Be loving in everything you do." - I Corinthians 16:13-14
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"Be on your guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be brave. Be strong. Be loving in everything you do." - I Corinthians 16:13-14 |
Some of you are no doubt wondering what those of us at Stand Firm have to say about Wednesday's procedural defeat in the Senate of the Federal Marriage Amendment. I just returned from a Stand Firm board meeting, and the news received about 10 seconds' attention, during which only the simple facts of the vote were announced. Then on we went to more pressing matters.
The fact is, the matter of gay marriage in a religious context is complex enough as it is. In a civil context, while there is certainly some overlap, there are so many factors aside from religion, that a thorough treatment of it would be a drain of time and resources for this group and this site.
Not to say it's not an important issue - it's extremely important. It's just that when you look at the infinitely more important issues of sacraments, sin and salvation, the FMA is just so much background noise.
It would be nice to think that federal legislation could straighten this issue out for the better, but in the long term, if we have anything to be concerned about, it's not the lack of legislation protecting traditional marriage. It's the emergence of legislation that could make criminal institutions out of churches that don't bless same-sex marriages.
Why? Because for liberals, separation of church and state is a beautiful thing when it's keeping the Ten Commandments out of a courthouse, but in their minds, it's strictly a one-way doctrine. Don't expect them to bring it up very often when the ACLU starts asking why your state allows gay marriage but your church doesn't.
That said, if you're hungry for analysis with a religious slant, check out Sed Contra and Ecumenical Insanity.
Posted by Greg Griffith at July 14, 2004 05:56 PM (GMT -6:00)Greg, I would agree with your assessment. I am more concerned with what goes on in my church than I am with what goes on in the secular world. For this reason, I am somewhat conflicted about a constitutional amendment. It does bother me a great deal that we seem to be governed by a bunch of appointed, tenured for life judges that are answerable to no one. On the other hand, we are already overburdened with governmental intrusions into our personal lives. The liberals seem to believe that the constitution mandates "freedom from religion". That is not the case. What it does mandate is "freedom OF religion". The further religion is removed from our public life, the deeper we sink into the moral cesspool we seem to be in today. The church should our refuge and our fortress against the evils of secular society but ECUSA is instead trying to march us all into that cesspool, arm-in-arm with the liberal "anything goes" secularists.
By the way, I have noticed lately that there seems to be fewer responses and discussion on this site than there used to be. What gives?
Summer doldrums. A lot of us have been on vacation, a lot of our readers too. Things are about to pick back up. Next week we have a big series that we expect is going to be read by virtually all of the orthodox in the Anglican communion, and many on the other side, too. Stand Firm has two conferences in August, then in October the Lambeth Commission report is scheduled to be released. Keep cool and let's get through August, but buckle up after that - it's going to be a wild ride.
# Posted by: Greg Griffith at July 15, 2004 12:13 PMI just read the "states rights" posting on Ecumenical Insanity. He made some excellent observations. The level of one-sided biased reporting in the liberal press is really disgusting. It looks as if we are now beseiged on all sides by the liberal secularists, the liberal press and the liberal leadership of our own church. Hopefully, our path out of the wilderness will be made known to us soon.
# Posted by: Michael Ware at July 15, 2004 02:06 PMMichael - from your lips to God's ears. Let us all pray He opens a path. We know that if he does, it will be the perfect path and what lies to the side or back will be of no consequence. Peace, Jackie
# Posted by: Jackie at July 17, 2004 09:34 AMWhat puzzles me in all of this is why, when it became obvious that the FMA as currently written was not going to go anywhere, didn't someone cleverly introduce the following substitute amendment:
"Neither the U.S. constitution, nor any state constitution, shall be so construed as to require marriage to be anything other then a life long commitment between one man and one woman. Neither the U.S. constitution, nor any state constitution, shall be so construed as to require the recognition of civil unions of any kind."
This would have in one step prevented the liberal judiciary from pushing same-sex marriage on any state, but would not have forbid individual states from passing laws recognizing same-sex marriage.
We all know that the gay agenda depends on the courts to get anywhere, so there was no need to include the amendment-killing positive statement about what marriage is. I wonder if the whole FMA debacle was more about an intentional failure -> leading to conservative angst at the statewide level -> leading to statewide initiatives -> leading to an indigenous "get out the conservative vote" effort -> leading to better chances for Bush in November, then it ever was a serious attempt to block liberal judges from arbitrarily rewriting state constitutions.
# Posted by: James W. at July 22, 2004 04:49 PM