Posted on 05/04/2015 6:14:42 AM PDT by marshmallow
In a must-read column for the Wall Street Journal, Rev. Donald Sensing, a Methodist minister from Tennessee, argues that acceptance of same-sex marriage “will not cause the degeneration of the institution of marriage; it is the result of it.”
Understand that Rev. Sensing is not happy with the situation as he sees it. “I believe that this state of affairs is contrary to the will of God,” he writes. But he argues persuasively that the public understanding of marriage was doomed when society accepted the Pill, and thereby severed the link between marriage and procreation. Marriage, he observes, had traditionally been recognized and protected by society as the only institution in which sexual intercourse—and, therefore, child-bearing—was sanctioned.
”Society's stake in marriage as an institution is nothing less than the perpetuation of the society itself, a matter of much greater than merely private concern,” Rev. Sensing writes. But once contraception became the norm, and procreation was deemed incidental, the fundamental reason for legal protection of marriage was obscured.
Today, marriage is generally understood as a social and legal contract between two people: nothing more. (In fact marriage is the only legal contract that society does not enforce; either partner can break the bond with impunity.) “But what weddings do not do any longer,” Rev. Sensing remarks, “is give to a man and a woman society’s permission to have sex and procreate.”
In today’s America, an increasingly large proportion of young people believe that they have permission to have sex whenever they want, with whomever they want. As for procreation, that too is taking place, more and more frequently, outside the bounds of wedlock.
But public attitudes could change, as they have changed in the past 50 years, and a change in attitudes could lead to another change in laws. So.....
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicculture.org ...
We redefined marriage when we gave it a tax break and made it a basis for government benefits distribution. Of course other groups wanted in on what they saw as a nifty scam after that.
It seems to me then that your opinion is that the fundamental purpose of marriage is so a man not be alone. Is that your view ?
Do you mean like Sarah or Hannah ?
False; given that the implication is that Christians have never given such permission without a wedding, but if you are not a Christian I could understand that error.
There is still a whole lot of married procreating going on out there.
In the 19th Century the US birth rates were much higher, perhaps 7 live births, while in the 20th Century it fell to about 2. Coincidentally, people learned to use more artificial means to prevent pregnancy, culminating with the potions (drugs) that are available now. The institution of marriage within the US has fallen, and has been extended to homosexual couples since the don't want to be alone, and their primary purpose is pleasure rather than procreation, not unlike their heterosexual countrymen who hold the same view.
Well, it was apparently God's fundamental purpose, so I'm good with it.
you keep citing individual factoids and them ramming them into your absurd thesis.
you make my case with 83, not yours. But again, really foolish and absurd irrelevant analogy.
Really low hateful and sin filled accusation on your part, indicating an evil pharisaical spirit about yourself. Knowing history does not mean one agrees with it, or disagrees with it, necessarily - it is just the removal of ignorance.
You might need a refund on your Bible. While it had Sarah and Hannah, your copy apparently missed Song of Solomon, or perhaps, all the chapters and books about Solomon.
The Bible is my inheritance. Solomon had many wives and concubines, leaving the LORD for other gods because of his love of many women, something not foreign to the Pill Generation. The (former) pastor of the Mars Hill faith community in Seattle also argued for maximum pleasure, so to speak.
The fundamental purpose of marriage was that a man and a woman become one flesh, multiply themselves (have children), and exercise dominion over the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Genesis, Catholic chapter one, Protestant verses twenty seven to twenty eight,
Genesis, Catholic chapter two, Protestant verses eighteen to twenty five,
Matthew, Catholic chapter nineteen, Protestant verses four to five,
as authorized, but not authored, by King James
not everybody marries to pro-create. nor can everyone do so.
You obviously ignore or intentionally misinterpret part of your “inheritance.”
sorry dude, you did not pull the “fundamental” verse on marriage - you found another verse - one that only indicates that procreation is a part of being male and female...there is NO mention of marriage in your verse.
Fail.
Is it your learned opinion that Jesus was mistaken when he referred back to the scriptures I posted while discussing the law of divorce ? Is it your view that one can be divorced without being married ? Is it then your view Adam and Eve were not married and their children illegitimate, or do you not believe children conceived out of wedlock are illegitimate ?
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