Marriage for All

It's taken me a few days to put this together.  Anytime a conservative wades into the gay marriage debate, a few proviso's are required.  Here are mine:

1.   I do not care (nor want to know) what consenting adults do in their own bedroom.  I don't want to share what happens in my bedroom and I don't want to hear about what happens in yours.
2. In Matthew, Jesus tells us that the Law can be boiled down to two commandments, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind...the second is to Love your neighbor as yourself."  I have no hate for anyone in the LGBT community.  I love you all and would welcome you with open arms to church. 
3. I do not judge the LGBT communities lifestyles.  Paul says, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save all sinners, of whom I am chief".  If someone like Paul admits that he is burdened with sin, then I too am burdened with sin.  And if I am burdened with sin, I cannot possibly pass judgement on another sinner.
4. Finally, I despise destroying the English language.  Words have meaning, to dilute that meaning is to dilute our language.  To dilute our language is to make us less human. 

The Supreme Court has decided that an amendment passed in the 1860's had a hidden provision to provide same sex couples with legal marriage.  I'm not sure this would pass the smell test on a modern day high school history test.  Immediately after the Supreme Court ruled to legalize gay marriage, the Politico ran an article arguing that it's now time to legalize polygamy.  Supporters of gay marriage where quick to argue that their arguments don't apply to polygamy. 

I won't rehash the arguments against gay marriage in this post, though I plan to in a future post.  Supporters of traditional marriage must continue this fight. Some who have fought hard for gay marriage are now celebrating and are happy for their victory.  Others, such as the Politico writer, see this as the first step in radically changing our culture.

Without question, there are legal problems that homosexual relationships faced.  Anyone should be able to declare who will make their end of life decisions and who will inherit from them.  Adults living in the same home should be able to pool their resources, including insurance and benefits, to better the home.  However, overturning and redefining something like marriage is the wrong way to solve this problem.

I fear this decision will be used to now discriminate against Christians.  Under the banner of "equality" Christian run businesses have already been fined.  I think we will soon see the government force churches to perform marriages that are against the doctrines of that church.  Time has now argued that churches that disagree with the new court appointed definition of marriage should have their tax exempt status removed.  While this argument has been cloaked in "equality for all" that equality is about to go out the window.  The government will now force you to support gay marriage.

Our job now is to continue to defend traditional marriage and to begin to win this battle in the culture before we try to win it in the courts again.  We must defend every step along the way where activists argue for further expansion of the definition of marriage.  We must shine a light on every instance where the government forces a business or church to sacrifice it's beliefs in the name of the new government beliefs.

A New Kind of Gay Violence?

For years there has been talk of passing hate crime legislation. Some states have laws that make violence against homosexuals a hate crime. Since the passage of Proposition 8 in California, some gay activists have been using their own violence.

Proposition 8 was a move by the voters in California to define marriage as between a man and a woman exclusively. It does not affect "Domestic Partnerships" in California. Proposition 8 was a response by the voters to a California supreme court decision that allowed gay marriage. This court decision took the matter away from the elected representatives in California. The only way to overturn it was with an amendment by the voters. The voters decided they didn't want the California Supreme Court deciding this issue.

Since the election night results, there has been an increase in violence towards the Mormon Church by gay activists. The Church of Latter Day Saints encouraged its members to support Prop 8, and now gay activists are retaliating towards those members. Two churches received packages with an unidentified white powder in them. Gay activists have gone into a church and protested during the middle of the service. They posed as church members, then stood up during the service and shouted at the members, threw papers into the congregation, and had gay people kissing at the front of the church.

Much of the activity being directed at the Mormon Church is outside the boundaries of political discourse. It is ok to be upset with what a church does, or to oppose their message. It is not ok to resort to violence against the church and members of the church.

We may not all agree with the LDS Church, we may disagree with Prop 8, but we can all agree that violence against the Mormon church must stop.