There are three questions that have popped up in the comments that I imagine would be of interest to many readers. I’m going to try to give my understanding of the answers in three posts.
1. If gay marriage is contrary to God’s will, shouldn’t it be illegal?
2. Why does God declare homosexual conduct immoral?
3. How should Christians deal with believers who approve of gay marriage?
These are very hard questions, and I don’t claim to have the final word. Rather, my goal is to further the conversation by helping to build the foundation for scriptural, godly conclusions.
I think there are principles that apply that are rarely considered, and so my aim to introduce these principles into the conversation — even if I’ve not yet entirely figured out what the final outcome should be.
Make sense?
Good questions, especially #2 and #3. #1 is clearly the ‘easier’ question to answer. Lots of things are contrary to God’s will that are not illegal…sex outside of marriage, divorce, greed, lust, gluttony, idolatry, even murder of the unborn. The latter is a far, far more pressing matter for our country than homosexuality IMO.
As for #3, love them. They are Christians too. When you start deciding what opinions other Christians can have you are causing division, which is wrong. I think many of you would be surprised at the results of an honest poll (though very difficult, if not impossible, to conduct) of people in most churches. Lots of women keep quiet about their personal views but are not as conservative as they appear to be.
Mark,
I may disagree with that just a bit, depending on your meaning. Concur with love. Concur that polls may be surprising, but polls (frequently the Broad Way) are also irrelevant with respect to God’s will. Concur that we can’t dictate opinions; however, we can frequently evaluate those opinions in light of scripture and determine their congruence with the Word.
I think a part of answering question number 2 is dealing with ethics from nature. I hear people ask questions like, “what harm does it cause?” This question is not asking about spiritual harm but rather what physical & natural harm does it cause others? Sexual human desires play out in great variety of expression and our culture in the United States appears to have built a natural ethic based on those shared desires. Though, admittedly, we have focused greatly on just heterosexual and homosexual attraction. Is it good to build a sexual ethic out of the human desires surrounding attraction? If that is the foundation for questions, as it appears to be for most people, than how can we answer the question of why God thinks its immoral? I don’t think He will fit into the nature box. Nature should play a connected role with the spiritual and both must participate at a secondary level to the Christian narrative as a part of God’s Christ centered Kingdom mission. At least that is what I am thinking right now.