The Problems with Gay “Marriage” from a Christian Viewpoint

Eric V. Snow, Sermonette, Ann Arbor, UCG, 11-13-04

Should a man be allowed to marry a man? Should a woman be allowed to marry a woman? Is attacking gay marriage bigoted and intolerant? Can we Christians in the Church of God duck this issue? During this past election, some 10 ballot propositions prohibiting gay “marriage” were passed. The voters’ wisdom in this regard has been condemned using terms like discrimination, bigoted, “homophobic,” etc.. We as Christians in the Church of God may think we can ignore this issue. After all, man’s governments can define “marriage” legally any way they want, for good or for ill. But we Christians have to be able and willing to defend our beliefs that Scripture is right on this issue. We may be asked by friends in the world, family members outside the church, or coworkers about whether gay marriage is morally acceptable or correct. The news and entertainment media make it nearly impossible to evade this issue, since TV, music, videos, and movies constantly thrust pro-gay themes and situations upon us. Especially when we’re the Ann Arbor, Michigan church, with the university’s influence inevitably around us, we can’t ignore this issue as easily as many people elsewhere in America can.

S.P.S. So we’re going to examine today why gay marriage is wrong from a Scriptural and logical viewpoint.

Romans 1:18-29

Notice how suppressing God’s truth and denying God’s existence leads to self-deception and then sexual immorality, and especially same sex attraction. Notice how things haven’t changed, from the time of ancient Rome. We can trace the influence of skeptical philosophers and scientists such as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud over the past 250 years right down to our culture’s low present state. If the theory of evolution hadn’t been accepted, we wouldn’t be debating gay marriage today in this country.

The struggle over legalizing gay marriage relates to a most unpleasant reality. The legal climate of the United States and other Western countries is systematically shedding its traditional Christian heritage in the name of principles drawn from agnosticism and atheism. We’re going back to the way Rome was before the Edict of Milan gave Christianity legal toleration in 313 A.D. And even we in the Church of God can’t see this as a good thing, for it concerns our human governments giving up on crudely basic Christian values as a framework for determining their laws.

The fundamental dishonesty with gay marriage concerns a dishonest redefinition of the term “marriage.” A man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman is really no more logical than a married bachelor or a squared circle. Only a mind-numbing repetition of the gay activists’ claims make it seem sensible. Here the “big lie” approach of the Nazis’ propaganda is plainly at work. Consider how many positive gay characters appear on TV or in movies, for example.

Next, we know full well the slippery slope to cultural disaster we’ll be on should gay marriage be legalized. Why stop at two people marrying? Isn’t the number marrying as arbitrary a decision as the genders of those involved? Why not legalize polygamy or group marriage? Why not legalize the marriage of an adult daughter with her father? Or how about a brother and sister? Would it be religious discrimination to keep a Muslim man from marrying up to 4 wives? And what about those dissident polygamous Mormons out West? One dissident Mormon polygamist has already cited the Supreme Court decision that abolished sodomy laws (“Lawrence v. Texas”) in an appeal.

As Dr. James Dobson in "Marriage Under Fire" (p. 53) explains: "The homosexual agenda is not [about] marriage for gays. It is marriage for no one. And despite what you read or see in the media, it is definitely not monogamous. What will happen sociologically if marriage becomes anything or everything or nothing?"

The reality is that gay marriage will lead to a legal redefinition of marriage that will undermine average people’s commitment to their vows. A similar process has occurred, whether we like to admit it or nor, with the no-fault divorce laws. They made people take their vows more lightly since getting rid of their husband or wife was so much more easily done legally. The law, even man’s law, has a teaching function in society as a whole that liberal or libertarian theorizing can’t eliminate.

Isaiah 5:20

Is proclaiming the truth of God bigoted or intolerant? Standard liberal reasoning about our pluralistic society ends up making the liberals very intolerant of Christianity. They want to deny that anybody has the ultimate truth in order to promote social peace. And to do this, they unleash persecution and censor Christians, of any group, who speak out. Their hypocrisy is totally lost on them. At this time, the intolerance of secular liberals is far more dangerous to us in the Church of God than that of the traditionalist Catholics or conservative Evangelical Protestants. David Limbaugh’s book, “Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity,” full of brass tack specifics. David French, of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) puts it this way: “Experience teaches that religious individuals and organizations are most often victimized by university polices that, in theory, were enact to promote tolerance, diversity, and fairness.” (p. 113). Example at Tufts of the Student Judiciary stripping a Christian group of funding for not letting a bisexual member have a leadership position in the group, later reversed. The liberals, who wage all sorts of politically correct persecution campaigns, are in no position to judge others about their lack of tolerance. Mark Vreeland’s sermonette’s significance.

Should gay marriage become the law of the land, there will be no stopping the persecution campaigns of the liberals and gay activists of Christians, of any group, who dissent publicly. Already in Canada, the Parliament passed a law, Bill C-250, which effectively criminalizes speech or writings critical of homosexuality. Example of printer penalized over $40,000 for refusing to print stationery for a gay group, Focus on Family program attacking homosexuality “judged by the Canadian Radio and Television Commission to be ‘homophobic.’ The radio station that carried the broadcast was censured for airing it, and I have not been able to address the issue in Canada since.” (James Dobson, Marriage Under Crossfire, p. 60).

Conclusion: We as Christians have to be able and willing to publicly defend our beliefs that gay marriage is wrong when necessary. It involves a dishonest redefinition of the term “marriage.” It will open a Pandora’s box that will logically lead to the legalization of polygamy, group marriage, and even incestuous matches. The resultant confusion over marriage’s definition will encourage people in society to take their own marriage vows in the future even more lightly than they do now under the no-fault divorce laws. It will also lead to a constant persecution campaign by gay activists and their liberal friends against anybody who publicly stands up for traditional heterosexual monogamous marriage. We must reject Gay “marriage” as just one more part of our society’s slide into the sewer.