When Judges Make Unrighteous Judgments
Posted by David Wheaton | Saturday, August 7, 2010 | 8:00 am CT
Podcast: Download (Duration: 50:48 — 8.7MB)
“You shall appoint for yourself judges and officers in all your towns which the LORD your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment” (Deuteronomy 16:18).
In November of 2008, the people of California voted to approve Proposition 8, a ballot measure that would establish marriage in that state to be only between one man and one woman. This past Wednesday, after almost two years of legal challenges by same-sex marriage proponents, one federal judge (a homosexual appointed by President Bush) overturned the will and votes of seven million Californians by deciding the proposition was unconstitutional.
Shortly after this landmark decision, President Obama’s second appointee to the US Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, was confirmed by the US Senate for a lifetime seat on America’s highest court. Not surprisingly, both of President Obama’s appointments to the Supreme Court are Constitutional deconstructionists.
We will ask two questions on The Christian Worldview this weekend: How will same-sex marriage impact this country and what happens to a country when its’ judges make unrighteous judgments?
Additional Resources:
Why the Proposition 8 Decision Matters (Al Mohler)
Judge being gay a nonissue during Prop. 8 trial
The Christian Worldview Transcript
Date: August 7, 2010
Host: David Wheaton
Topic: When Judges Make Unrighteous Judgments
DAVID WHEATON: When Judges Make Unrighteous Judgments. We will talk about the landmark verdict with Proposition 8 in California today here on The Christian Worldview where the mission is to think biblically about all matters of life and faith so that we can then live accordingly. And to share the Good News that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be, the Way, the Truth and the Life and the only way to the Father in heaven and that His Word is both relevant and our basis for living in this modern world. I am David Wheaton, the host of The Christian Worldview. Our official website is TheChristianWorldview.com.
Our National Presenting Sponsor is Summit Ministries, the very best in Christian worldview resources, conferences and curricula. Their website is Summit.org. We are also supported by two other national sponsors, The Masters College and The S. Lewis Johnson Institute and of course, listeners like you.
When Judges Make Unrighteous Judgments. That is certainly the case in what took place this last Wednesday out in California. Remember back to the election in November, 2008. The people of California voted to approve Proposition 8. I know some of these things can get confusing. There are so many different same sex marriages going on around the country, seemingly at the same time and it can get a little confusing in the courts. You don’t know whether it is a law or whether it is not a law and what is changing. It is hard to keep track of it all.
This particular case is really important. Proposition 8 was a ballot initiative where the people of California back in November, 2008 were going to vote to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman in the state constitution of California. Pro-traditional advocates put this initiative on the ballot and the people of California voted in favor of the proposition. Marriage between one man and one woman as defined that way, was to be put into the state constitution of California.
Immediately after this happened, the other side, the side that supports same sex marriage erupted. Even though the will of the people had been voted upon, they erupted. There was vandalism and immediately legal challenges to not allow this past ballot measure to go through and they sued. Interestingly enough, two very well known lawyers took the side of the same sex marriage advocates to say this Proposition 8, even though it passed by the people, was unconstitutional because it was discriminatory. They weren’t going to let it actually let it go into law into the state constitution of California. The two lawyers were Ted Olson and David Boyce. If you think you have heard those names before, they were actually opponents in the legal challenge back in the year 2000 in the Bush vs. Gore presidential conflict when it went down to a recount. Boyce represented Gore and Olson represented Bush. Now they are on the same side trying to overturn this ballot issue, Proposition 8, out in California.
They won this week, on Wednesday, in a truly historic, landmark ruling. The U.S. District Judge, a federal judge, a homosexual, appointed by George Herbert Walker Bush, President George W. Bush’s father, who was President between 1992 and 1996. I want to read some of his comments, but before I do, I thought what I would do today in the program is actually read a couple passages of Scripture first to give some context. In other words, you are going to be hearing some of the things, the reasoning, that this Judge Walker makes in his ruling declaring that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, discriminatory and the reason he believes it so. In other words, one judge overruled the votes of 7 million people in California. So 7 million people voted to pass this proposition and almost two years later, one judge overturns it.
I want to read a couple passages of Scripture to give context to this and then I will read his comments. You can compare and contrast for yourself what kind of human reasoning this whole debate of same sex marriage has come down to. The fact that it is not biblically informed, it is not truthfully informed any more, it is completely conformed by human reasoning.
Let’s start in Genesis 1:1, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God is the creator; God is the authority. Genesis 1:26-28, Then God said, “let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
This is from Genesis 1, God is the authority, God is the creator. He created two different genders, male and female and told them to propagate the earth through marriage, through procreation. This is God’s intent from the very beginning.
Now let’s skip over in to Exodus 18:13-23. This has to do with judges. When Moses was leading the Jews out of Egypt they were somewhere in the wilderness and every day Moses was serving as judge over the people. When they had a dispute amongst themselves, they would come to Moses and say, judge for us; tell us who is right and wrong in this particular case. At this particular time, Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, was visiting him. Jethro saw this and said, this is crazy, you are going to wear yourself out doing this. You can’t do this because you are going to be exhausted trying to spend every day of your life judging between the people. You need to hire some good men amongst you to be judges. Here is the basis for having righteous judges and not those who make unrighteous judges making unrighteous judgments over the people.
It goes through the story of how Jethro was there and Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “The thing you are doing is not good. You will surely wear out, both yourself and these people who are with you, for the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. Now listen to me: I shall give you counsel, and God be with you. You be the people’s representative before God, and you bring the disputes to God, then teach them the statutes and the laws, and make known to them the way in which they are to walk and the work they are to do.”
In other words, teach the people how to live according to righteousness. Furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain; and you shall place these over them as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens. Let them judge the people at all times; and let it be that every major dispute they will bring to you, but every minor dispute they themselves will judge. In other words, it is almost like our country now, where we have the Supreme Court that would be like Moses back then, the highest court in the land. For all the more minor ones, appoint righteous judges, those who love truth.
I want you to keep Genesis 1 in mind about God’s intent for creating male and female and the propagation of human kind. Then keep Exodus 18 in mind for the importance of righteous judges. Finally, let’s look at Romans 1 and look at how a society corrupts itself. When God abandons a nation, what are some of the symptoms of that? Romans 1:20, For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. In other words, there is no excuse for not believing in God, as creator. You just look at creation and immediately the response would be, someone created this. Romans 1:21, For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. As I talk about this issue of Proposition 8 today, I want you to remember that verse and how these foolish hearts, very highly educated by the way, but with foolish hearts and dark hearts. Romans 1:22-25, Professing to be wise, they become fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
In other words, they think it is more important to worship themselves and do what they want to do and disregard what God says is true. Look at the result of this rejection of God, of believing the lie and having their foolish hearts be darkened. Romans 1:26-27, For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions, for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their own desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filed with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
Genesis 1, Exodus 18 and Romans 1, I want you to keep them in mind, keep the parameters of God’s creation, His intention for the gender, the male and female to propagate, the appointment of righteous judges. In Romans 1 the wise people becoming foolish and promoting what is perverse. Those are the things that need to be kept in mind as you hear what this judge said as to why he declared Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional. Then the lies and the human reasoning and the arguments that are so readily accepted regarding this issue of same sex marriage and homosexuality in our culture today as in how would it hurt your marriage? Or marriage is religious union with no place in secular government. Or heterosexual marriage is in terrible shape, why don’t you focus on that? Or why should two people who love each other be denied basic civil rights? Or Jesus never said homosexuality was wrong. All you have to do is read any of these articles regarding this case and read down into the listener comments and you will see some of these same illogical, faulty, human reasoning arguments. We will answer every single one of those today on The Christian Worldview and answer the question, why will same sex marriage actually be the ruining force of this country?
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DAVID: In the first segment, I read three different passages from Genesis, Exodus and Romans establishing God’s intent for creating man and woman, God’s intent for having righteous judges over the land, otherwise injustice and lies are propagated. Romans 1 tells us what happens when man “believes the lie.” Smart people become fools when they all believe the lie and it is all based on human reasoning.
I want you to contrast that to some of the things that have been said by Judge Walker. By the way, he is a homosexual judge out in San Francisco. You can see the article on TheChristianWorldview.com, The Biggest Open Secret according to SFGate.com is in the landmark trial over same sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the Federal Judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay. He was appointed by President George Herbert Walker Bush in 1989 and has never taken pains to disguise or advertise his orientation. So just keep that in mind as well as you read his comments.
I will play a combination of his comments and also play some of the comments of the lawyer, David Boyce, who was trying to overturn this Proposition 8, working in concert trying to convince the judge that this proposition on the California state ballot was unconstitutional. First fore Judge Walker’s comments in his decision, he wrote the following. “The evidence shows that the movement of marriage away from a gendered institution and toward an institution free from state mandated gender roles reflects an evolution in the understanding of gender rather than a change in marriage. The exclusions of gays from marriage exist as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed.”
You just heard what it says in Genesis 1. This is exactly the opposite of what Scripture says, exactly the opposite. There is not truth in that paragraph at all. Now it may be his truth based on his own human reasoning, what he learned in college, I have no idea, but there is no basis in truth in that paragraph at all. This is the person deciding on a landmark case, which will probably be the historic case that decides because now if states vote on whether they want to have traditional one man, one woman marriage defined in their constitution, this is the precedent case to have it overturned because it is going to be discriminatory. You can’t enshrine discrimination into a state constitution.
Judge Walker went on to say, “Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts without reason a private, moral view that same sex couples are inferior to opposite sex couples.” In other words, if you opposed same sex marriage this is your own private, moral view. His view apparently is not private and moral, it is the correct view. Again, you have to ask the obvious question, on what basis does he make this particular decision and ruling and why is he right? Why is his moral view right?
Other comments that the judge made, “Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians.” That is his opinion, human reasoning. “Children do not need to be raised by a male parent and a female parent to be well adjusted. Having both a male and a female parent does not increase the likelihood that a child will be well adjusted.” Back to Genesis 1, male and female propagation of humankind, he is saying something in complete contrast to that. God’s intention is man, wife, raise children. That is the ideal. To say that it does not increase the likelihood that a child will be well adjusted is a flat out lie.
Going on he also said, “The gender of a child’s parent is not a factor in the child’s adjustment. The sexual orientation of an individual does not determine whether that child can be a good parent. Same sex couples are identical to opposite sex couples and the characteristics relevant to the ability to form successful marital unions.” In other words, a marriage is just as good with two men or two women as with one man and one woman. Again, this is just flat out untrue, lie, rejecting what God has specifically stated in His word.
The last thing I will quote from him is this, “Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage. Marriage under law is a union of equals.” In other words, it may have been that way for all 6000 years of recorded human history but now we are so enlightened that we no better now. All those people beforehand who thought marriage was just to between one man and one woman, they were just a bunch of regressive discriminators and bigots because they thought it should be that way. That is basically what the judge is saying.
It wasn’t just the judge. It was the lawyer, David Boyce who brought this case, along with Ted Olson before the State of California. Listen to what he has to say in his human reasoning. These are supposed to be smart people. Romans 1 says, these people profess to be wise but they are fools and their foolish hearts are darkened. Listen to the human reasoning in these sound bites from David Boyce, the lawyer advocating to have this Proposition 8 overturned in California.
DAVID BOYCE: We said we would prove that depriving gay and lesbian couples of the right to marry seriously harmed them and harmed the children they were raising. We said we would prove that depriving gay and lesbian couples of the right to marry had no redeeming social value, no contribution to heterosexual marriage, no legitimate state interest. We proved all three of those things. We proved them not only from our experts, who were the leading experts in the world but on cross-examination we proved it out of the mouths of the defendants own witnesses.
That is David Boyce, the lawyer in this particular case fighting for same sex marriage. Depriving homosexuals, or gays and lesbians, to be able to marry. Let’s be clear here; they are not deprived on being able to marry, just like heterosexuals are not deprived on whom they want to marry. It is just that the law is you have to marry someone of age and of the opposite sex. So homosexuals can marry, it is just they want to marry someone outside of our current societal standards and what history has said and what our laws say. Do you understand the important point that needs to be made? In other words, those who practice or call themselves homosexual have a right to marry only in certain states, it has to be someone of a certain age and of the opposite sex. Just like those who call themselves heterosexuals, we don’t have the right to marry unless someone is of the right age and of the opposite sex. Everyone is limited in who they can marry. This isn’t discriminatory towards homosexuals. It is just that they want to be able to marry someone beyond that particular parameter. Of course, that opens the door for marrying whoever you want, if three people want to be married, if you want to marry your sister, your daughter. If you allow it to go beyond the one man, one woman relationship, there is no basis at all anymore for saying that marriage is to be between one man and one woman.
He went on to say, another fact of human reasoning, it is just all over the place, unbiblical human reasoning David Boyce talking about how actually gay marriage will actually strengthen all marriage. You try to figure this out.
DAVID BOYCE: Their witnesses ended up admitting that they had no evidence that permitting gay and lesbian marriage in any way harms the institution of marriage. Indeed, on the contrary, as our witnesses demonstrated, permitting marriage equality strengthens all marriage and strengthens the stability of that relationship for everybody in this country. The judge found those facts today.
Here is Albert Mohler and what he had to say in response to this huge, landmark decision.
ALBERT MOHLER: Defenders of marriage as a heterosexual institution should resist the temptation to minimize the significance of this decision in California. Even as the verdict is vigorously appealed, yesterday’s ruling is a huge win for the homosexual community and a significant step towards the full normalization of homosexuality within the culture. Thousands of cases make their way through the federal courts each year. Some are important, but only a few have lasting, legal significance. Whatever happens on appeal, the decision handed down yesterday by Judge Vaughn Walker will reverberate for decades to come. Yesterday a very important gavel fell on marriage. The central institution of human civilization suffered a direct hit and its future hangs in the balance.
I will take it one step further and say that this particular issue, even more than abortion, will be the direct contributing factor to the downfall of this country. Yes the economy is in bad shape. Yes there are other things going wrong in the country, but when the fundamental unit of society, the family, is torn apart and something else is promoted that is inherently perverse by government, that is when God abandons a nation.
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DAVID: When Judges Make Unrighteous Judgments; that is the topic for the day here on The Christian Worldview. We are talking about the after effects of this decision this past week in California, Proposition 8, where this one federal judge overturned the votes of 7 million Californians back in November, 2008, when they voted to have marriage defined as one man and one woman in the state constitution of California. He overturned that and it will likely next go to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The pro-traditional marriage people will take it there. It is a very liberal court and the judge’s decision will likely be upheld in that court and it will end up going to the U.S. Supreme Court. Once again it comes down to worldview. Everyone has a worldview and each person in that court, though they are not elected or nominated to that court, based on political affiliation, Republicans or Democrats, everyone comes with their own worldview.
By the way, just one day after this ruling, President Obama was able to get his second nominee to the Supreme Court through, that is Elana Kagan. She is a very, very liberal justice of the court. Here is something that I think is quite interesting. There is not one protestant on the Supreme Court anymore. This country was largely founded upon people who were, generally speaking, Protestants but there is not one Protestant on the highest court in the country. I believe there are six Catholics and three Jews or seven Catholics and two Jews, but not one Protestant there bringing that particular type of worldview to court decisions. That will come down and we will see how it turns out. I am probably thinking it will be adjudicated next year or the year after. I think it is very unclear what the decision will be. I think it will be likely that the judge that made this decision will be upheld and they won’t be able to put it in the state constitution of California. It is just my prediction. I could be wrong on that, I don’t know the future.
Let’s be clear about one other thing. When we talk about this type of issue as Christians, we are talking about the agenda here. We are not talking about the people who are promoting this agenda. In other words, I can’t stand the agenda because I know what it will do to the country, but the people themselves who promote the agenda, my prayer for them is that they can come to repentance in faith. I don’t hate them at all. I hate what they are trying to do, the agenda they are trying to push on this country. I, as a citizen of this country, love this country, love the founding values of this country and this is going to change all that. Again, we can really reject, refute and push back against the agenda and at the same time, knowing that the people there, their foolish hearts are darkened. They are dead in their trespasses in sins. What do you expect them to do? They rebel against God because that is what is in their hearts, that is what you do. Remember yourself before you came to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. Your heart rebelled against God and didn’t want His precepts, His laws. You rejected them. Don’t be surprised when the sinful, fallen world acts like a sinful, fallen world.
We can separate the fact that push back, refute, dismiss and take down their faulty human reasoning arguments of their agenda and at the same time, still have it in our heart to not allow hate or anything else to go in our heart because they are sinners in need of saving faith just like everyone is a sinner in need of saving faith in Christ.
I want to give our listeners a chance to refute some of these human reasoning arguments that are constantly made and propagated and easily swallowed by our population. How will gay marriage hurt your marriage? What is the matter with you? This is the “do what you want as long as it is not hurting anyone” morality argument. How do you refute that one? Or how about number two, marriage is a religious union with no place in secular government. This is the “I don’t understand our country and the purpose of government” argument. All of our 200 years of history where they have been trying to promote the family and have a stable society through that, marriage has not place. We should just have civil unions. Or number three, heterosexual marriage is in such terrible shambles, why are you focused on gay marriage? Number four human reasoning argument is why should two people who love each other and are in a long-term, committed relationship be denied basic civil rights? Have you ever heard that one before? Number five, Jesus never said homosexuality or same sex marriage is wrong. He never talked about it, so therefore it is not wrong.
How would you answer any one of those questions. You can pick one or two for yourself and tell me how you would answer those particular questions from a biblical standpoint, from a non-reasoning standpoint.
Let me just answer that question I brought up earlier about why will same sex marriage ruin the country? I think there are at least five reasons that this is a very bad sign for the country. Let me play you a sound bite to give you some context from a message that John MacArthur gave on when God abandons a nation.
JOHN MACARTHUR: So look at a society. When you see a society that is pornographic, that is into sexual immorality, fornication, adultery as a way of life, as a dominant way of life, which is not only in existence but approved and exalted in every way in the media, you know the wrath of abandonment is in operation. Then when a society also exalts homosexuality, lesbianism and male homosexuality or sodomy, you know that it is even sinking deeper.
So why will same sex marriage lead to the abandonment or maybe the country has already been abandoned; we don’t know. America wasn’t perfect before this ruling, but this is a deeper form of depravity that society as a whole and government in particular is now going to be promoting if and when same sex marriage becomes the law of the land. I think there are five reasons for this. There are probably more than this, but I picked five.
Number one reason why same sex marriage will ruin the country is because it undermines the fundamental unit of our country, which is a biblical family with a father, a mother and children. In other words, it legalizes and promotes other unions that do in fact, contrary to what the judge and David Boyce say, go away from the ideal child-rearing situation and thus harms society. When you don’t have a mother and a father raising children in a home, that is a less than desired situation for how we should raise good children who then become good citizens. You might say, what about all the broken homes and single parent homes? That is not ideal either. Anyone who is divorced would know that. I am a single mom, and it would be great to have a wonderful father in my child’s life or vice versa. It is the same for heterosexual marriage as well. It is best to have a father and mother in the home as it says in Genesis 1. That is why divorce is so bad as well because it breaks apart the intended one mother, one father situation for children.
The second reason why same sex marriage will ruin the country is because legalizing homosexuality normalizes what is inherently perverse and sinful. You have often heard people say that you can’t legislate morality. That is a completely false statement. Laws against rape, theft and murder completely legislate morality. Almost all laws legislate morality. Just imagine for a second if rape weren’t illegal, if you didn’t legislate morality on that. Do you think there would be more rapes if it weren’t against the law? Governments codify what is moral all the time; they put it in laws all the time. Our country once believed that homosexuality was wrong. It was even in state law in Texas and probably many other states as well. Now our government believes it is good and right. Let’s not be confused here. Government used to say that the ideal was marriage was between one man and one woman. Now it says something different that homosexuality is just as good and right. This has far-reaching effects on education, what will be taught in the schools, what will be described in the media, what will be shown in entertainment and what happens in our culture. In other words, it is ok to be engaged in homosexual acts. That is the fact of the result of when government puts this into law. People will accept it; if it is not against the law, then it is ok. The New York Times said themselves this past week, there are times when legal opinions help lead public opinions. In other words, what is legal helps lead what the public does. Very true.
Number three reason why same sex marriage will ruin the country. It opens the door for other perverse unions like polygamy, brother-sister marriage, and a father daughter marriage. Why should they be discriminated against? Everyone says, oh that is ridiculous, it is not coming to that. Who would have ever thought that in this country we would actually be debating this particular thing where two men could marry each other. That doesn’t work; you can’t produce anything from that. How did we ever get to this point? On what basis could you say that one man couldn’t marry two women or two men couldn’t marry two women after this particular case? There is no basis if it is just a matter of loving each other and you can’t be discriminatory, that opens the door for everything else.
Number four, it paves the way for the persecution and criminalization for those who don’t accept homosexuality. If you are a discriminator against these types of unions or this particular agenda, like these graduation programs recently where these students weren’t allowed to graduate because they didn’t affirm homosexuality’s being normative in their counseling programs.
There are four reasons. The fifth is like John MacArthur said, it could result in God’s outright judgment upon this nation like Sodom and Gomorra. Who knows? God is patient but you just never know.
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DAVID: Here is the topic for the day if you just joined us; When Judges Make Unrighteous Judgments. If you missed the first segment with the whole basis for why all this decision on Proposition 8 in California is totally based on a lie and human reasoning, go back and hear the first segment from Genesis 1, from Exodus 18 and from Romans 1. Lets go quickly now to our callers as they refute some of the common, typical human reasoning arguments that go along with this issue of same sex marriage. That is really the reason I am doing the program. Yes we know homosexuality is wrong. It is clear in the Bible but Christians need to be able to think critically and understand why these arguments are wrong. Otherwise they sound good and they get accepted and they get into the church and that is how the church and Christian’s minds get changed.
Let’s go to Tim in Memphis, Tennessee. Welcome to The Christian Worldview, what is your question or comment on this issue?
TIM: Thank you David. My comment is concerning Jesus never spoke about homosexual marriage but the fact is that He did speak about it although indirectly in Matthew 19. I tuned in late so you may have already mentioned this, but Jesus said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be united firmly to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.” He didn’t say or if you have homosexual feelings, you can find a man to marry. He left no room for that kind of ambiguity. Now I say this as a person who has struggled with homosexual feelings my whole life but I am also a Christian. What I think is going on here is really a slap in the face to God. It is saying God, we are going to legislate You out of our social rules. We are going to ignore You. We are going to declare Your law is not binding upon us anymore. That is the danger. That is saying, God get out of our country.
DAVID: You made an excellent point. Christ does talk about it but even if He didn’t, the point of that argument is not a good one. I have heard someone else say that Jesus never talked about same sex marriage therefore it must be right. This is a complete misunderstanding of the inspiration of Scripture in that Jesus’ words in Scripture are no more inspired and no more the words of God than any of the other texts of Scripture. It is an illogical argument because all of Scripture is God-breathed, whether Paul says something about homosexuality or the Old Testament or Genesis 1, it is all Scripture. It is all authoritative in our lives.
That was my fifth point. Let me just read one before we get to another caller. Human reasoning argument number one, how will it hurt your marriage? No one is saying it is going to hurt my marriage. I am not saying that. No one I know is saying it is going to hurt my marriage, that is why I am against it. What I am saying is that it will hurt people; it will hurt children and thus will hurt our society. Society is just made up of citizens and my family lives in this country. We are going to have to partake in the educational system possibly, the media, the entertainment and it becomes normative. It does actually indirectly affect my family. We must live in this culture.
The second human reasoning argument is marriage is a religious union with no place in secular government. That is a terrible argument. Government has right and encourages in law in the tax codes what produces a stable and good society. Think about pornography for a second, that is a moral issue. Why doesn’t the government allow rampant pornography all day on TV in the network television shows? Because they know that doesn’t enhance and create a better and stable society. So it is the same issue with marriage. They certainly have an interest in promoting unions, marriages that are going to produce a better and more stable society.
We have covered three of the five; how will it hurt your marriage? Marriage is a religious union with no place in secular government. There shouldn’t be marriage, just civil unions, people will say.
Number five, Tim brought up, Jesus never said homosexuality is wrong. Well He did talk about what marriage should be and plus His words aren’t to be prioritized above any other inspired words of Scripture.
Let’s go to Nancy in Madison, New Jersey. Welcome to The Christian Worldview, go ahead.
NANCY: I think we are missing the bigger issue. While I agree with absolutely everything you say and my argument will always stand on Scripture, if this judge had given an opinion to support the law, it would have been just as wrong. The people voted and it should have been upheld because the people voted. I think our founding fathers understood we would all not be Christian. That is why we were given the vote state by state.
DAVID: I think in some ways, this seems to be a democratic process that took place in California. The people of California voted on a particular issue. It seems to me that we have a representative republic. This should have been an issue that was decided by our representatives. That is the way the founders intended it. In some ways, maybe this should have never happened but since it did, for one judge to overturn 7 million citizens is truly breathtaking. That is why democracies always fail because the people can be corrupt and make bad decisions or in this particular case, get one judge who disagrees and makes his own human reasoned argument and that is that. It is over.
The third human reason argument is heterosexual marriage is in terrible shape. Why don’t you focus on that? This is such a stupid argument. Bad examples among us are not the standard. It is like Ted Haggard, focus on his marriage, the NAE guy who got into all the trouble with his marriage and homosexuality and he is the President of the National Association of Evangelicals. He is not the standard for marriage. Yes, he can focus on his own marriage and we would like to strengthen heterosexual marriage too. There is no basis for saying that we shouldn’t focus on these other types of agendas that are coming our way now.
The fourth thing is why should two people who love each other be denied basic civil rights? This is the you are a racist and a discriminator argument. Homosexual behavior is not the same as race. Homosexual behavior is a choice that people act upon. Even if they could prove that you were born with homosexual attraction, that wouldn’t make acting on it right. What if I said I was born with strong attractions to married women? Would it be right if I acted on it? Of course not. Our sinful tendencies don’t legitimize us doing them.
These are typical false reasoned arguments. This whole issue proves the point that we need to elect righteous judges in this country. That is why Christians need to take seriously the privilege to vote whether it is for President or for judges. It also helps us to focus on having good marriages ourselves and raising strong families ourselves. It is an opportunity to have a strong witness for Christ in this declining culture. There is the hope. Do that rather than focus on the bad examples.
Christian, we live in a changing and challenging world, but there is one thing we can always count on and trust in, Jesus Christ and His word are the same yesterday, today and forever.
