phenomenon, then if you can keep track of them all by all means you may avoid them. But who is going to go to the trouble of being anywhere close to consistent here, and how does this touch the lives of those who are at the spear point of the trouble? It seems that when it comes to bullying through resource manipulation, they are the “champs,” not we. Maybe we shouldn’t fight the kind of fight they fight down in hell.
IT ISN'T A MARRIAGE AT ALL.
Call it a Sodomite Ceremony ... call it a Buggery Bash ... call it a Fag Festival ... but don't call it a marriage, because it isn't one.
Words mean things.
Even on that level the relationship is often a farce, with more promiscuity being seen than if the two were simply “friends.”
But they have managed to get you to misfocus. The point was to capture the “official” word — not yours at all. Now that they have that idol in hand, they will use it in swooning service.
I can control what I say, and what I think. I make no bones about rejecting the association of "marriage" with what the sodomites do.
No-fault divorce has done much more damage to marriage than gay marriage will ever do, simply because of the math of numbers.
This most important of all contracts is in fact no-longer a contract. When either party can simply walk away unilaterally from a contract, there is in fact no contract. Marriage (as a civil institution) as properly defined and intended no longer truly exists when its contractual nature is ripped away by no fault divorce redefinition.
Marriage is the first institution which the well-ordered and healthy state must attend to and nurture with good law and policy. Marriage civilizes men, protects women, and raises the next generation of healthy shopkeepers, engineers, farmers, soldiers, and mothers. As imperfect as it is, “traditional” marriage — with all its restrictions — is far better at seeing this achieved than whatever institution(s) take its place. Our state and society have forgotten this. We’ve forgotten why we created the civic institution of marriage — its contract definition, its licensing motivations — in the first place.
I am thinking of a tee shirt idea—a picture of a man and woman dressed as bride and groom with the caption:
DIVERSITY IS GOOD :^)
Exactly. They hijacked the word “gay” because even they know that stupid Americans are turned off by the words sodomite and homosexual. They had to put lipstick on the pig. I never use “gay” when talking about queers.
Its not even marriage. Its just state sanctioned sodomy.
And they will (1) not care and (2) be unable to benefit [as God won’t either] through any gospel message through you
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