BLOG #20, SERIES #3
WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE
THE EXPLOSIVE MARRIAGE ISSUE
THE SHIFTING “LINE IN THE SAND”
May 16, 2012
Suddenly, thanks to President Obama’s open advocacy of granting gays and lesbians the legal right to marry, not much else is being talked about on the air-waves, relegating even the economy to a back seat. One thing appears glaringly obvious: this year’s election promises to be a defining one, a polarizing one, a stridently divisive one.
Which is both a bad thing and a good thing. Bad in that the rhetoric is going to be ugly; good in that since a showdown on the issue had to come sooner or later, it might as well come now.
I’m prayerfully sharing these personal thoughts, not because I have any illusions that this blog is likely to make much of a difference in our national debate but because I’ve been convicted that I ought to weigh in on the issue.
The issue, simplified, appears to be this:
OUGHT WE TO GRANT GAY AND LESBIAN COUPLES LEGAL RIGHTS?
OUGHT WE TO COMPROMISE BY GRANTING THEM CIVIL UNION STATUS?
OUGHT WE TO ALTER OUR DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE TO THIS?
MARRIAGE IS A SACRED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN, A MAN AND A MAN, OR A WOMAN AND A WOMAN.
In the days, weeks, and months to come, in the midst of a media frenzy, keep in mind the essential simplicity of the issue itself.
Before arriving at any conclusions on the issue, permit me to step back in time with you a little.
Since time immemorial, marriage between a man and a woman has been considered the very bedrock of civilized society. When that template began to crumble (such as in Greco-Roman times), the collapse of those civilizations soon followed.
Christianity, based as it is on the creation of man and woman by God, with God sanctioning the relationship of Adam and Eve as the divinely ordained foundation of the home itself, has never wavered on its commitment to this divinely ordained marriage.
Until now.
The eroding process has been long but steady. Long because it began way back during the Renaissance. The Reformation represented a major course-correction. But it too weakened as secularization gained momentum over the centuries that followed. Rationalism and skepticism joined forces with science to question the validity of the Bible and the principles contained in its pages. Then came Darwinism which ended up challenging creation itself. Not that it should have, however, because change itself ought not to have invalidated God—but the perception that it did accelerated the spiritual erosion. Then came psychology, psychiatry, and sociology, in which their practitioners all too often did their best to discredit the spiritual dimension of men and women, and replace it with a template that did all but push God out of the picture. This development too did not make sense because God created our minds, hearts, and souls to begin with! And the titans of history (individuals such as Moses, Plato, Daniel, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Luther, Galileo, Tolken, C. S. Lewis, Schweitzer, etc.), tower over time because they intertwined in their lives, speech, and writings both the spiritual and the rational dimensions.
In our time, the Woman’s Lib Movement—which was badly needed because of male disenfranchisement and demeaning of women—had dominated society way too long. Sadly, however, not content with righting this imbalance between the sexes, many of the movement’s leaders went on to discredit and demean the male sex. So successful were they that today the male sex it is that is on the ropes, and marriage between a man and a woman is continually disparaged. Who needs it? Today live-in relationships and out-of-wedlock births are threatening to become the new norm. The media (orchestrated by men and women who rarely espouse Judeo-Christian values or attend churches or synagogues) openly trash Christians who dare to speak out about their values. As a result, they have Christianity cowering and on the defensive.
BACK TO THE ISSUE
As I see it, I feel that Christianity comes into the fray with anything but clean hands. For, I’m ashamed to admit that we have tended to over-react on this issue. For if men and women who bear the gay and lesbian label are just as much children of God, and created by God, as we, then they are entitled to our love, friendship, and respect. Since Christ would not have excluded them from His love, why should not we follow His divine example?
But having said this, that does not mean that we should ignominiously turn our backs on the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. If the legal definition of marriage were to be changed to include man and man and woman and woman, the basic foundations of society would collapse. Inheritance would mean nothing. Nor would genealogy. DNA itself validates the man and woman basis for society’s existence. Since men and men and women and women can not procreate they can not possibly be entitled to be married in the sense that men and women can. Otherwise, we’d be forced to come up with a new name for traditional marriage!
But this does not mean we should discredit all those who have chosen the gay and lesbian lifestyle and truly love and care for their partners, who set up households, adopt children, and do their level best to live good lives, to serve their fellow man—as untold thousands now do. They should not be deprived of the right to have their relationships with their cherished significant others recognized and honored by society—which is all of us.
This is why I feel we should recognize their right to be entitled to civil union status. This way they too can hold their heads up high, knowing that we consider each to be a first-class (not second-class) citizen deserving of our love, friendship, and respect.
But I conclude with this caveat: Should we surrender on the core issue (marriage is between a man and a woman), the American home, family, society, and civilization would be doomed. “Marriage” itself would immediately become a meaningless word, and the heretofore sacred marriage ceremony a travesty. There can be no fall-back position. This must be our final line in the sand!
May God continue to bless the United States of America!
—Joseph Leininger Wheeler, Ph.D. (2012)
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Wednesdays with Dr. Joe 