April 05, 2005

God Loves Gays

by Phil Martin in , at 10:11am

UPDATE: Welcome to readers of Christian Carnival LXIV. This is our first appearance at the Christian Carnival and we’re pleased to be here.

Blasphemy or God’s own truth? With the debate on homosexual marriage raging and Congress furiously debating (and not working, I might add; who can work with all that shouting?) I thought it time to look again at a fundamental element of civilization from God’s own stand point, and what it means to you and the America in which we live.

To qualify, several verses from our Ultimate Authority here on Earth, the Bible…

The Old Testament….

  • Leviticus 18:22 Do not practice homosexuality; it is a detestable sin. (NLT)
  • Leviticus 18:24 Do not defile yourselves by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am casting out before you defiled themselves… (RSV)
  • Leviticus 20:13 The penalty for homosexual acts is death to both parties. They have committed a detestable act and are guilty of a capital offense. (NLT)
  • Leviticus 20:23 And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation which I am casting out before you; for they did all these things, and therefore I abhorred them. (RSV)

The New Testament….

Romans 1:24-28,32 “So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever. Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relationships with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men and, as a result, suffered within themselves the penalty they so richly deserved. When they refused to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do things that should never be done. They are fully aware of God’s death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway. And, worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.” (NLT)

Several things are at work here and all affect the Christian’s stand on homosexuality, what should be done about it, and what the government should decide. First, the Christian’s stand should be based on God’s stand, which, as seen from the above verses, is this:

  1. Homosexuality is wrong, unnatural, and not to be practiced; and
  2. The penalty for engaging in homosexuality is death. The New Testament does not alter these statements, it adds to and clarifies them:
  3. God, knowing that mankind is determined to be perverse, lets them be so to the fullest they desire; and
  4. They still will pay the penalty for their actions, both now (in the physical sense, via AIDS and other diseases all sexually promiscuous people encounter) and later (on Judgment Day).

So our stand is to condemn the practice of homosexuality, but to accept the practitioners of homosexuality. This is where Biblical tolerance comes in, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Many times Jesus forgave sin when He had every right to condemn, but because He loved the person, he did not. Once, the religious leaders of Jesus’ day brought before Him a woman caught committing adultery (John 8:1-11), and asked Him to pass judgment. Instead of responding, He scribbled in the sand. When pressed, He said, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone [punish] her.” One by one, her accusers left. When asked if anyone condemned her, she said no. Then Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go, and sin no more.” Jesus did not overlook her sin, did not deny it, but He also did not condemn her because of it. If anyone had the right, authority or reason, it was Jesus, God in flesh, but He did not exercise it. Why? He did not come to earth to condemn, but to save. (John 3:17) We (Christians) are told to imitate Christ; we are also told not to judge. In this way we are to accept others no matter their sin or lifestyle, and help them to “Sin no more.”

What is the American Christian’s role in the debate? Before governmental policy is made, it must be decided on the personal level. I believe that Christians, whether in America or elsewhere, should, as Christ said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Unconditional, no-matter-what-you-believe or how-you-choose-to-live, love. We accept and care for homosexuals just as we would care for someone who is down on their luck, struggling spiritually or emotionally. We meet their needs and ask for nothing in return. I’ve personally seen people given the cold shoulder by church members because of a style of dress, or a habit (smoking and the like), and homosexuals are almost always thought of with revulsion and contempt. This should not be. They are people like us, loved by God. Obviously, if we love someone, we don’t like to watch them indulge in an action we know to be wrong and injurious. As caring friends, I believe we can encourage gays to seek a more God-honoring relationship, and face them with the real physical dangers that exist with their choice. But at no point should we “preach” at them; this more often leads to animosity and an ending to the relationship. In all things, love and acceptance need to be paramount.

With this in mind, should we support a law against gay marriage? I say no. God condemns homosexuality and promises consequences, but allows the practice to continue. The government exists to facilitate our freedoms (primarily to live, make contracts, and own property). A law against same-sex unions would restrict the liberty of some to make marriage-contracts that would be mutually beneficial. Married heterosexuals enjoy many things that unmarried homosexuals do not, such as tax and insurance benefits. Under Virginia law (it may be different in your state), married couples can file joint income tax returns, and doing so may save money; gay couples do not have this available. Both spouses in a marriage-contract often can be insured by the same existing auto insurance policy, and rates usually change (for the better). These benefits and more are guaranteed by Virginia law for traditional marriages, but are unavailable to gay couples. Same-sex marriages would give all citizens equal benefits. If a man and a woman are allowed to enter into a marriage contract, a man and a man should be allowed the same freedom.

Essentially, this debate is not over marriage laws. It exists in two domains, the political and the theological. Within politics, the issue to be decided is whether or not rights exist for groups of people or for the whole of America. As Americans, no one group of people (not black, Christian, or homosexual) should have special rights. If a right exists for one it must exist for all, just as everyone must abide by the same laws. The theological issue centers around the choice of the individual in following God’s laws or their own desires. Man has a free will and can decide for himself what to do and how to live. No governmental law, amendment, or policy should interfere.

From an evangelical point of view, one tends to see this as allowing or encouraging sinful practices to continue. But the only way to stop these practices is to reform the heart. From a Constitutional point of view, this has nothing to do with morality, but with guaranteeing liberty to American citizens.

So, fellow Theocrats and other Interested Readers….that’s one argument.

I would be remiss, however, if I failed to mention a few other things. If you would permit me…

While I do believe that gays deserve the same freedoms that I enjoy, I also believe that legalizing gay marriage could have repercussions that we might not imagine. Megan McArdle discussed this very issue just a few days ago.

Furthermore, is marriage even a right? God has ordained it; at present the government protects it, but is it an undeniable right? That is a question I have not considered very deeply, but James Rummel (of the Chicago Boyz) caused me to notice.

In a debate that is as loaded as a .44 Magnum, there are many points of view, and many angles. Being the high school senior that I am, I would not dare to claim to have the premier view. That’s not saying that because I am in high school, I am ignorant, just that for many years many people have been studying this exclusively, and know a great deal more about this issue than I. Thus, this article states what I believe to be key points. I only pray that when Congress and the American people finally make a decision about homosexual marriage, they do so having first explored all facets of the issue.

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5 Responses to “God Loves Gays”

  1. Amadeus Says:
    April 5th, 2005 at 2:13 pm

    You mention the financial consequences to homosexuals of giving special benefits to married (heterosexual) couples. There is a good example of this in the Detroit News today. Columnist Deb Price (who is a homosexual) writes about the financial discrimination that she and her partner, Joyce, experience.

  2. Byron Says:
    April 6th, 2005 at 11:16 am

    Found ya thru the Carnival, and as a Christian with strong libertarian tendencies myself, thought I’d hop on over, particularly since your subject interests me. LOVE your first five paragraphs or so! And then VEHEMENTLY disagree with your conclusion re gay marriage, so let’s have a little fun with it…

    Here are my disagreements:

    1. Your argument gives away the store to the homosexual lobby, argues the issue on their terms, assuming that “rights” are being denied. This is demonstrably not the case. No one’s liberty is restricted; we all have, and have always had, equal status before the law. This is not a “rights issue”. Every person has the right to be married. Period.

    2. Your argument is reductionary as to the benefits of marriage. It dismisses any issues of societal stability that might accrue from our standard definition of marriage. Further, it emphasizes the legal benefits of marriage, which are foreign to a Christian understanding of the nature of the institution. If we wish to extend to homosexuals who live together certain rights–and by the way, it bothers me not at all for, for instance, a homosexual man to be allowed certain say in medical decisions regarding his…buddy…if this is their mutual wish. Must we go to the radical step of calling their living arrangement “marriage” in order to achieve this? Of course not.

    3. You give no reasoning other than the legal behind your statement that “if a man and a woman are allowed to enter into a marriage contract, a man and a man should be allowed the same freedom.” This is a bald assertion that doesn’t take into account the accumulated millennia of human history, the teaching of every major religion, etc. Granting that there have been short periods of time in certain societies wherein other forms have been available, it remains the fact that “one man, one woman” has been the accepted standard. Rule of life: “before you go knocking down a fence, you should ascertain why the fence was put there in the first place.” We’re rushing to knock down a fence without thinking this through at all, aided by a homosexual lobby and a sympathetic press that frames it as an equal rights issue.

    4. “As Americans, no one group of people (not black, Christian, or homosexual) should have special rights.” I couldn’t agree more–which is why I am adamantly opposed to “gay marriage”, in that it gives to a class of people, whose central characteristic is a chosen lifestyle, the special right to redefine marriage in a way that it has never been defined in American history. I believe in equal rights, not special rights for homosexuals.

    5. “Man has a free will and can decide for himself what to do and how to live. No governmental law, amendment, or policy should interfere.” Ditto my agreement. But that is not the issue here, of course…behavior isn’t being coerced one way or the other; rather, the issue is that homosexuals want the legal imprimatur of the state upon their proclivities. Their demand is that this aberrant lifestyle be given, not only social approval, but the stamp of government approval. You’ve made a logical leap.

    6. Not having read the article you mention—and I’ll try to—I’d suggest that there is a very real slippery slope here, and maybe the article mentions it. Why not two men and one woman? Why not group marriage, six men and eleven women? Why not, once we abandon the definition of marriage? Why not just have free-form, whatever-the-heck-you-want-to-make-it definitions of marriage? Of course, at that point, marriage becomes meaningless. And what are the economic consequences of all of this?

    Finally, your being a high school senior makes me commend you for your study and your willingness to tackle this issue!!! At the same time, I’d encourage you to think deeply about these issues—and I promise you, thinking deeply is the exact opposite of what will happen if we accept the assertions of the dominant public media at face value. Not only is the media—and the gay lobby, of course—biased in a liberal direction, the media is biased against people thinking very deeply as well.

  3. Res Ipsa Says:
    April 6th, 2005 at 9:50 pm

    1. “The government exists to facilitate our freedoms (primarily to live, make contracts, and own property).” You seem to have strayed from the traditional “life liberty & property” formulation, and added “contracts.” Here’s a simple question? What is our experience teaches us that the government primarily exist to facilitate our contracts? Most of the time, the government doesn’t facilitate a contract at all. A contract is simply an agreement between two people. When you buy a candy bar at the store, you entered into a contract, but the government didn’t facilitate it.

    2. “A law against same-sex unions would restrict the liberty of some to make marriage-contracts that would be mutually beneficial.” So what? A law regulating the conditions of divorce restricts the liberty of people to dissolve marriages as they please. Anti-trust laws restrict the liberty of companies from colluding with one another to fix prices and exploit the public, which is certainly a contract that would be “mutually beneficial” to them. The issue is whether the people believe that same-sex unions are beneficial.

    3. “If a man and a woman are allowed to enter into a marriage contract, a man and a man should be allowed the same freedom.” Unfortunately, this begs the very question at issue.

    4. “If a right exists for one it must exist for all, just as everyone must abide by the same laws. ” But the homosexual has precisely the same right as everyone else; he can marry a woman, just like I can. And I am prohibited from marrying a man, just like he is. He and I are therefore equals. We abide by the same laws, just like your principle suggests. Claiming that this is unjust for a homosexual would be akin to saying that a man who wants to buy cuban cigars is being unjustly treated because he is prohibited from buying them in the United States, even though he can buy many other sorts of cigars that are lawful here, just like everyone else. The fact that he prefers cuban cigars does not mean he is being unfairly treated. He has to adjust his values to the laws that the people have put in effect, laws that reflect their collective values and goals.

  4. Jeremy Pierce Says:
    April 8th, 2005 at 9:49 pm

    On the issue of same rights, one of the things most conservatives ignore is that laws against gay marriage do mean some people don’t have the same rights as others. All men have the same rights, i.e. to marry women. Likewise, women can marry men. But men don’t have the same rights women have, and women don’t have the rights men have. Some states have constitutions that guarantee such a thing shouldn’t happen. California, for instance, does. So prohibiting gay marriage should be unconsitutional there unless you also prohibit heterosexual marriage.

  5. Byron Says:
    April 10th, 2005 at 2:13 pm

    No, no sale. The issue is not one of rights. To say, “all men have the same rights” but that men “don’t have the same rights women have” is to miss the point. They all have an equal right to MARRY; every person does. Marriage is, by definition, about a one-man, one-woman relationship. Further, it’s more restrictive even than that; there are many, many women that a man cannot marry (already-married women; blood relatives; etc.). Men who are themselves married, under your reasoning, have “unequal rights” from unmarried men, in that I cannot marry any other woman. To look at this from your perspective just stands, it seems to me, reason on its head.

    And frankly, I wouldn’t base ANYTHING on the way California does things (anytime they want to secede from the Union, I bet you’d get a lot of people willing to do along!).

    The point is that you’ve begged the question by establishing an entity that does NOT exist (“gay marriage”) and then suggested that this non-existent entity should not be prohibited. No sale. This is in no way, shape, or form an “equal rights” issue.