SAME-SEX MARRIAGE (SSM) AND ITS BIBLICAL “SUPPORT”

In a New York Times editorial, Push Within Religions for Gay Marriage Gets Little Attention, Samuel Freedman cites several who attempt to biblically defend SSM.

• “Dignity, the high value of each individual person, their immeasurable value, their sacred value, is in its roots a Christian value,” said the Rev. David P. Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University in Macon, Ga. “Dignity language is a widely used cognate for the idea that every person is made in God’s image and is sacred for that reason."

Does the fact that we all have an inherent dignity and worth, having been created in the image of God, justify SSM? If it does, then this image can also be appealed to to justify any number of behaviors and institutions like adultery, pedophilia, polyamory, incest, bestiality and even murder. Instead, it is because we have inherent dignity that we shouldn't defile it by sinning.

While bearing the image of God dignifies all human beings, it certainly does not dignify all behaviors.

Freedman then cites Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig's argumentation in support of SSM:

• "Religious arguments in support of marriage equality matter because religious arguments have long been used against not only marriage equality but also against gay people’s very right to love and even to live.”

If gays have a right to marry, from where does it come. Certainly not from God! There is not a single verse in the Bible or in the writings of any major religion giving even the slightest support for SSM.

While a nation may grant SSM - and some Western nations have done so - this doesn't address the issue of whether gays have an intrinsic right to SSM or whether nations have a moral obligation to legally provide SSM.

Can SSM be justified pragmatically? Certainly not in terms of the welfare of children! Countless studies have demonstrated that children fare best with two biological parents.

Besides, in view of the high incidence of STDs, substance abuse, mental health issues, suicide, and greatly abbreviated lifespans among gays, pragmatism should argue against gay adoption and even SSM.

Wenig mentions, "gay people’s very right to love" who they want. Should society stand in judgment over this by regulating our relationships? Perhaps not, but this is not the issue. Even before the Supreme Court decision, gays could freely affiliate with whomever.

Instead, SSM is about coercing the nation to endorse the gay lifestyle and is not about who they can live with. Instead, SSM has been about:

1. Training children that this highly destructive lifestyle is a reasonable option.

2. Penalizing any who disagree, even to the point of losing their business, employment or even their freedom if they refuse to pay highly exorbitant fines.

3. Undermining First Amendment guaranteed rights.

4. Placing children in jeopardy.

Freedman then cites a Dr. Hendricks:

• "The virulent opposition [against SSM] can’t be sustained by an informed reading of the [biblical] text,” said Dr. Hendricks, who is now a visiting scholar in the religion department at Columbia University. “The opposition to homosexuality has a basis in culture that’s masquerading as religion. The textual evidence is ambiguous, at best. So the role of Bible scholars who support marriage equality is to show that there’s no biblical reason to oppress gay people. They are children of God.”

It is not a matter of "oppressing gay people," as this inflammatory language claims. Rather, it's a matter of legalizing a lifestyle and an institution that has repeatedly been shown to be highly self-destructive.

More importantly, is the biblical text "ambiguous" in regards to homosexuality? Hardly! Kevin DeYoung has written:

• Even many revisionist scholars acknowledge that the Bible is uniformly negative toward same-sex activity. The gay Dutch scholar Pim Pronk, after admitting that many Christians are eager to see homosexuality supported by the Bible, states plainly, “In this case that support is lacking.”[2] Although he doesn’t think moral positions must be dependent on the Bible (which is why he can support homosexual behavior), as a scholar he recognizes that “wherever homosexual intercourse is mentioned in Scripture, it is condemned. … Rejection is a foregone conclusion; the assessment of it nowhere constitutes a problem.”[3] Pronk recognizes that wherever the Bible speaks on this issue, it speaks with one voice. Likewise, Dan O. Via, in arguing for the revisionist view opposite Robert Gagnon, acknowledges, “Professor Gagnon and I are in substantial agreement that the biblical texts that deal specifically with homosexual practice condemn it unconditionally.”[4] No positive argument for homosexuality can be made from the Bible, only arguments that texts don’t mean what they seem to mean, and that specific texts can be overridden by other considerations.

If the Bible had been ambiguous on the subject of homosexuality, these pro-gay scholars would have also claimed that the Bible is ambiguous, but honesty prevented them from resorting to such an unsupportable argument.