My main issues with this article can be self explained by the following statements pulled directly from the article itself. There were so many more things I wanted to respond to, but these were my initial reactions:
“ Sandusky is accused of molesting numerous young boys during and after his tenure at Penn State. However, try placing the label “homosexual” on his activities and the backlash will be swift and unequivocal.“
- There are far more pedophiles who are heterosexual in their pedophilic expression, yet we don’t label their point of perversion in the heterosexual nature of their crime, but rather in the pedophilic nature of it. Pedophilia is pedophilia, regardless of the hetero/homo aspect of the expression.
“or those who once were practicing homosexuals but have since come out of the lifestyle”
- Woah! there’s a big difference between a homosexual “lifestyle” and a gay orientation. First of all, what is a homosexual lifestyle? I wake up every morning and gay brush my teeth before I gay eat breakfast and gay pray after I gay read my bible and then gay go to work?! I also gay pursue gay celibacy before gay marriage feeling called to the same standard of purity that all of my not-gay Christian brothers and sisters are called to. I’m not gay because of what I do, I’m simply gay in that I’m attracted exclusively to members of the same sex. I could enter into a mixed orientation marriage and my participation in heterosexual sex wouldn’t make me not-gay.
” …disconnect between same-sex “marriage” and anti-miscegenation laws … Miscegenation literally means “the interbreeding of people considered to be of different racial types.” Ironically, the fact that homosexuals cannot “interbreed” shines a spotlight on the problem inherent in their logic.“
- This is hardly about the ability to breed. I’m pretty sure anti-miscegenation laws of the past would’ve forbidden two barren individuals of different races from being married and having sexual relations as well.
“The very definition of marriage eliminates the possibility of including same-sex couples. The word marriage has a long and well-recorded history; it means “the union of a man and a woman.” “
- do your history research. Marriage has been redefined again and again throughout history. At one point in time, women were essentially property to be exchanged for other valuable items … only recently, as in within the past century, have we ever had the understanding of marriage that we have today
“People who are already married, 12-year-olds, and people who are too closely related are just a few categories of people routinely and/or categorically denied the right to marry.”
- and what does this have to do with two consenting adults of the same sex desiring the right to marriage and equal treatment under the law? We’re discussing two fundamentally different things.
“One thing that seems to escape most people in this debate is the fact that homosexuals have never been denied the right to marry. ”
- Foul! This completely disregards the fact that not all people have straight orientations and callously imposes a heterosexual requirement for all people desiring equal rights. Flip your world and imagine if you could only achieve equal rights and societal recognition through marriage with people of the same sex as yourself. That is essentially what you’re demanding of people who are gay to do in order to have the same rights and recognition.
“what’s to stop the “bisexual” from fighting for the ability to marry a man and a woman simultaneously since his “orientation” is, by definition, directed toward both sexes?”
- This is laughable and demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what it is to be bisexual. For a bisexual person to marry both a man and a woman simultaneously, they would enter into a situation much like polygamy. Bisexual people are only unique in that they can be attracted to either sex and so pursue marriage with either a man or woman. Just because a straight man is attracted to more than one woman doesn’t give him the right to marry multiple women simultaneously.
As I blog-surfed today, I stumbled across this statement:
“For the biblical writers, marriage is a living picture of the gospel—a portrait of God’s faithfulness toward his covenant people.
So imagine what happens when we mess with the metaphor. Marriage between two men signifies two god-figures—a picture of polytheism, the absolute antithesis of the Christian faith (Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 44:6-8). On the other hand, marriage between two women signifies two sets of people and leaves out the Savior entirely, making the metaphor nothing more than an emblem of atheism. There’s no gospel to be found in either metaphor. In both cases, an important and necessary part of the redemption story is missing: either God or his people. The metaphor only works with one man and one woman—and the metaphor matters. “
- Bryan Magana
What I find somewhat frustrating is that in my humble opinion (and feel free to correct me) this is a horribly skewed way to approach scripture. Yet I hear this type of thinking frequently! It just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. I think we have to be so very careful when we consider the practical applications of biblical metaphors. A metaphor is essentially an illustration pulled from the existing culture to explain a concept right? However, a metaphor is never meant to be taken to say more than it actually does. Okay, so we get that the bible compares God to a husband and the church as his bride. It simply pulls an example from life (in that day and age) to explain a concept in a way that we can better understand. Done. We get it. However, if you take this author’s type of thinking and extend the marriage metaphor into other walks of life we see that it would fall flat! What about the single person who never gets married… is that then a God without a people or a people without a God? We could take this similar line of thinking and biblically advocate practices like polygamy – after all, it would illustrate one God with multiple peoples. I guess all I’m saying is that it is imperative that we be careful when extending a scriptural analogy and then make moral statements from that place.
I’d love to hear any thoughts you might have - corrective or additive.
“…The panelists were sober-minded about the future. One of them suggested that if the cultural battle is lost on the nature and meaning of marriage then there will never be complete a cave-in in this country. Twenty percent of the people will always oppose same sex marriage, and many will go to prison.” - There is No Demilitarized Zone in the Issue of Homosexuality by John Piper
Seriously??!! How many people have you ever met in our modern society who have strong bigoted feelings against interracial marriages and/or perpetrate offensive racial stereotypes? Are they imprisoned for such things or do we as a nation stand by their right to their own beliefs and freedom of speech? Come on! All Westboro Baptist congregants would be behind bars were such the case. Please, don’t use this type of fear inspiring over-dramatism to push for political inequality that doesn’t respect the values and rights of individuals living in a pluralistic society.
