Hi All,
The question has been asked again and again, "how will this affect you? Why do you have any interest in whether gays are allowed to marry people of their own sex?" Implicit in this question are two presumptions, one, that if something doesn't directly affect us - we have no stake in it and should stay out, and two that a monumental change in the way we define the primary building block for society won't have affects that extend well beyond the homosexual portion of the population. That's like asking, "why should you care if single mothers can be supported indefinitely on welfare while having child after child out of wedlock - after all, you're not a single mother."
But since you ask, I'll just try to list a few of the reasons why I personally, am concerned with this issue. I have no illusions that these will please or persuade anyone, due to the excessive length of this post, I seriously doubt most will even read it, but I hope that at least people might realize that legalizing Gay Marriage will have far reaching consequences (and this will only touch the surface):
A Few of the Enormous and Inevitable Negative Consequences to Me and my Family of Establishing Gay Marriage as a Civil Right (Pt.1)
Once gay marriage is established as the norm in the USA (and I personally have no doubt it will be established by judicial dictat within the next 10 years) it will become a civil right assured and protected by our constitution. Civil rights are fundamental and far reaching things, and we hold them as particularly sacred in this country. To deny them or attempt to take them away is not only illegal, it is considered heinous. Speaking out against civil rights is a sure ticket to ostracization of the worst sort.
Even before their recent legalization of gay marriage our neighbors to the North in Canada recently passed the following legislation banning "Hate Propaganda" I'll take the liberty of reading the relevant portions of the law:
Hate Propaganda
319. (1) Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of
(a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or
(b) an offence punishable on summary conviction.
2) Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group is guilty of
(a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or
(b) an offence punishable on summary conviction.
320. (1) A judge who is satisfied by information on oath that there are reasonable grounds for believing that any publication, copies of which are kept for sale or distribution in premises within the jurisdiction of the court, is hate propaganda shall issue a warrant under his hand authorizing seizure of the copies.
"Identifiable Groups" originally meant any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion or ethnic origin. And the law has already successfully been used by Muslims against Christians distributing materials they deemed to be anti-Muslim.
Additionally, on April 29 of 2004 the Canadian legislature overwhelmingly passed bill C-250 which adds homosexuality as a protected category in Canada's genocide and hate-crimes legislation, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.
In my role on the candidates committee of our Presbytery, I have already started asking candidates for the Gospel ministry who plan on ministering in Canada, if they are aware they will likely face persecution on this subject. Most of them are, and so far all of them have said they are willing to go to jail rather than compromise the truth of God's word.
Should gay marriage become a civil right in the United States, I have no doubt that hate crimes legislation similar to that which is already the law in Canada will eventually follow in its wake as it is legally normed. While preaching against homosexuality hasn't been a mark of my ministry, I also have no doubt that in expositing and applying the Word of God, particularly in Leviticus and Romans, I will cross the line into what is legally considered "Hate Speech" directed against a protected class, and that this will make it into print or audio. I may escape notice for a while, but indefinitely? That is hardly likely, especially since tolerance for this particular practice is likely to decrease with the passage of time. Like my brothers in Canada, I am fully prepared to go to jail rather than fail in my calling as an Ambassador, as the Apostles put it when they were commanded by the legal authorities in their day "not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus." "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."
Anecdotally I might comment that I have already experienced this kind of discrimination in the private sector. In the mid-1990s I was working in Washington DC as a contractor in the I.S. Department of a legal publishing firm. The firm's VP of Human Resources was an outspoken homosexual activist, and had done all that he could to create homosexual fiefdoms within the firm. I and many of my co-workers were persona non-grata for using the company "lunch time clubs" policy to start an Evangelical Christian Fellowship and bible study. Our posters were frequently ripped down, materials were destroyed and a generally hostile work atomosphere was created.
A few members of the fellowship attended an open "brown bag lunch" discussion hosted by the company on the subject of homosexuality, I decided not to go, but another member of the fellowship came to find me and told me that a dear and very gentle Christian sister of mine, by the name of Maria had gone to the meeting and had just respectfully said what the bible taught about homsoexuality and was being mercilessly attacked for it, and asked if I would "come stand by her." How could I refuse? I went, I spoke, and at the end of the next business day I was called into my bosses office. He asked me to sit down and explained to me that the VP had just called his boss and asked what my name was and if I worked for her, she said I did, and the VP had simply said "Fire him." My bosses boss had called him to relay the instruction, and my direct boss had asked "why?" She told him that my comments at the "open exchange of ideas" brown bag luncheon had incensed the homosexual community. My boss, then told me that he had quietly replied to his boss, "if you are going to fire Andy because he is a Christian and believes the bible, you better fire me too." This stunned me, as my boss was a minority, had a large family, kids headed for college, and had earned his place as a manager only after many years of hard work for that company. It was a courageous act, and in this case, the company backed down. Had he not taken that stand, I would have been out of work that very same day.
Then there is the area of social and familial decay. The assumption that seems to be blithely assumed here is that Gay marriages will be the mirror image of heterosexual marriages. That simply will not be the case. Even today close to 60% of heterosexual marriages have made it to the 30 year mark, but under 5% of homosexual relationships last for 20 years, and the vast majority are over within 3 years. A 1997 national survey of married couples found that 75% of heterosexual married men had not committed adultery, while even surveys in homosexual magazines indicate that only about 4.5% of homosexual men in "committed relationships" are totally monogamous. This has lead to a movement to substantially redefine the very notion of "commitment" within marriage. If one considers that many of these "marriages" will involve children, one is talking about a childhood where the norm is that their original parents eventually split up and that the child watches as the custodial parent goes from partner to partner to partner. Not only does this practice have a hugely detrimental affect on children, as the number of "partners" increases, so does the liklihood of child-abuse.
I have many anecdotal examples of the long term effects of homosexuality on kids, as well as some inside views of exactly how happy or normal the homosexual lifestyle really is, few of them are the pretty and wonderful sanitized for PBS variety, but the awful reality variety. I'd rather not hash through them here if I don't have to. But I'm not looking forward to the long-term effects of increasing promiscuity across the board in our society. Especially when it comes to women, who are not even vaguely emotionally hard-wired for it.
(cont'd)
- SEAGOON
