In the U.S. elections yesterday, a number of state level provisions were about marriage - specifically, can gay & lesbian people get married.  Voters in Arizona, California and Floridasupported constitutional amendments recognizing marriage as a union between one man and one woman, thereby excluding gay & lesbian people from civil marriage.  Fifty-seven percent of voters in Arkansas supported a measure to prohibit unmarried sexual partners from adopting children or from serving as foster parents. The measure specifies that the prohibition applies to opposite-sex as well as same-sex couples.

It is an understatement to say that America continues to grapple with this.  It is especially the case in churchianity, where for most of the last 40 years, faithful gay & lesbian people have been scapegoated, blamed for all manner of current & future destruction.  It is a sad, sad statement that in each of the states that voted on marriage issues yesterday, the reources to bar gay & lesbian people from civil marriage came almost exclusively from organizations who are faith-related.

Our modern construct of "traditional Christian marraige" and "family values" - well, it may raise funds and even motivate voters out of some sense of nostalgia or fear - but this construct is just not Christian.  Take a long look at Scripture, when marriage is discussed - then look around and wonder what is meant by Scriptural arguemnets for marriage as we now know.  Then take a long look at the history of Jesus followers and marriage.  From the early Christian era, marriage was thought of as primarily a private matter, with no religious or other ceremony being required.

Please do not mistake what I am saying - this is a complex issue, one where I have shifted and changed and adapted my own POV as I have spent more and more time with faithful gay & lesbian people. 

I like being married - have liked it for the past 25 years.  I hate - still hate - being a son of a divorced marriage.  I think marraige is as much of a prism as any other human or divine institution.  I just wish people like me - people who claim to love Jesus and attend churches - would declare marriage a de-militarized zone.

As is so often the case, the genius that is jon birch nails it:

Comments

I can't help on this brother, it's too easy to read a book by God and see what the writer(s) said to walk with you in your confusion. We are all sinners and a lot of us, like you, are nice guys. Abraham didn't ask for the modernist interpretation of the command to take his son to the altar.

[Jacob Vanhorn]

Hey Bob, this is a challenging one for our nation. Rather than discuss its many nuances over a blog, I would love to chat over coffee sometime. Peace brother.