Thoughts on the US Supreme Court Hearing Abt Same-Sex Marriage?
The supreme court hears cases on same-sex marriage today, to determine whether California's Prop 8 and the Fed's Defense of Marriage Act are constitutional. Listening to detractors of both on news radio (but curiously no supporters) say over & over that same-sex couples should have the same right marry made me wonder if we, people, have the right
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I'm happy to live in Canada, where everyone is allowed to marry regardless of their sexual orientation. Gay marriage hasn't wrecked our country. I'm happy to know that we have taken that step forward and allowed language to change so that everyone can have the same rights. I am also happy to be part of a church that affirms our acceptance of all human beings as persons made in the image of God regardless of their sexual orientation. That my church has, since the early 80s, championed the idea that marriage is one of God's gifts, part of God's intention for many human lives, that God's intention for all human relationships is that they be faithful, responsible, just, loving, health-giving, healing, and sustaining of community and self. The implication is that these standards apply to both heterosexual and homosexual couples.
The United Church of Canada is proof to me that Christians can support gay marriage. God created us all equal. Homosexuality is not a choice, it is nature. If God created it, it is meant to be.
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And so this is the question that I'm asking: Do we have a right to change an institution that has stood longer than most of the societies and cultures that are active on the planet today. Marriage as a thing that happens between men and women (regardless of the number of men and women involved) is a fairly universal truth. How the relationship between the two genders is played out often varies between cultures, but at its base it’s pretty much the same.
As for a Christian view of homosexuality and, thus, homosexual marriage, an Orthodox view means that you see all relationships, all sexuality, the way God sees it. Yes He made all people all equal in worth, but not equal in function or ability -- we're not robots and we're not clones. Yes, He made sex and He made it to be enjoyed, but He made it to be enjoyed in a specific, prescribed way that reflects His relationship with us, His people. In that regard, I am prohibited from having sex since I am an unmarried person. Does that mean I'm not equal to a married person in worth? No. Is God punishing me for being single? No. Presuming I don't ever want to get married, do I deserve to have sex because I'm a person and I'm just as good married people, and thus having sex w/o marriage should be an option that is also open to me? No. Is sexuality in my nature, yes --- sometimes too much so, I think -- but just because it's part of me doesn't mean that I (a) shouldn't have mastery over it, and (b) should disallow God to dictate the nature He gave me.
Paul writes of there being a special place for the single person in the work of God, and said that he personally thought more people should stay single (he prefaced that particular bit by saying that those were his thoughts and not inspired by God, so take that one as you will). There's no provision in the Bible for me to be "happy" by being sexually fulfilled outside of marriage. There's also no provision in the Bible for finding "happiness" in a relationship with another woman. Homosexual relationships are specifically forbidden and condemned with a host of other sexual sins in both the Old and New Testament. Even if you want to say that those scriptures don't apply to us today, or that they mean something other than how they've been interpreted by scholars for throughout most of history, it's also true that the only system of marriage that's promoted in the Bible is traditional marriage, and that only of 1 man and 1 woman. Where there are polygamous marriages that are focused on for any length of time, you quickly see that there is serious dysfunction in the relationship.
I can't say whether Canada is being hurt, helped or remains utterly unaffected by homosexual marriage. Big societal changes like this take several generations to prove themselves (again, history majors, feel free to help me out here). Think of China and their 1 child policy with the subsequent genocide of millions of its daughters. The policy started, I believe, in the 60s and 70s but I believe experts predict that the nation will reap the full consequences of the policy within the next decade or so. But, already, there's issues with human trafficking, spousal abuse, etc. Taken from a non-Christian, sociological point of view, I can't begin to guess how homosexual marriage will effect society. I don't think anyone really can since it's never been done before.
So, back to my question: Do we have the right to redefine institutions, specifically marriage? It sounds like you're saying, yes.
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It's also the same sort of change as when women got the vote and were no longer treated as second class citizens to me.
Anytime a group of people is singled out as being not worthy for the same privileges as everyone else... it's wrong. As a single person, you have the right to marry someone.. if they are male. Choosing not to have sex before marriage is your choice. Choosing to be single is also, sort of your choice. Yes, it is dependant on meeting someone who wants to marry you, but you can actively go out there and search for a man to marry you, and there is nothing illegal in the end for you to find someone.
I'm not sure how you can equate being chaste with being homosexual. There are homosexuals who also have made the decision to be chaste. They just know that they are attracted to those of their own gender. Chasteness is a choice.
You choose to follow the prohibition not to have sex before marriage. That is your faith. I don't believe God made sex to be done only one way. For the purposes of procreation yes, penis in vagina should equal baby. But God also wanted us to enjoy ourselves. Why else would sex be pleasurable. In nature, many animals exhibit homosexual behavior and they are innocent, innocent of any guile or evilness. We are given brains to think to believe, to question. God gives us choices and free will.
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Which kind of leads to this point: I equate chastity with homosexuality because, from a Biblical perspective everyone who is not married is to be chaste, and only people who are of opposite gender are allowed to marry. Thus, if you are going to be committed to God’s Word and have any kind of sexual feelings, whether they be heterosexual or homosexual, then you are obligated to remain chaste. There’s no law against having the sexual feelings in the first place. Passing thoughts do not equate sin. As a matter of fact, the Old Testament only regulates actions, it’s Jesus in the New Testament who says that letting your thoughts dwell on a sin is the same as committing it.
Is chastity a choice? Of course. Along with equal intrinsic worth, God gave everyone free will. You can obey His word or not. But if you (the ubiquitous "you") are a Christian, by definition a follower of Christ, doesn’t that mean you’ve obligated yourself to bending your will to that of your leader, Christ? Otherwise, why be a Christian? And being a Christ-follower doesn’t mean you understand or like everything your leader directs you to do, nor does it mean that you understand everything, but it does mean that you walk in the directives your leader gives you. It also doesn’t mean you can’t question. As I do this Chronological Bible reading, I’ve come across quite a few upstanding, righteous men and women of God who have heard something negative from God or had something negative happen to them and asked why. God doesn’t usually rebuke them. He always responds, though it may not be the response the person was expecting.
I disagree to the examples you used. Were freeing the American Slaves and the creation of the Civil Rights amendments good things? Absolutely. Unlike same-sex marriage, however, they weren’t unprecedented actions. New for the US but not new for the history of man. Similarly with the suffrage movement, women have had more and less power in various cultures and at various times in history. Certainly in the West this is the most freedom women have probably had in centuries, if not ever, and I would not have wanted to be born 100 years ago for a whole host of reasons. But in other places? women weren’t necessarily doing too badly. I’m not saying there hasn’t been a radical shift in universally practiced institution before, but I don’t know that those count. The first time some guy named Abram decided to worship the one, and only, true God instead of the pantheon of gods he had known in his home country would probably count. And look what that’s done to the history of the world.
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If you wish me to argue using my beliefs well, I just believe as a Christian that Jesus would accept all people and that the Old Testament, while it has great stories/histories that show the development of society and codes of laws in the Commandments, is outdated when you take into account the New Testament and Jesus. Paul may disparage homosexuality, but he was not a prophet - he was an apostle, he was not the Son of God, he was a man, with his own biases. The Commandments do not condemn homosexuality if we're going to talk Old Testament and what God actually sent to us as commands/rules. The Son of God says "Therefore all things whatsoever would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them" and so, as I would not want to be denied the chance to be married to my husband, I will not deny others the chance to be married to their spouses.
I do have a question on the chaste and homosexuality - you seem to believe that homosexuals means they are having sex and therefore not chaste? Why do you seem to believe the homosexuals can't be chaste or virgins? If those of us who are heterosexual can be chaste, yet know we are attracted to the opposite sex, why is it that there seems to be a double standard that homosexuals aren't chaste because they know they are attracted to the same sex? Because that is what you seem to be saying, that homosexuals must be sexually promiscuous?
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Matthew 5:17 NKJV 17 Jesus said: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill." And he often quoted from the OT.
As for this "separation", it doesn't actually exist. It is a misinterpretation. The point was that there should not be one state ordained religion like the church of England at the time. But they did not mean for religion or faith to be left out of government.
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Basically, my thoughts on it are that the New Testament is more relevant since God sent Jesus for us. Jesus built on the Old Testament teachings, yes. But he also taught of love and tolerance, which is quite different from many Old Testament stories in which God actively punished sinners. The Old Testament has the Commandments - the rules handed down from God. None of which say anything about homosexuality, though he certainly got into the bedroom with his rules - adultery. See, that's what I go by. The stories in the Old Testament are much like the New Testament. They are written by men. They are morality tales as written by people, with their inherent biases. No one actually sent by God in the Bible - Jesus, the angels, the voice of God sent to Moses.. none of them said anything about homosexuality. There's also the fact that many interpreters of the ancient languages in the Bible argue about historical context and translations - the King James Bible has been interpreted and translated and changed so many times over the centuries that it can be impossible to know without going to the original writings. The learned Biblical scholars has spent years of their life studying the Bible.
I shall fall back to the quotes wall from the Jefferson Memorial:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We . . . solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states. . . And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
"Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens . . . are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion . . . No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively."
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Establish a law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state and on a general plan."
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
Yes, there is a place for God in State - as shown by Thomas Jefferson's quotes. But not when that religion denies rights to others based on interpretations of religious writings. The founders wanted life, liberty, freedom and the pursuit of happiness for everyone in their country. That is what God is supposed to give. Not take away because a woman loves another woman or a man loves another man. No one should be policing someone's bedroom based on religious morality.
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The text of the KJV has been compared to the Dead Sea Scrolls and been found to be remarkably accurate. There are many more really good source documents for the Bible than any other trusted text out antiquity. Those documents are also far closer to the date of the original events than many of the source documents for other ancient texts. Further, any good translation of the Bible will go back to those source documents and not the KJV as their starting point.
If the KJV had, in fact, been retranslated and reinterpreted so broadly as to say what people throughout time have wanted it to say, then whole books would be gone. I’m reading Jeremiah right now, and so far it’s judgment after judgment on the corrupt leadership of Jeremiah’s day and the on the people for turning away from God. Can’t you see the power-abusive priests and supposedly god-fearing governments of earlier centuries conveniently “forgetting” to copy Jeremiah into the Bible? Yet I’m reading it. Sections that uphold women and treat them with high respect and honor would have disappeared centuries ago (goodbye Abigail, Ruth, Esther, Deborah). Paul’s admonition for wives to obey their husbands as the head of the family the way Christ is the head of the church, but for husbands to sacrificially love their wives the way Christ loved the church enough to die for it would be gone. The section where Jesus whips the loan sharks and extortionists out of the temple with a whip he braided himself would have disappeared. The proverb that says that a woman who can run a business well, take care of her family, and is respected in the neighborhood for her wisdom (i.e., the modern woman) would go missing. The constant admonition to care for the fatherless, widows and the poor would have been erased centuries ago. Admonitions to be good & thoughtful caretakers of nature and livestock would go. Every instance of power hungry, abusive leadership that invariably ends in the negative judgment of God wouldn’t have even made it to the 1st century. Every warning that leadership is held up to higher scrutiny and a higher responsibility than the people they lead would have been scrubbed.
You say that the NT is more relevant than the OT, which is just a collection of stories told by men who were not inspired by God but had good tales/histories/moral lessons to tell. However, if the foundation upon which Jesus built the theology of the NT (by which I think you only mean the 4 Gospels since it sounds like you put Paul’s letters into the same bucket with the OT, but correct me if I’m wrong) isn’t a firm one that was in fact inspired by God, then that makes Jesus a faulty and untrustworthy teacher, and not God. He would have been basing all of his teachings, his stated purpose for living and dying, on stories from men who lived hundreds of years before he did, and in some cases lived hundreds of years apart from each other, who were hidebound by their own times and cultures. Likewise, if Jesus was really God incarnate, then he should have known that the book he so often quoted and taught from, Deuteronomy, was full of laws made by people, and not from him or his Father.
If the OT is just stories, etc., told by men and not inspired by God, then that invalidates the prophecies concerning Jesus’ first coming, his life, his death and resurrection, and his second coming. It invalidates the Christophanies (sp?), or pre-incarnate appearances of Christ, in the OT. And there was no point in him teaching the two disciples about himself using the OT as they traveled along the road after his death and resurrection. So while I see where you’re coming from, I’m not sure that the logic behind it holds up. There’s a reason we stand on the shoulders of giants instead of the shoulders of pipsqueaks like me.
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A judge who only shows mercy is no longer being merciful, as mercy is not something you deserve nor is it something you can earn. At that point it’s gone from being “mercy” to something else entirely, like being weak-willed, or apathetic, etc. Imagine there was only 1 judge, and you had to go to him for every issue from a bad parking ticket to actual physical harm, and every time you saw this judge they let the other prsn off. Every. Time. Regardless of the remorsefulness, or lack thereof, of the defendant or the depth of the wrong done to you. Would you call that judge a good, upright and/or righteous? Or would you be steaming mad?
Just because we don’t necessarily see the punishment of God for sin at the moment it’s committed doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen. For the Christian, God has already punished our sin -- Jesus got our punishment. Jesus was our whipping boy who stood in our stead and innocently took what we deserve and what we had earned. For everyone else, sin that’s not reconciled today will be reconciled eventually. It’s weird thinking of it this way b/c we’re the ones (humanity in general) who’ve “been bad” and are “in trouble” and, like any kid, is trying to wiggle out of the punishment. However, when you’re the one who was mugged, who was cheated, who had wrong done to them physically or mentally, then you are ready and waiting for punishment to fall on the guilty. Well, we’re the guilty and God is the one who’s been wronged.
All the rules in the Bible are handed down from God, unless specifically stated otherwise (and they do when it applies). If nothing else, reading through the books of Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy show how God is a God of order and specificity.
(I haven't yet read your response to me, so IDK....there may be some repeating.)
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Jesus specifically speaks of marriage and points out the hypocrisy of many religious leaders for divorcing and remarrying many times, outside of the very specific laws found in the OT regarding divorce. The limits aren’t just for singles, but also for marrieds. When he spoke positively of marriage, it was always and only in regards to a 2-person, heterosexual marriage. Sometimes you learn as much from what’s not promoted as what’s condemned.
I found it curious that you (personally) don’t argue from a Christian POV because it’s impossible not to bring your (ubiquitous “your”) beliefs and faith into any argument. As you said of Paul, we all have our biases. Our genuine beliefs color everything we do. Someone who is an athlete, or at least seriously sportive, looks at the world through an athlete’s eyes…the things they pursue, jobs they take, issues they vote on (assuming they’re relevant), places they go or don’t go, food they eat, etc. are colored by what it means to be an athlete, maintain an athletic lifestyle, and promote that lifestyle. Someone who’s not an athlete may make very different decisions b/c, y’know, not an athlete. That’s just the nature of belief, religious or not. So as a Christian I can’t help but bring my Christianity to every table I sit at, so to speak. I can’t and won’t force any one to believe that Christ is the Son of God, and is God, etc., but I can’t live like I don’t believe those things. That’s why Americans, at least, get very up in arms about the beliefs, or lack thereof, of political figures.
And for the last point, I think I’m actually accusing people in general of being promiscuous in an offhand kind of way. (Do you know how hard it is to defend being chaste, as well as prove over and over that chaste =/= “innocent babe in swaddling clothes”?) I’m not trying to accuse homosexuals of being any more or less promiscuous than a heterosexual. I feel that many people don’t see the inherent hypocrisy in condemning homosexual relationships and/or marriage, but remaining silent on other sexual sins that the Bible and Christianity flag -- pre-marital sex, adultery, etc. -- as if it’s the only issue.
Sexual desire is a natural thing. How we act on it is what’s being called into question. I don’t think I’m equating chastity with homosexuality, but I keep bringing up one with the other b/c I’m trying to make the point that there are limits on how everyone is supposed to act on their sexual desire. As a heterosexual, I am limited to sex within marriage. Outside of marriage I am called to be chaste. The same is true for a homosexual person. That there is no option for marriage is another limit. Having homosexual desires isn’t the issue, per se, it’s how or whether people act on those desires…which puts me, a heterosexual, in the same boat.
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Did Jesus eat with sinners? Absolutely. Did he have a much-despised tax collector among his Disciples? Yeah, Matthew wrote one of the Gospels. But did Jesus leave sinners and the despised in the same place that he found them? No. Never. He preached repentance (turning away from sin and turning to God). He gave forgiveness and showed mercy, but never by ignoring the sin that caused the need for that forgiveness in the first place.
My favorite example of this is the woman caught in the act of adultery. Jesus called out the men who tried to accuse and judge her (w/o judging the person she was being adulterous with! Which was part of the law! Sorry...that part always irks me) for their deceit and hypocrisy. Then he turned around and forgave her, with instructions to "go and sin no more." Jesus acknowledged that she had committed a sin worthy of the punishment the men wanted to mete out, but as chose not to condemn her...not because she didn’t deserve judgment but because he’s merciful. But he also didn’t give her leeway to go back to her old way of life.
I’ve heard one Christian speaker say that Christianity is both inclusive and exclusive. Inclusive in that anyone from any background is welcome to come into relationship with Jesus. Exclusive in that, as Jesus himself preached, relationship with him is the only way to salvation. So, yeah, we accept anyone into the family of Christ. But once you’re here, God expects us to conform to his will. (Luckily, he doesn’t expect this to happen overnight b/c I there are weeks I seem to fail at this daily.) Otherwise, why did Jesus have to die? What did he need to save us from if we get to cherry-pick which laws apply to us this century vs. last?
"Do unto others as you would have done unto you" and being tolerant doesn’t mean that you have agree with and accept with open arms what others do and believe. I can give you the space to think or live as you want, without agreeing with you that your thoughts and/or actions are correct. We can debate, and still be civil or friends or even family.
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