Posted on 07/14/2015 7:41:08 AM PDT by Gamecock
Both before and after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, some Christians argued that allowing same-sex couples to marry is not inconsistent with traditional Christian teaching on marriage.
At the heart of these arguments is the assertion that same-sex relationships are, to borrow a phrase from gay writer Andrew Sullivan, “virtually normal.” That is, same-sex relationships are, with one very obvious exception, not all that different from traditional marriages. Thus, just as the Supreme Court held that similarly-situated couples should be treated equally under law, similarly-situated couples should be treated equally in our churches.
The problem is that same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples are not nearly as alike as those making these arguments would have us believe.
This reality was amply demonstrated in a recent broadcast of “Weekend All Things Considered.” Host Arun Rath spoke to J. Bryan Lowder of Slate, who worried about the impact of the Court’s decision on gay culture.
By “gay culture,” Lowder wasn’t talking about a particular fashion sense and a fondness for Judy Garland. What he had in mind was the ability to “imagine different ways of being in romantic relationships and loving.” For some gays and lesbians, this “meant monogamous relationships that looked exactly like a married couple . . . [without] the legal imprimatur of the state. But for other people, they had many different kinds of arrangements.” Emphasis on many.
Lowder was concerned about losing “some of that imagination that the gay community has had in the past to think about how to live in different ways and . . . offer a critique to straight culture of how we can arrange our romantic lives.”
In other words, LGBT folks are just like straight folks except when they’re not. They want to be married like everyone else, except when they don’t want to be. They want to embrace bourgeois domesticity, except when they don’t and, instead, prefer to use their imagination, as he put it.
Lowder is hardly an outlier. Last year, in a Daily Beast article provocatively entitled “Were Christians Right About Gay Marriage All Along?” gay activist Jay Michaelson acknowledged that there “is some truth to the conservative claim that gay marriage is changing, not just expanding, marriage.”
Michaelson cited a 2013 study finding that “about half of gay marriages surveyed . . . [are] not strictly monogamous.” He called this fact “well-known in the gay community,” adding that “we assume it’s more like three-quarters” that are not monogamous. They are, to cite a now-popular phrase, “monagam-ish.”
Michaelson admitted that his straight friends who believed that they “were fighting for marriage equality, not marriage redefinition,” felt “duped.” But he was unapologetic. In his words, “actual monogamy has never been an actual norm,” as opposed to an ideal.
Michaelson seems to think that because some men have been unfaithful, monogamy should not be an expectation of marriage. The vast majority of women, by the way, would undoubtedly disagree.
This brings to mind an exchange between Andrew Sullivan and conservative columnist Mona Charen more than 20 years ago. In response to Sullivan’s claim that marriage would domesticate gay men’s sex drives, Charen replied that marriage doesn’t domesticate men, women do.
This, my friends, is sexual complementarity in a pithy nutshell. The sexes are different, and each promises the other something different that will contribute to their union and the wellbeing of their offspring.
Frankly, Christians who support same-sex marriage have been had. The question is: Now that they know what’s really going on, will they change their minds?
BreakPoint is a Christian worldview ministry that seeks to build and resource a movement of Christians committed to living and defending Christian worldview in all areas of life. Begun by Chuck Colson in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today’s news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print. Today BreakPoint commentaries, co-hosted by Eric Metaxas and John Stonestreet, air daily on more than 1,200 outlets with an estimated weekly listening audience of eight million people. Feel free to contact us at BreakPoint.org where you can read and search answers to common questions.
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No they walked into it with their eyes opened...
and are they Christians ???
are they not enemies of a Righteous God ???
No,they just weren’t Christians.
They were “useful idiots” to use the Soviet term.
The Supreme Court has declared as law the absolute identical nature of men and women.
Insanity, codified and enforced under the barrel of a gun.
I don’t recall who it was, or I would ping them here, but someone astutely observed on a recent similar thread: There were no Christians pushing deviant marriage.
No, they weren’t “duped.” If they knew the Word of God and/or their leaders had been good shepherds the “Christians” would not have backed gay “marriage.” They should have KNOWN it was an abomination and a sin if they were real Christians.
no they’re just idiots. All of them what go to church and never spoke up only helped the homosexuals to take away the religious freedoms of others. I hope they’re proud of themselves.
The Stupid can’t help being Stupid
Oh, yeah. Duped. Rhymes with stupid.
There was an article posted a while back about how some Homosexuals were annoyed at the notion that once same sex marriage was declared a Constitutional right, they’d have to “deal” with all the “When are you getting married?” questions from heterosexual friends and family.
No. They knew what they were doing.
Duped? Now why would Satan want to dupe anybody....
Bad teaching=bad filters as to what is going on in the world.
But there are plenty of FReepers who defend this and other "pastors" and accuse those of us calling someone a wolf in sheep's clothing unchristian.
Not making excuses, just saying.
See #14
DING DING DING! We have a winner.
No. Long before anyone ever thought that homosexual marriage was a real possibility, homosexual rights and other “social justice” concerns were firmly in place in many liberal seminaries and churches. I don’t believe most church people who advocated for homosexual marriage are the least bit concerned that it is not just like traditional marriage, or that they were unaware of the variety of homosexual couplings. Their point was to throw out traditional Christian morality, which they consider to be oppressive and unjust.
True , but so like many institutions the left has infiltrated.
Michaelson admitted that his straight friends who believed that they “were fighting for marriage equality, not marriage redefinition,” felt “duped.” But he was unapologetic. In his words, “actual monogamy has never been an actual norm,” as opposed to an ideal. Michaelson seems to think that because some men have been unfaithful, monogamy should not be an expectation of marriage. The vast majority of women, by the way, would undoubtedly disagree.
This brings to mind an exchange between Andrew Sullivan and conservative columnist Mona Charen more than 20 years ago. In response to Sullivan’s claim that marriage would domesticate gay men’s sex drives, Charen replied that marriage doesn’t domesticate men, women do. This, my friends, is sexual complementarity in a pithy nutshell. The sexes are different, and each promises the other something different that will contribute to their union and the wellbeing of their offspring.
We learned on the thread I’m a senior GOP spokesman, and I’m gay. Let me get married that (at least in the state of Georgia) roughly 2% of the population are practicing homosexuals, and that three-quarters of that group do not live with their sexual partners. Of the remaining one-quarter of that 2% homosexual population - or 0.5% of the entire population - half have no intention or desire to make a covenantal commitment to their live-in homosexual partner, even if same-sex marriage were legalized.
To summarize, only 0.25% of a state's population are practicing homosexuals who have any intention of entering into a state-recognized marriage if the practice were legalized, if Georgia serves as a reliable example.
I was on the LCMS FB page after the court decision and there were a lot of complaints on there. Apparently that’s what everyone wants these days. Vapid Joel Osteen-style “preaching.”
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