It’s baaack…

…the issue that won’t go away, that is. The following is from the same discussion on gay marriage I referenced in my previous post, and I was responding to another reader’s comments. You can read the full debate here, if you’d like.

Romans 1 is not saying that homosexuality is a punishment for idolatry. It says that men’s (humans’) unrighteous and ungodly acts result in a suppression of the truth, particularly the truth about God, so that they turn to idolatry. Therefore, because their sin has led to a rejection of God himself, he “gave them up” or “over” to their “dishonorable passions.” Instead of continuing to chastise and discipline so as to turn them from their (our) wicked ways back into a right relationship with himself, he said, in effect, “Have it your way.” The fact that God inspired Paul to highlight the perversion of homosexuality first as the unrighteousness God gave them over to, should be enough in and of itself to convince the reader that God considers it a serious sin. But it is not the only one, as the lengthy list which follows demonstrates.

To your comments on morality: I don’t see how natural law can change from one society/culture or time to another. My understanding of natural law is that it is universal…in ages and location. Certainly different cultures may have slightly different moral codes. But yours and my ability and inclination to judge the rightness or wrongness of a society’s chosen morality suggests an overarching moral code that is universal.

Regarding your scientific and societal arguments, I suggest that there IS a cost to gay marriage, for the reasons I gave in my original argument. But let me try and flesh it out a little. Consider all the negative consequences an increase in sexual immorality has wrought: an increase in diseases, AIDS in particular, and the resultant health care cost; the breakup of families because of the infidelity of one or both spouses, and the huge emotional cost to the victims, i.e. the children involved; babies being born to young, inexperienced, unwed, teenage mothers and the cost to their families whom they come to depend on; babies being killed in the womb because they are unplanned and unwanted, and the cost in millions of innocent lives snuffed out; the cost in innocence and lost childhood because of the sexualization of society portrayed in the media and reflected in women’s and even young girls’ fashions, encouraging earlier and earlier involvement in sexual activity; the degradation of women and girls promoted by pornography and the cost in humiliation, hurt, and fractured lives when women are looked on and treated as objects for the enjoyment of men; the addiction that porn engenders in men and the cost to their families and other relationships, as well as to their employers from lost productivity because they’re on a porn site instead of on the job.

Permitting gay marriages is one more step in the wrong direction of tossing out traditional sexual morality as “antiquated or primitive,” and I believe will have very negative societal consequences. As homosexuality is forced on us as not the immoral perversion it was not so long ago generally accepted to be, but as a good and wholesome option, eventually no sexual behavior will be seen to be taboo. Pedophilia, incest, adultery, polygamy….all will be destigmatized, and the costs will be denied or deemed worth paying.  Marriage as an institution will continue to lose its significance and more and more children will grow up in fatherless or instable homes. Some have argued that giving gays the right to marry actually bolsters the institution of marriage. I believe it will be detrimental instead because it puts the final nail in the coffin of marriage as a safeguard for children and society, and reinforces the self-actualizing, personally beneficial, whatever-will-make-me-happy-traditional-mores-be-damned attitude about it. So why commit myself to one person for life when I would much prefer to spread myself around?  The kids will survive. And why stay married if my spouse isn’t making me happy? Kids are resilient, you know.

It really is about the children, because they are the next generation. Gay marriage isn’t hurting my family…yet. But our children have the responsibility of guiding and shaping society in their time, and passing down something better to their children. Just as we do. And I don’t believe gay marriage contributes to that at all.