This is the bill defining marriages recognized by the state of California as "one man, one wife." It was recently deemed to violate the 14th Amendment by a California judge. It will be appealed and will probably eventually be heard before the Supreme Court.
As is so often the case, I appreciate
Al Mohler's view on the topic. As he points out, this isn't just a cultural statement regarding the normalization of homosexuality. It reflects a root misunderstanding of both marriage and gender.
I found the judge's statements saying that procreation has never been a main goal of marriage to be appalling...and historically completely false!! My Catholic friends could easily point this out (it is still the MAIN goal of marriage, to many of them), as could anyone tracing the history of European monarchs who wed for the sole purpose of producing an heir. In discussing the issue with friends who rejoiced to see this bill knocked down, I kept reverting back to the Bible's view on marriage and gender. The judge's statements reveal that he was definitely thinking of gender roles when he issued this ruling. “Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals,” he stated. To him, recognition of homosexual marriage is just a logical extention of the blurring of distinction between the sexes. I see how he gets there. Once manhood and womanhood are interchangeable in role --he says 'equal' though he leaves no space for them being 'different'-- it's just a logical step to say that any human can now marry any other, because we are all the same. Wow. What a step towards a unisex society.
Please check out
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood's website for wonderful resources with a Biblical view of the sexes-- respecting and valuing our God-given differences, while rejoicing in our equality before God as co-heirs and fellow Image-bearers.
I got into a pretty long Facebook discussion on this topic, in which my "opponents" brought up polygamy in the Bible, God being Love, and so that meaning we cannot condemn love in any form, as well as the place of religion in politics. Here are a few of my thoughts from that...
-- The main problem with anything besides man+woman is that the New Testament clearly teaches that marriage is a dim reflection of the union between Christ, the loving, sacrificial, leading Head, and the Church, helping, joyfully submitting to him and helping fulfill His plan for the world. That's why God brought Eve to Adam all those years ago, as a helper like and different from him. It was something Paul calls "a mystery;" something only explained at Christ's coming and Resurrection
-- on polygamy: I think it's telling that the first polygamist is Lamech, one of Cain (a bad guy)'s grandsons, and a violent murderer WORSE than Cain. Polygamy also differs from homosexuality because despite its abberations, there still is a man and a wife, twice. Two women, both married to a man--in this case, the same man. Never has anyone said (as far as I know) of a polygamous union that both women were "married" to each other! It's always heterosexual, even in cases where a woman might have had two husbands. (I'm pretty sure that three-way anything would be called some sort of perversion in any tradition.)
--on "God is Love":
it's a big jump to say that because God embodies Love, we can do whatever we want. I sure love my daughter, but there a great many desires of hers I forbid her to do... she doesn't like it at all, but I do it because the things she wants (very deeply at times!) aren't good for her. Shouldn't we trust our Creator and Father (who IS love, as you pointed out), to tell us what is and isn't good for us? IN other words, we have to let God, as Love, define "lawful" love. He says there are some things, some ways, some practices we must not "love." We aren't free to do anything we want just because we feel "loving" while doing it, or say that we "feel love" in a certain way. Because God is the fountainhead of love, we have to let Him direct our love.
--on morality & the Gospel ("Good News"):
everyone seems to have clear ideas about what is "right" and what is "wrong." I'd urge you all to consider where those standards come from, and to realize that the Bible claims to be the story of how God Himself condescended to our human level to tell us exactly which way is up and which is down. His Rules (morality) DO transcend culture, and as you read through Scripture with an eye to the One Story of Redemption that it tells, you'll see that. Much of what was hinted at and unclear in the Old Testament is made clear and explained redemptively in the New Testament, including God's model for marriage (before Christ came, it was a "mystery" remember? After He comes, He Himself in Mt 6 & 19 explains what it was always supposed to look like, and later Paul by the Holy Spirit explains even more explicitly what it was meant to be, in Eph. 5. From the beginning (and I mean since the creation of man in Gen. 1-3), God has had to speak into our world to explain rightness and wrongness-- that is, morality. Ultimately, He used a Final Word-- the God-man Jesus Christ incarnate. "In the past, God spoke to our forefathers ...in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son...the Son is the radiance of God's glory, and the exact representation of His being." (Heb. 1-3) Jesus the Christ perfectly fulfilled God's righteous requirements of the Law, yet died a condemned death, and was confirmed as having paid the price for the immorality of everyone who trusts in Him for salvation, by being raised from the dead. He did this "in order that the righteous requirements of the Law might be fully met in US." (Rom 8:2) Christians are serious about sin and being free from it because that's exactly what Jesus came to do: set His people free from the consequences of sin (God's own judgment) and bondage to it.
When it comes down to it, the crux of the matter is whether or not we will submit to God. As one of my FB "opponents" put it, "the Christian's version of Yahweh forbids homosexual and polyamorous love for the same reason that the Jew's version of Yahweh forbids tattoos -- that is, for no good reason at all except the pointless exertion of control over people's bodies and minds.... I owe nothing to a fictional dead human or his mythical metaphorical father, with whom I have had no dealings. " How different from David's "against You, and You only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight" (Psalm 51:4), and Paul's "in Him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28)
Thankful that His dealings with me are all mercy,
--Christina
Footnote: The Bible very clearly teaches that a lifestyle given over to homosexuality (as a homosexual "marriage" would be), is sinful and a perversion of love (The attraction is not sinful, as far as I can tell, but giving oneself over to it without any self-control is.). Any sexual activity outside of man-and-wife-marriage is called "fornication" very clearly by Scripture, and is over and over said to be wrong. Homosexual lust is the same as heterosexual lust... both are wrong and offensive to God.
Romans 1:18-32 clearly discusses homosexuality.
Revelations 21:8 and 22:15 make it clear that those living in unrepentant sexual sin are not among the Redeemed of Heaven. My favorite passage dealing with homosexuality is
1 Corinthians 6:9-11, because it says that some of the Corinthian Christians once did live in such sin, and since coming to know Christ now are "washed" and even made HOLY!!