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.

Thinking about Human Dignity

Ultimately, the way we think about humanity is the way we will treat humanity. The late and renowned Swiss theologian, Emil Brunner, affirmed the impactfulness of our worldview:

• The recent terrible years of the world war and of the preceding totalitarian revolutions have shown us that the understanding of man is the basis of all social order and of all culture…The denial of this dignity is equivalent to the total abandonment of man to the power of the state…The totalitarian state can arise, and is bound to arise, whenever the idea of human dignity has been lost. The idea of human dignity, however, is historically and, in principle, none other than the idea of man’s being created in the image of God. (The Scandal of Christianity, 69-71)

Most embrace an idealistic concept of the dignity of humanity and also acknowledge that, without such a concept, humanity is no more than an animal to be manipulated and used. But are there necessary preconditions for such an idealistic and dignified view of humanity? Brunner thought that there were:

• [The] time of idealism has always been followed by one of materialism in which human dignity was denied. Such was the case after the idealist tide of the nineteenth century, which was followed by a terrible ebb of crudest materialism, which had nothing else to say of man but that he was the most differentiated and developed animal.

Sheer secular humanism cannot long retain this idealism. It lacks the necessary presuppositional underpinning and, therefore, belief in human dignity will eventually erode. If the human is no more than a sophisticated bio-chemical robot, eventually he will be treated in this manner. Robots are esteemed as long as they serve a purpose, and then are thrown on the junk heap.

Brunner concludes:

• [The Christian] doctrine of man, which acknowledges the image of God as well as the depth of sin, is able to create a social order which has room for the dignity of man and at the same time provides for the necessary precautions against the terrible forces of evil which are slumbering in man.

These forces seem now to have been revived with renewed “progressive” vigor.

Freethinkers, Materialism and Worldview Confusion

When we reject God, we reject ourselves and our dignity. When we harden our heart and mind against the knowledge and awareness of God, we blind ourselves to life itself! Paul explained it like this:

·        They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts... Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. (Romans 1:25-28)

When we reject God, we have to replace Him with something else as supreme. Some may call their God-substitute the “human spirit,” “the will to power,” or merely “captains of our own ship.” In any event, we have done the very thing that the Bible warned us against - We have “worshiped and served created things [namely ourselves] rather than the Creator.”

As a result, God has given us over to the very thing we wanted - a “depraved mind!”

Let me just offer one example of how we have mentally degraded ourselves and have reaped confusion. Atheists consider themselves “freethinkers.” Meanwhile, by rejecting God and any spiritual reality, they have condemned themselves and have adopted materialism – the belief that everything is merely energy and matter, the stuff of science. Consequently, their thinking is also just a matter of chemical-electrical reactions.

However, if thought is no more than chemical reactions, there is no room left for freewill, let alone, free thought! While they want to believe that they can think freely, they have denied this possibility when they rejected God. They have deprived themselves of any meaning, purpose and dignity when they rejected their Source!