What’s a Simple Contract Matter to God?

Re: “Subverting Rights You Relish Will Catch Up With You”:A. Barton Hinkle’s statement that “there is no equality when one group of people can use the coercive power of the state to make another group of people submit to its will” goes both ways.

Christians should not coerce homosexuals out of marriage rights, just as homosexuals with the right to marry should not coerce churches into performing those ceremonies. The only way to remove the coercive force is to remove all laws regarding the subject. In this case, marriage would be available to all citizens, but churches could decide which wedding to perform.

I am a Christian and I believe that God has ordained marriage between a man and a woman. The result of same-sex marriage is simply that two people enter into an earthly contract that God does not recognize. Why should Christians care? How can they object to two people entering into a contract that, to Christians, has no heavenly implications?

3 Comments »

Letter to the Editor: What’s a Simple Contract Matter to God? « Jeff Proctor said

September 4, 2007 @ 12:52 pm
[...] 4, 2007 The Richmond Times-Dispatch has published my letter to the editor about marriage. Here’s a link to the Times website and an excerpt: Christians should not coerce homosexuals [...]
Kirk Blankenship said

November 7, 2007 @ 11:08 am
Mr. Proctor,
I realize that many of the salvos fired in your piece “Virginia is for Lovers” that I just read in the Nov. 7 Richmond-Times were aimed at Christians who want the state to do the hard grunt work of changing a culture. So in that light I can take your words as a continued call to motivation and personal involvement in the best vehicle for change… the Church.
But there is some very-wrongheaded thinking that lies underneath your evangelical reasoning in your article. I think the Bible is pretty clear that all areas of life, including the state, are to be brought under the lordship of Christ. For all of people’s caterwauling about “you can’t legislate morality” that is essentially what all laws are. Laws are a result of the state standing against immorality in some of its most destructive and pernicious forms. But immorality can only be defined and codified within a religious or faith-based worldview.

For instance, we have a law against the killing of innocent people because God informs us in His Word, throughout history, and by our personal experience of the inherent value of an innocent human life that has been created in His image. The atheist (all of which believe in no god by their faith) can make no justifiable claim to a law against murder since, in their worldview, we are simply piles of matter in motion who are moving through space and time. For the atheist, all of life is an impersonal reality. The atheists are free, in our country, to believe as they see fit. And I will even gladly protect them from murderers and thieves using our laws that are founded on the biblical wordlview. But as a Christian, I should try my best through my activities and responsibilities as a citizen of Virginia to keep an agenda out of the state legislature that would give state sanction to anti-biblical institutions such as same-sex marriage.

This is not to say that the primary way of suppressing unrighteousness is through state action. The best antidote to a society desirous of same-sex marriages is to make Christian marriages so attractive and joyful and beautiful and fruitful that no one would want to be a part of a relationship of any other stripe.
Sherwood MacRae said

November 7, 2007 @ 4:18 pm
I have a “file” – probably 6 inches thick, on the subject of “same-sex” marriage and it is, at best, no better than a shovel full of cow manure. At least the manure might cause growth if properly applied. The articles in my file contain various opinions, pro and con, on the subject and most of them come from either the pen or the mind of Christian apologists. I have been dismayed that none of them have been able to prove their case.

Now, I find these words – “..the best antidote to a society desirous of same-sex marriages is to make Christian marriages so attractive and joy full and beautiful and fruitful that no one would want to be a part of a relationship of any other stripe.”

I will close my file. I rest my case. The author has summarized my feelings on the subject as he parallels my beliefs as to what constitutes the Christian life.

Thank you so very much.