We are all for marriage...right?

Bishop Kirk Smith of Arizona writes about a ballot proposition in his state designed to protect marriage from...what?

This week I would like to say something about Prop 102, which is bound to get me more e-mails because it is about that favorite media topic, sex.

This proposition, the so-called "Marriage Protection Amendment" left me scratching my head. Doesn't Arizona law already define marriage as a union between a man and woman, and didn't voters already reject a similar initiative in the last election? Why are we going through this again?

. . .

Prop 102 has nothing to do with upholding marriage and the family -- after all, everyone supports that. Rather it is a much more insidious attempt to exclude gay and lesbian partnerships from full protection under the law. Those who feel that homosexual unions are somehow a "threat" to the American family (Dad, Mom, 2.2 kids) seem determined to make sure that people who are in such unions will know that they are not welcomed in this state, even if their union is recognized elsewhere, hence the constitutional change. I suspect that as more states allow gay/lesbian marriage, the greater will be the perceived threat.

I do wish the supporters of Prop 102 would be honest about their goal instead of bombarding us with misleading ads showing happy family outings and children romping on the playground, implying that such things are somehow endangered by two people of the same sex being in love and wanting to spend their life together.

No matter what you might think about the acceptability of gay/lesbian unions, the way this issue is being presented is really a matter of equal protection under the law, and more important for some of us Christians, whether we are going to "respect the dignity of every human being," as we say in our baptismal vows.

Read it all here.

Posted by Andrew Gerns on September 22, 2008 9:00 AM | |
Comments (2)

Kudos to Bishop Smith. Though it may seem trite and a bit simplistic, I'm convinced that our most debilitating emotion is that of fear. Unfounded fears are the basis of prejudice and enable good people to ignore the dignity of folks. Alas, it seems that we ignore the most common one liner in Scripture "be not afraid" when we give into the temptation to objectify and demonize another as a way of mitigating our lives lived in fear. In this day, it may be a platitude, but it seems that Scripture backs up Franklin Delano Roosevelt's contention that "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

---Warren Hicks

Posted by PadreWarren [TypeKey Profile Page] | September 22, 2008 11:15 AM

The issue, at least in California, is not one of equal protection under the law. In California civil unions have all the legal rights that marriages have, so before the court overturned the state law defining marriage as between a man and a women, gays already had everything except for the right to attach the name marriage to their relationship.

Some Christians believe that calling such a relationship marriage is a violation of the role of marriage as a portrayal of the image of God (Genesis 1:27, 2:24) and the relationship between Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5:22-32). This may not matter so much to a post-Christian society, but the church at least ought to care about having the images God has given us of Himself defaced in this way.

But even if you are not a Christian, you may want to consider the fact that families that don't have both a father and a mother have repeatedly been demonstrated to be less beneficial for children. However in all of our fuss about self-fulfillment, the function of marriage to create a healthy environment for the nurture of children has been almost completely forgotten. The damage being done as a result is so pervasive that we scarcely recognize it any more, which is the only reason we can say with a straight face that "everyone supports" marriage and family. We don't, which is why marriages are more easily dissolved than any other contract to which we put our signature.

If we really did support marriage, rather than focusing our attention on creating barren unions for the sake of companionship, we'd be laboring to help people preserve the fruitful unions that they're prepared to walk away from because of "incompatibility." We'd be doing all we could to discourage people from entering into "trial marriages" (which are really nothing but "trial divorces") and seeking to eliminate pornography's corrosive influence on the foundations of our marriages. But once no-fault divorce was instituted, it became clear that we didn't really care about marriage, and the furor about gay marriage is really just another symptom of that fact.

Ralph Wagenet

Posted by RalphW [TypeKey Profile Page] | September 22, 2008 8:00 PM

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