Governments may promote gay marriage. Should we as evangelical Christians?

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(courtesy LGBT, Wikipedia)

Spencer D Gear

Governments have changed legislation and brought in new social changes through the centuries. Christians are bigoted, intolerant and narrow-minded for considering that homosexuals will burn in hell.

That’s the view of Meryl Miller, a new columnist in the Fraser Coast Chronicle (FCC), in her new column, The M-Files, “Face the facts, folks: gay marriage is on the way” (3 December 2010, p. 21). On 6 December 2010, I phoned the FCC editor, Peter Chapman, to ask if he would accept an article as my right of reply to Miller’s article. Even though I pressed for the need for balance by adding my opposing article, he refused, claiming that the controversial nature of some columnists encourages people to write letters to the editor. He said that he would consider a lengthy letter from me.

Miller’s new column generated so much telephone response that editor, Peter Chapman’s “My Comment” column, “New column had the phone ringing” (FCC, 4 December 2010, p. 18), stated that “I have asked her not to write about religion next week nor cats, dogs and dingoes”. Miller had advocated for “the rights of homosexuals and lesbians to marry their partners”, according to Chapman. However, Chapman’s views are that “it’s a touchy subject for many of us” and “the truth is it’s really something we are going to have to accept”.

Really? Not in your life for me. On 7 December 2010, I sent a letter to the editor of the FCC that incorporates some of the following material.

Miller promotes the following fallacies on which her philosophy teeters.

Taking examples from contemporary society as norms for morals is a dangerous practice (examples given in the article were of deaths of the indigenous, equal rights for women and against domestic violence, out-of-wedlock babies, defacto relationships, climate change, flat-earthers, Salem witch-hunters, etc). It’s dangerous because relativism and pragmatism at government level, have produced some of the most horrendous ethics in world history. Ever heard of the Holocaust, Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, Stalin’s killing fields, the genocide of abortion, euthanasia in Holland, etc? When I give individuals and governments the right to make up their own moral framework, I cannot stop the logical conclusions of giving that right to everyone.

By the way, I take public stands against discrimination and immorality based on ethnicity, domestic violence against women, sexual abuse, pedophilia, abortion, euthanasia, etc. However, that does not give governments or individual human beings the authority to invent what is right and wrong. Ethics needs a higher norm than puny human decisions.

To say that “slowly, inexorably, we are inching towards a society which is more tolerant, more understanding, more compassionate, more open-minded” is a very intolerant statement because it opposes all those who do not accept Miller’s agenda of ‘tolerance’. Miller is as intolerant as anyone around, except she is intolerant towards those who oppose her views, while blaming the Christians and heterosexuals for being intolerant.

If “gay marriage is no more harmful to our moral fibre than other modern conventions we once found so shocking”, why is it that heterosexual marriage has been the norm throughout human history? Scoffing at “archaic views on gay marriage” amounts to being scornful of the tried and tested moral absolute of marriage exclusively for a man and a woman. Miller establishes her own absolute of relativistic pragmatism. She promotes her intolerant ‘tolerance’ towards those who support exclusively heterosexual marriage. Hers is a self-defeating argument. It is not an “open-minded” approach but a promotion of homosexual marriage while rejecting the heterosexual exclusive nature of what God has created.

God’s view is that heterosexual marriage is His ordained method for marriage and reproduction. From the very earliest of times, according to Genesis 1:27-28, we know this: ‘God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it”’.

This is impossible for the homosexual to do. As for the marriage union, God said: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:24-25). From the beginning of time, God’s design is for the marriage union to be exclusively between a man and a woman. This is impossible for homosexuals to do.

As for the marriage union, God said, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:24-25). From the beginning of time, God’s design has been for the marriage union to be between a man and a woman. Governments that change this are working according to their own, fallible, imperfect human ethics.

So they are “religious extremists who preach from their lofty soap-boxes that homosexuals will burn in hell”, according to Miller. This is a self-defeating argument as the author herself is promoting an extremist position of tolerance towards homosexuals but she is not prepared to be tolerant to “religious extremists” who differ from her view. By the way, she has no clue about the doctrine of hell when she doesn’t understand who will be going there. It’s time she read and understood the Bible (I’m working on my PhD in New Testament).

Miller opposes the intolerant, bigoted, narrow-mined, heartless people who state that homosexuals will burn in hell, while claiming she is a Christian. It’s time that Miller knew the Scriptures which state that all unrepentant unbelievers will not inherit the Kingdom of God. First Corinthians 6:9-11 includes the sexually immoral, including adulterers, prostitutes, homosexuals, idolaters, thieves, greedy, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers. The good news of the Gospel is “that is what some of you were”. Jesus changes all sinners from the inside out.

Since when did Miller become a systematic theologian to pronounce that “the laws of God do not, should not, determine the laws between consenting adults in a committed relationship”? That’s Miller’s relativistic invention, not God’s standard.

She says that “I consider myself a Christian – but that does not give me the right to be a moral dictator”. What is a Christian that enables Miller to make such an anti-biblical statement? Christians believe that governments “do what is good” (according to God’s standards) and government is “an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoers” (Romans 14). These are wrongdoers according to God’s absolutes of right and wrong according to Scriptures, not relativistic governmental standards and the norms of morality created by Miller.

She rejoices in the birth of Connor Harris through surrogacy and two male homosexuals are the parents. It takes a male sperm and a female ovum to create human life. Homosexuals cannot create human life alone.

What has happened in Massachusetts (USA) with the legalisation of homosexuality and homosexual marriage has provided an example of the increase in HIV infection within the homosexual community. This report from 2008, “Inequitable Impact:The HIV/AIDS Epidemic Among Gay and Bisexual Men and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men in Massachusetts”, demonstrates the increased HIV rate among MSM (men having sex with men) in Massachusetts:

“This is the second in a series of reports examining the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on residents of Massachusetts. The first report, An Added Burden: The Impact of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic on Communities of Color in Massachusetts, focused on the ongoing racial/ethnic disparities in HIV incidence and prevalence in the Commonwealth. This report examines one mode of HIV exposure, same-sex sexual behavior between men, and its role in an inequitable impact of HIV on gay/bisexual men and other men who have sex with men.

Efforts to reduce the transmission of HIV in Massachusetts have been successful in a number of populations at risk, including injection drug users and heterosexual men and women. However, less success can be reported from work with gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men (MSM), who represent over 50% of HIV cases reported among Massachusetts men between the years 2004 and 2006, and 39% of all HIV cases reported during this period. These rates of new infection are striking in light of the fact that only 4.3-9.4% of Massachusetts men (18-64 years old) report having had sex with men in the past twelve months on standardized behavioral surveys over the past seven years. These impacts represent an inequitable rate of infection that is nearly 25 times higher for men who have sex with men than for men who report only having had sex with women (emphasis added).

While the impact of HIV on MSM is most evident among white men, at 70% of new white male cases, MSM has emerged as a first- or second-ranked mode of exposure for black and Hispanic men in recent years. In half of the health service regions of the Commonwealth, MSM is the leading mode of exposure for persons recently reported with HIV, particularly evident in Boston, Metrowest, and Southeastern Massachusetts. The inequitable impact of HIV on MSM is also seen among the youngest persons at risk, with 44% of individuals age 13-24 recently reported with HIV having MSM as their mode of exposure. Even among men not born in the US, MSM represents over a third of new HIV cases reported in Massachusetts.

In Africa, “On average it is estimated that HIV infection rates amongst MSM (men who have sex with men) are four to five times higher than the population overall, with highs in certain areas” (AFRICA: Homophobia fuelling the spread of HIV).

The issues here are God’s absolutes versus humanistic relativism created by Miller, the Massachusetts legislature and others. What’s the difference? The differences are the reasons for opposing homosexual marriage. Miller’s major fallacies are that she creates her own relativistic absolutes that oppose God’s standards. None of us would be on earth if homosexuality were the norm. In addition, she is discriminatory against other relationship aberrations such as bigamy, polygamy and polyandry.  See Bill Muehlenberg’s excellent piece of satire, “Time for some real marriage equality”. The high level of HIV infection in the male homosexual community should sound alarm bells!

The Fraser Coast Chronicle deserves better than to promote a one-eyed columnist who is narrow-minded in her opposition to what has sustained societies throughout human history – heterosexual marriage.

On 7 December 2017, Australia became the 26th country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage.

 

Copyright © 2015 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 1 September 2018.