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Dear Lawrence:

In the eyes of our notion of God, there is no question.

The question lies as to whether we want to impose our views of acceptable sexual behavior on other people for fear of having it come back at us when those in power do not share our views on something else.

Yours,

kl

There is a huge legitimate state interest in limiting marriage to only between men and women. It�s called the family. One of the private messages I received this morning contained the following link. I only read it once but I think it is an excellent secular argument for traditional marriage. See: What Marriage Is For. [weeklystandard.com] I�ve provided two excerpts that I think are important:

"Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage. Children in single-parent families, children born to unmarried mothers, and children in stepfamilies or cohabiting relationships face higher risks of poor outcomes. . . . There is thus value for children in promoting strong, stable marriages between biological parents."
�
�THE PROBLEM with endorsing gay marriage is not that it would allow a handful of people to choose alternative family forms, but that it would require society at large to gut marriage of its central presumptions about family in order to accommodate a few adults' desires. �

There is an incredible amount of well-researched information on how homosexual and other deviant behaviors negatively impact the family. The problem is that no one wishes to acknowledge it because if they do they will have to do something about it.

I agree. Unfortunately there are many who reject any and all religiously based foundations of morality and seek to replace them with the foundations of personal choice. Homosexual marriage is all about replacing what is good for society as a whole with what personal choice and selfishness.

KL,

The issue here is not whether to legislate morality, but whose morality to legislate and when. The nations ban on polygamy, or kiddie porn, are examples of the government legislating morality. There is a difference between "freedom from religion" and legislators using traditional natural law principles to guide their decisions on what are valid public policy concerns. One valid pp concern is a well ordered state. One can argue that natural law principles (a valid politico-philosophical perspective) as they are traditionally understood tells us that part of a well-ordered state is keeping marriage to a man and a woman because that is what is proper, and not necessarily something more.

Another example would be to look to much of modern contract law. Much of modern K law, as found in the most recent Restatement, especially sec. 90, is not very efficient as compared with more traditional common law K principles. But what is driving this shift in K law, is judges saying that it is not right to lead a person on, it is just to look at all the circumstances of the formation of the K or its breach. It is not more economically efficient in many cases, but it is right to a person of Judeo-Christian upbringing and traditional Western natural law theory. To some sections of the society, it may not be the right thing to do, but this is what the legislature wants to do.

If there were a large fundamentalist Islamic population in the society who wanted to lobby for a system of permitted 'honor killings' in the U.S., many in the country would force a ban on it. Is that legislating theology, or is it following Western natural law principles regarding the nature of the human person, specifically a woman?

The idea that the First Amend. is tantamount to state-sponsored atheism is just not founded. The First Amend. doesn't mean that any recourse to God is impermissible in the legislative process or public discourse on a legal issue. Then again, this is another issue.

Please forgive my long-windedness.

Justin

Dear Admin:

If the current White House came out and reitterated the reasons in your post as to why it was opposed to gay marriage, that would be, in my humble view, a more than acceptable case to take the American people.

Problem is, that's not what we're hearing.

Yours,

kl

I would submit that the position you argue is untenable. As Christians we must always witness the truth to society. Sitting back because we are afraid that someone may disagree and attempt to limit our freedom is not an option. Our freedom comes from God, not from the State. Should there ever come a time when we are forced to do something against the Christian Faith we must object and even die for our beliefs.

Would you suggest that we not influence society to retain laws against adult-child sex? Polygamy? Group marriages? There are those who are actively working to remove the current prohibitions against each of these forms of deviant behavior and who consider us to be shoving our Christian morality down their throats because we object to their legalization.

Would you suggest that we drop all efforts to convince the state to prohibit abortion? How about assisted suicide? There are those who consider us to be shoving our Christian morality down their throats because we oppose these things. We have Congressmen who will not longer support a Catholic who is nominated for a judicial appointment because the Catholic might actually be Pro-Life.

If you are arguing that Christians have no right to seek to convince society to follow Christian morality than what standard do you recommend for society?

Dear Justin:

Your point about contract law specifically and commerical law in general is very well taken.

Of course, there is a HUGE state interest in regulating commerical transactions among people and indeed the Judeo-Christian tradition just happens to be in line with such a state interest.

As for the 1st Amendment, I respectfully submit that you over-state my argument when you suggest that I say that it provides for state-sponsored atheism.

The President's message about federal assistance to charitable faith-based organizations is, IMHO, a very fine example of where church and state can cooperate without violating the Consitution.

I also, for the record, do believe that there are perfectly valid reasons to lesislate against homosexual "marriage."

I just wish that the White House would use these reasons other than a vague citation to Christian scripture for public policy regulation.

What if weever get a President who happens to be Muslim and starts making public policy based upon the Quor'an. How would we like that?

Yours,

kl

I agree. The White House needs to make a better case. We Christians also need to be more vocal about these issues.

With regards to a Muslim president legislating Shari'a (sp?), my problem would not be with him seeking to change the law to fit his religious views, so long as it did not expressly violate the const. For the pres to do such would require the co-operation of the legislature and probably the courts. I doubt that would happen any time soon. If it did, well, we would not be living in the same country and so I'm not sure that any of this would apply anymore.

In the current situation, the Pres. is stating a conviction that is held by a large portion of the society, in fact most statistics I've seen would say a large majority. In addition, it is based on a venerable tradition in this country and throughout Western Civ. I have no problem seeking to enforce this law, even if Bush has purely religious motives. I have (some) faith in const. safeguards to keep him from going too far or acting unilaterally.

Justin

I do agree that to make the case stick, much better arguments need to be made. I just don't see the problem with him trying to do so on what can be called strictly natural law principles (his use of biblical language doesn't help him, and I know I'm imposing natural law on him, but I think that's what he ultimately means, he's just not the most precise or eloquent speaker).

If polls are to be believed (and really now, who doesn't? :rolleyes: ), then a large portion of American society is in favor of fairly substantial restrictions on abortion. However, even when laws restricting the unbridled free access to abortion even to the moment of birth are actually passed, they are inevitably struck down by the state courts (and in one case, by the Supreme Court). So how is the majority opinion of society actually being implemented in law? It isn't.

Right! :rolleyes:
As the quote makes clear in the first paragraph, society at large has already gutted marriage of its central presumptions about family. Or to put it better, the putative central presumptions are, in actuality, no longer held honestly, i.e., beyond platitude.

What proscriptions are being advanced against divorce, adultery, illegitimacy - which are huge threats against the family interest? No, we prefer instead to dwell on the mote of homosexual behavior rather than the logjam of heterosexual misbehaviors. The manifest hypocrisy of heterosexuals - so indulgent toward their own sexual sins as compared to those of others - is probably the most powerful force that advances the "homosexual agenda".

Thank you, Theist Gal and Logos Teen.

djs:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

The real problem, it seems to me, is that the culture at large no longer defines marriage as a two-in-one flesh communion that is consummated and actualized by sexual acts of a reproductive type.

We instead tend to define it as a contractual relationship based on some fairly fuzzy notions of love, mutual advantage, mutual respect, and -- above all -- mutual pleasure.

Under this definition, not only should we expect adultery and divorce to be common -- "if I'm not getting what I signed up for, I'll get it somewhere else" -- but we should also not be surprised that there are many people who believe marriage can and should be redefined to include unions of two men, two women, a man and his dog, a mother and her son, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Quite frankly, if the dominant social and cultural idea of marriage is that it is a "relationship" of love and mutual advantage, I don't see how one could exclude any combination of human beings from participating in the institution.

In Christ,
Theophilos

There may be people who advocate the redefinition of marriage to include man-dog, mother-son, NAMBLA guy-little boy, grandmother-lamppost, etc. "unions" -- but a dog cannot legally consent to such a thing, nor can a minor child, nor can an inanimate object, so comparing these hypothetical horror stories to what consenting adults would like to do is patently ridiculous. Please, at least keep the discussion in the bounds of rational discourse.

While what you say is true Lemko, there is a move going on now to lower the age of consent to 12.

There by redefineing what a "minor" child is.

So, while the arguement against inanimate objects and animals works, the other does not.


David