Romancing the Rocks

For the longest time, I misunderstood romantic love to be the love between a man and a woman. The love properly ordered toward marriage. But I am beginning to understand that there is romance in everything.

Also, along the same lines, romantic love is often tied in with sex, as if the two went hand-in-hand. It's not that the two are entirely unrelated, but properly ordered, most romance is not sexual in nature (or perhaps, as taught in John Paul II's Theology of the Body, it might be better to say that not all our sexuality is ordered toward sexual activity).

Romance starts with our experience of the beautiful, whether something looks beautiful, sounds beautiful, smells beautiful, and so on. But it is not only from the experience of the senses directly, but also the mind. We can experience a beautiful idea or a beautiful personality.

Thus, we can "fall in love" with things as well as people. We see a beautiful mountain in the distance, and we want to get closer and climb it or touch it. At the least we want to take its picture, so we can preserve a part of our experience with the mountain to bring with us.

One of the things that helped me realize the greater dimensions of romance was having children. You fall in love with the beautiful little faces, the cute voices, the new personalities. You want to hug them and kiss them. You can sit and stare lovingly at them (when they aren't driving you crazy).

Of course, each love, for each person and each thing, is unique, but they are not an entirely different kind of thing. They are different in intensity, they have different components, they are associated with different roles and duties, but they are all loves of the beautiful.

And properly ordered this all points to God. As Plato discovered using pre-Christian philosophy, God is the perfect beauty, and the source of all beauty. And as the the scriptures tell us, Christ came as Lover, to be the bridegroom of the Church, to unite himself with us in a kind of heavenly marriage.

So all that is beautiful, all that we love, should remind us of God. We should be thankful for all the good that he presents to us here on Earth. And when we marvel at the beautiful things he has given us, we should feel even greater awe, wondering how much greater is the source of all beauty and love.

Jesus Hates Deep Fried Snickers

Photo from candyaddict.com

Apparently there's been a popular video on YouTube, saying Jesus hates religion. It's not hard to see this guy is reading what he wants into the Bible. It's really a common problem. People latch onto a small collection of verses, and harden themselves against the rest of the scriptures instead of openly listening to the entirety of what Jesus says, and what the Holy Spirit revealed to the apostles. I've done it myself. The link above also contains a rebuttal by a priest.

I did address the religion vs. relationship issue, and addressed how the marriage-like relationship we are meant to have with Christ is expressed in our religious beliefs and practices.

Let me just examine this topic briefly from another angle, and hopefully show just how off base any claim "Jesus hates Religion" must be. Now there is an extent to which "religion" is quite hard to define, and part of the problem here is probably that the man opposed to religion means something a little different when he says the word, and because of this, I might be defending something different from what is attacking. Let's try then to at least get a sense of the word, even if we cannot define it exactly. According to Peter Kreeft, in the Handbook of Christian Apologetics, religion is hard to define, but each religion has three characteristics: "creed, code and cult," or, "beliefs, morality, and liturgy," or "words, works, and worship." Does Jesus place himself against any of these three characteristics, the defining aspects of religion? Simply, no. In fact Jesus preaches all three (And to be clear, we're using the classical definition of "cult" not the modern definition, so don't freak out on me).

Jesus gave us the root of our beliefs, his identity as God become man. If we reject the beliefs of religion we must obviously reject the scriptures in which those beliefs are grounded. Imagine if Jesus did reject beliefs. How can we begin to have a relationship with Christ without being able to even form an element of an idea of him within our mind, since that would constitute a belief, and Jesus banned belief?

Jesus consistently taught morality. He did not attack the Pharisees for "religion" but for immorality and related hypocrisy. He consistently forgave sins of the outcasts, but he also consistently exhorted, "sin no more." And he clearly taught obedience to the Commandments. It is clear then that Jesus gave us both beliefs and a code.

Then is worship the one problem? Off the bat this sounds unlikely. Can our method of worship be so outlandishly cumbersome that it is somehow standing in opposition to relationship with Christ? But that hardly matters as to the point, since we should find that Jesus has an opposition to all forms of worship, or else it will turn out he is opposed to none of the three aspects of religion. But, we quickly see that Jesus in fact teaches methods of worship! He sets the example of baptism, and the Bible teaches us to baptize "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Jesus institutes Communion, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body." Jesus teaches how to pray with the Lord's Prayer.

We see Jesus building upon and establishing a set of beliefs, upholding and elaborating upon the code of the Ten Commandments, and giving the Church its sacraments as the fulfillment of Old Testament worship.

One final thing. Who gave Moses the Ten Commandments? Who gave us Leviticus, with its collection of code and cult? Who told Solomon to build a glorious temple full of marble and gold and beautiful imagery? Come on, who inspired the Scriptures in general, which are chock full of beliefs, morality, and liturgy? God, the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! I can't imagine Jesus hating something he himself inspired.

Get serious. Tell me Jesus wants a relationship. Tell me Jesus hates hypocrisy. Tell me Jesus hates sin. Tell me Jesus isn't happy if we give him an hour a week, but shut him out of the rest of our lives. I'll agree to all that. Heck, tell me Jesus hates deep fried snickers. But don't tell me Jesus hates religion.

More on Divorce

I don't feel my previous post did this justice, so I'd like to go back and look further into the topic of the "exception clause" in Matthew 5. First, lets read Matthew's second record of Jesus speaking on this matter found in chapter 19:3-10.

Some Pharisees approached him, and tested him, saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?”

He said in reply, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”

They said to him, “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss [her]?”

He said to them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.”

[His] disciples said to him, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

This is taken from the NAB version, which is informed in it's translation by Catholic Tradition, so the problem of the "exception clause" has already been resolved. You'd find the same to be true of the parallel verse in chapter 5. Instead of the words, "except on the ground of unchastity," found in the RSV, or the similar wording of other translations, we find the words, "(unless the marriage is unlawful)." This "unlawful marriage" is a reference to the Levitical laws regarding sex, so this translation leads clearly to the understanding of the Catholic Church, which is that valid sacramental marriages are entirely permanent, and only a marriage which was "unlawful" to begin with can be ended.

Of course the problem still exists that Protestants do not use the NAB, and we really have to back to the original Greek manuscripts of Matthew's Gospel. What we find is inconclusive.

The Greek word which is variously translated as "unlawful marriage" or "unchastity," is porneia. This word is used many times in the Greek New Testament and Septuagint, and it has a variety of context sensitive meanings. Let's spend a moment on the rest of the words in the exception clauses of Matthew 5 & 19 before we return to that key word. The Greek literally translates as "except on the ground of porneias" or "excluding the matter of porneias" in Matthew 5 and "except for porneia" in Matthew 19. The Greek does not state that this is "her porneia," as translations such as the NLT or GNT convey. Still, the porneia in question could be "her porneia," it just isn't stated outright in the Greek.

Back to porneia, its most straight-forward meaning is "prostitution," but based on context, it can also refer to just about any kind of sexual immorality, such as adultery, homosexuality, fornication, incest, or unlawful relations. Thus, translations which give the word as "unchastity" or "sexual immorality" are trying to be broad just as the original word can be broad.

We can however, be fairly certain that the intended meaning is not "adultery," because the same verse uses the word which specifically means "adultery" twice, but does not use that word within the exception clause. But what kind of "sexual immorality" or "unchastity" can exist within marriage other than adultery? Given what Jesus said about lust in Matthew 5:28, it is hard to imagine a sexual sin which would not be considered adultery. Yet, here, Jesus is intentionally using a word that is not meant to mean adultery. And the only meaning of the word, "porneia," which actually differs from "adultery" within the context would be "unlawful relations." If a person were married in a way opposed to the law, they may or may not be culpable of adultery, but regardless, their marriage is void.

We find porneia used in a very similar situation in Acts 15:20, where James says:

"but tell them [the Gentiles] by letter to avoid pollution from idols, porneias, the meat of strangled animals, and blood."

We find porneias translated in this verse in a similar manner, as either "sexual immorality," "unchastity," or "unlawful marriage." The context of the verse is clearly related to Jewish Levitical law, not universal morality. It would make no sense to tell the Gentile converts to avoid adultery in this context; they were already well aware they needed to obey the moral law, including the Ten Commandments. The question was what parts, if any, of the Levitical law were they expected to follow. The only reasonable understanding of porneia would then be "unlawful marriage."

Thus, in Matthew's gospel, Jesus was not leaving a loophole, rather he was making clear that his statement did not apply to "the matter of unlawful relations."

Yes, at times this can be a hard teaching, but that's why our Lord's disciples said, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

While I find this argument sound, volumes have been said on the matter, and there exists a great deal of disagreement. I'll add some links to more information below:

The Church Fathers on the permanence of matrimony.

Did Jesus say adultery is grounds for divorce?
byJimmy Akin

What does the Catholic Church teach on divorce and remarriage?
by Patrick Madrid

The Bible on Divorce

I've always been a little confused by the words of Christ regarding divorce. They didn't seem to fit with the common Protestant idea that divorce is acceptable in extreme circumstances, and then remarriage is always okay. But they also appeared to contradict the Catholic view that divorced people cannot remarry unless they show that their original marriage was actually invalid. The answer really comes down to the interpretation of a few words. Let's look at the two interpretations, and see if we can find an answer that fits everything Jesus said.

The Words

First, Jesus broadens our idea of what constitutes adultery to include lust.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt 5:27-28 NIV)

And then he follows up by showing the adulterous nature of remarriage after divorce.

“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matt 5:31-32 NIV)

While difficult to follow, the teaching that it is sinful to look at a woman lustfully is fairly easy to understand. The more difficult and divisive words are found in Matthew 32. Our understanding of what Jesus meant by “except for sexual immorality” can lead us in a variety of directions.

The Protestant Understanding

Protestants are very divided over this issue. How serious is divorce? When is it acceptable? When is remarriage an option? So, I will have to deal with generalities based on my experience, and it cannot be assumed that this applies to all Protestant groups.

What I have found to be common, is a line of reasoning something like this:

According to my reading, Jesus says we can divorce and remarry, if our spouse has committed adultery. If this is true, then if our spouse violates our wedding vows in other serious ways, such as abusive behavior, this would also be valid grounds for divorce and remarriage.

Certain translations of the Bible seem to assume this is what was meant, and in an attempt at clarity, alter the words of Christ to fit this understanding.

“... if a man divorces his wife for any cause other than her unfaithfulness...” (Matt 5:32 GNT)

“But I say that a man who divorces his wife, unless she has been unfaithful...” (Matt 5:32 NLT)

But this leaves us with several questions. Where do we draw the line on what constitutes a violation of wedding vows which is grounds for divorce? Didn't Jesus just say that lust was adultery, and if so, isn't this grounds for almost any woman to divorce her husband and remarry? And if this is the case, then what purpose is served by warning us against divorce in the first place? And, why doesn't the parallel verse in Luke 16:18 give us exceptions to the inviolable nature of marriage?

The Catholic Understanding

I always favored the Catholic understanding because it seems clear to me that Jesus regards divorce as a very serious matter, and he warns severely against remarriage. Even as a Protestant I had an understanding of the inviolable sacramental nature of marriage. But Catholics are not allowed to remarry after a divorce, unless they can show that their marriage was invalid (I'm not getting into the issue of what many Catholics do, or whether the Church grants too many annulments. I'm looking at the actual teaching of the Church). This seems to go against the exception provided by Christ. Didn't Jesus say that we could remarry if our wives committed adultery?

Let's look for a clue in another Protestant Bible translation. The Contemporary English Version records the verse like this:

“But I tell you not to divorce your wife unless she has committed some terrible sexual sin. If you divorce her, you will cause her to be unfaithful, just as any man who marries her is guilty of taking another man's wife.” (Matt 5:32 CEV)

This isn't very different from the other versions, but this version includes a footnote saying, “some terrible sexual sin: This probably refers to the laws about the wrong kinds of marriages that are forbidden in Leviticus 18.6-18 or to some serious sexual sin.”

Discovering this greatly alleviated my confusion on this matter. If the first meaning is correct, that this “refers to the laws about the wrong kind of marriages that are forbidden,” then this verse is entirely consistent with the Catholic teaching. A man's wedding vows are rendered null if it turns out that their marriage was a “forbidden” kind of marriage, not valid from the start. In this case, the sexual sin was not an extramarital affair as suggested by many translations, rather it was the false marriage which was “unchaste” by its own failing, having been improperly established.

If the marriage was not valid to begin with, then it would not be adultery to remarry after such a divorce. This is the Catholic teaching on the matter, and it is the one teaching that does justice to all the relevant scriptures. The Catholic teaching is consistent, and follows the teaching of our Lord, properly professing the gravity of divorce and remarriage.

“Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery” (CCC 2384).

Pseudogamy 101 & 102

I have to recommend this brilliant set of articles by Anthony Esolen. I'll give a little bit of the first one here, but make sure to go and read them both!

I've written [...] that the real social problem we in America face is the number of people who are not married who behave as if they were. I'd like to revise that claim. Our problem is pseudogamy, false marriage, and it assumes many forms. Same-sex pseudogamy is but the latest and most flagrantly absurd, but it is not the first. We find the most fundamental form, from which other corruptions rise up like diseases, when a man and woman go through the ceremony and utter the traditional words "as long as you both shall live," while harboring the mental reservation, "as long, that is, as I am happy," or "as long as the marriage 'works,'" whatever that is supposed to mean. In other words, in the fundamental form of pseudogamy, we don't have people who are not married behaving as if they were, but people who are married (or who present themselves as having been married) behaving as if they were not.

Read the rest of the article and then the next article by following the links below:

pseudogamy-101

pseudogamy-102

Hopefully there are more in this series.

The Relationship

The Shack claims that Jesus doesn't want religion, he just wants a personal relationship with us. This view is fairly common among Protestants.

Now, he's right to an extent. If we just try to "follow the rules" of our religion, but we somehow do so in a way that does not recognize Jesus as the purpose of everything we do, then we are just engaging in vain works.

But there is a danger going the other direction as well. Jesus does not just want to be our buddy. As the Bible teaches, the relationship we are intended to have with him is far more like marriage than it is like a casual let's-hang-out-at-the-mall-on-Saturday friendship.

Let us compare marriage to our relationship with Christ:

1) Introduction: Before anything can happen, a bride must be introduced to the groom. We are introduced to Christ when we hear the Gospel.

2) Falling in Love: There is a difference between hearing the Gospel, and accepting it. When we really start to know Christ, we will fall in love. He will make sure we are introduced to his father, because if we are to love Jesus, we must get to know and love his father, The Father. We will spend more time with him in prayer, and we will want to make ourselves more attractive to him.

3) Proposal: After we fall in love, we will realize that we are betrothed to Christ, he proposed to us before we were ever born. We have only to say, "Yes," and we will enter into the engagement.

4) Wedding Plans: During our engagement, we plan the wedding, and continue to learn more about our beloved. In the Church we do this by attending RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) classes, among other things. If we haven't already, we should start meeting more of Christ's family: being introduced to his brothers on earth (our fellow parishioners), his brothers in heaven (the Saints), and his mother (Mary).

4b) Confession: You want your marriage to be a clean start, and you want to be completely honest with your spouse, so before you are married, you share with Jesus your past failings, and ask his forgiveness.

5) Wedding: The wedding is a major point in the relationship. At this point our love is formalized. This corresponds more-or-less to Baptism and Confirmation. At this point we enter into the family of God. Jesus becomes our spouse, his Father becomes our Father, his brothers and sisters become our brothers and sisters, and his mother becomes our mother. This is a momentous change, and may be marked by taking a new name, in recognition of the new life that has begun.

6) Consummation: Only after the wedding do we consummate our relationship (Christ is without sin, after all). In the Church, Christ gives us his body in the Eucharist (communion). Unlike the wedding, this step is normally repeated many times over the course of a marriage.

These are the major steps in the relationship. After this, we will continue to grow closer to our spouse, and only love him more with time. But as sinners, there is still a problem that is likely to come up:

Infidelity: Christ will never be guilty of infidelity, but sadly, it can almost be guaranteed that we will not always be faithful to him. When this happens there are two paths we can take.

1) Divorce: While Christ will never desire divorce from us, no matter how we betray him, we can choose to run off, chasing after our sins.

2) Reconciliation: Even though we have betrayed him, he will always forgive us if we ask. Here's where confession shows up again. To have a lasting marriage, we must learn to say we're sorry.

Now, if we look back through these, we can see how the Catholic religion is not a contradiction to the relationship with Jesus, but is rather what you would expect from a deep relationship that is so much like marriage.

We can also see that removing the "Falling in Love" step makes the rest of the events lose all their meaning, but that still doesn't answer why many Protestant groups seem to think that the relationship shouldn't have any more steps after the acceptance of the proposal (though for them, acceptance of the proposal also counts as making wedding vows).

But what about all the things that leaves out? Under normal circumstances, who would say, "It's only our personal relationship that matters," and get married quietly without any witnesses? Who would say, "I don't need anyone interfering with my personal relationship," and refuse to speak with their spouse's family? Who would say, "It's only how we feel about each other that matters," and abstain from a physical relationship and consummation?

The truth is that relationships are both simple and complicated, and our relationship with Christ is no exception. The relationship is rooted in faith, hope and love, but living that relationship, and experiencing it in its fullness, through all the intricacies of our daily lives can get more complicated. That's why we have the Church, through which we come to a fuller knowledge of our beloved, and experience our relationship with him in all the ways he intended.

Gay Mob Pursues Christians

[Nathan's Note: The account has been removed, but I believe this was by my friend, Harvey]

Did anyone hear about the gay mob that chased the Christians out of a San Fransisco neighborhood? How about this question...did you hear about it from a blog, or from a news outlet (5).
The MSM didn't report it. In fact, do an Internet search right now for it, and most of what you'll find are blog posts about it, not news articles. I did a search on Yahoo! news and came up with one hit (1); Google news found 95 (2). For reference, the 11-10 Steelers-Chargers game shows up 948 times on Yahoo! (3) and 2002 on Google (4).
I won't go into the media bias, however; I'd be beating a dead horse if I pointed it out. Instead, I'll dwell on this article some more. Or, rather, on the columns, since there are so few articles.
Most have quickly pointed out the numerous demonstrations by the ''No on 8'' campaign at churches. They point out an irony: the Christians and mormons haven't chased away from the steps of their churches any demonstrators exercising their right to assemble; yet, a group of Christians, also exercising their right to assemble, is chased out of the neighborhood...followed by howls of, ''And don't ever come back!'' The irony, of course, is the answer to the question, ''Which group is more tolerant of others?''
Some pointed out that, had it been the other way around with Christians chasing out gays, it would've been front page news. Bleakly, they opined, ''Hate crimes only occur when homosexuals are attacked, not Christians.'' (6)
Blogs from the other side condemned the mob's action as counter-productive to their goals. The individuals making up the mob were simply that...individuals, and not representative of the whole.
I'd like to point out the hypocrisy of the whole situation. The gay lobby constantly is trying to convince me not to vote to limit marriage because it won't affect me. "Live and let live" they say; "you live your life and I'll live mine." The reactions to the Christians in the video, however, make me doubt the gay lobby believes at all what they're preaching. They're such steadfast adherents to "live and let live" that they'll chase out everyone who disagrees with them, all the while hootin' and hollerin'.
''Hate'' was a common theme during the campaign. In fact, the ''No on 8'' campaign's slogan was ''8 is Hate.'' Well, I definitely see hate in the video.
(1) Yahoo! search 1
(2) Google search 1
(3) Yahoo! search 2
(4) Google search 2
(5) Blog with video
(6) Bleak Blog
Random XXX Church link

Department of Propaganda

As the election drew near, and now, after its close, there has been a proliferation of political news. Often getting my news from the Yahoo! homepage, there's something I've noticed. Some of the stories are traditional Associated Press news, with its mild left-leaning bias (calling pro-lifers "abortion opponents" etc.), but many of the stories are flat-out commentary. Now, Yahoo! may have never claimed that its featured stories were news stories, but I feel much better when opinion pieces are clearly relegated to opinion pages, and not mixed in with the traditional news. I also might be less disturbed if I had read a single column from the conservative perspective during this period.

Take, for example, these quotes from a featured story by John Cloud on Yahoo:

"And then there was California. Gay strategists working for marriage equality in this election cycle had focused most of their attention on that state. Losing there dims hopes that shimmered brightly just a few weeks ago - hopes that in an Obama America, straight people would be willing to let gay people have the basic right to equality in their personal relationships. It appears not."

"In Florida, where the law requires constitutional amendments to win by 60%, a marriage amendment passed with disturbing ease, 62.1% to 37.9%."

Apparently it is "disturbing" that people would vote to deny homosexuals a "basic right to equality." The problem here is that equality presumes that things are equal. But there is little equivalence between recognizing same-sex marriage, and recognizing traditional marriage. One is based on fairy tale romanticism, the other is based on both tradition and on practical concerns.

In fact, I don't even believe that I have a "basic right" to have my marriage recognized. And that's really the key. The government doesn't recognize my marriage because it's my right, the government recognizes my marriage because pretty much every American thinks my marriage is valid (more or less). So then, that's the major problem with recognizing same-sex marriage. Most people don't really view the unions as valid, so if the government recognizes them, then the government imposes this view on the people, which is akin to establishment of religion.

See the difference there? The government imposes nothing (or very little) when it recognizes traditional marriage, because most Americans already recognize such marriages, but the government imposes a great deal when it legally recognizes marriages that are not recognized by most Americans.

If the government stopped recognizing marriage as an institution altogether I might be upset, and I might want to change it, but I don't think I could argue that it was my "basic right."

But you won't find that argument in the mainstream media. Yahoo! isn't going to slide that kind of opinion piece in with the regular news, so they shouldn't be throwing in the liberal propaganda they do run. Of course we can't expect much from these companies. Google and Apple did contribute money to fight Prop 8.

We Win Some, We Lose Some... Heads

So, looks like we've done poorly on life issues this election. The highly pro-abortion candidate, Obama, won the presidency, along with his party winning several seats in the Senate and the House. Prop 4 in California failed to pass, meaning kids can still get abortions without parental permission (even if they can't bring aspirin to school without a note). And Initiative 1000 passed in Washington state, legalizing euthanasia.

Happily, we did manage to pass Prop 8 in California, and similar measures in other states (like 102 in AZ), preventing activist judges from redefining marriage. This should preserve our freedom to disagree on the issue of homosexuality for a little longer. As I've said before, the biggest danger of legally recognized same-sex marriage is that the government will then begin to enforce the positions of gay-rights activists, interfering with freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

For me, Obama's win wasn't a surprise. I was, however, pleasantly surprised that Prop 8 passed. As for Prop 4, I was a bit shocked that people still think parents shouldn't be informed when their child is going to be given serious and destructive surgery.

Lastly, let me just say I'm glad I don't live in Washington. I really don't know why the risk of legalized euthanasia is worth it to people. If I was able to completely trust everyone, and especially every doctor, then it might not be so scary, even though it would still be wrong. But as it is, doctors can be incompetent and sometimes even malicious. Why should we give them the kind of power over life and death that legalized euthanasia gives them? Also, do we really want the government making decisions about which innocent people it's okay to kill?

Same-Sex Sympathy

Before talking any more about my opposition to same-sex marriage, I must let it be known that I have a great deal of sympathy for those with same-sex attraction, especially those who are "in love" with someone. I'm sure their feelings of "love" are just as real as the feelings that heterosexual couples feel when they first meet someone new and exciting. Of course, even for heterosexuals these feelings can be misleading, causing them to enter harmful relationships.

I myself used to believe we should just let them marry. I believed it would make them happy, and cut down on homosexual promiscuity.

But, after studying the matter further, I changed my mind. While it is possible that some individuals might be happier if they had legally recognized marriages, the general trend for society, for people with same-sex attraction, and especially for children, will be toward unhappiness.

Further, it is apparent that redefining marriage so that it has nothing to do with tradition or children will just lead to other people asking for their own ideas of marriage to be recognized (as it, in fact, already is).

Most important, same-sex marriage will not guarantee free speech and religious freedom as its supporters claim. It will, in fact, undermine the free speech and religious freedom of everyone who doesn't "get with the program." Gay rights activists are already emboldened, asking for the Bible to be considered hate speech, trying to force independent citizens to accept their relationships, and teaching kindergartners that homosexual behavior is normal.

Homosexuals already have the right to live in committed relationships. What they don't have is the right to force everyone else to accept those relationships as healthy and equal to traditional marriages.

Intolerance and Same-Sex Marriage

According to Jenifer DeLemont, in the October 26 East Valley Tribune:

Discrimination should be judged[...] by rewriting the statement with a different group's name. [A statement by supporters of Proposition 102] says; “Marriage is between one man and one woman. To allow marriages to be confused by allowing a man and a man to wed will destroy the meaning of marriage.”

But let’s try that same statement with a slight change: “Marriage is between one Christian and one Christian. To allow marriages to be confused by allowing a Christian to wed a Jew will destroy the meaning of marriage.” If that’s not bad enough for you, then try it with race. “Marriage is between one white person and one white person. To allow marriage to be confused by allowing a white person to marry a black person will destroy the meaning of marriage.”

So you see, discrimination all depends on the group we are talking about.

I found this argument quite humorous. If only she wasn't serious. The problem is that she arbitrarily decides what would be a "slight change." Apparently she thinks that a person's sex is roughly as important as their skin color. I may have missed whatever biology class she took, but I'm pretty sure a black man's body functions pretty much the same as a white man's body, even being able to produce children with a white woman. While I don't recall the lesson where two men could make a child.

In fact, using her formula, I'm sure we can find all kinds of intolerance. We'll just take a statement she would agree with, "Not allowing a man to marry a man is intolerant." then see if we can make it sound bad by using a different group's name: "Not allowing a 9-year old to marry a 49-year old is intolerant." Ooh let's do that again: "Not allowing a live man to marry a dead man is intolerant." Hmm... weird how different groups of people evoke different feelings. If that's not bad enough for you, let's take it a step further, "Not allowing a man to marry a herd of wildebeests is intolerant."