Independence Day, 2004

Tomorrow we travel to Argentina on a flight that will take us from Los Angeles to Lima to Santiago to Buenos Aires to Salta, Northern Argentina. After 18 or 19 hours we’ll arrive at our destination. Having lived in Argentina for two years I know first-hand that the Argentines are wonderful and warm-hearted people. The work projects, worship, and contact with Christians are going to be exhilirating experiences. After we complete our mission work in Argentina my sons and I will stay for another week in Paraguay. It will be a joy to bite into fresh mangos, hike on red clay paths through fields of sugar cane and coconut trees, and visit old friends. These two countries are beautiful places and yet there is no denying that there is something special about the United States.

In terms of music, language, dance, geography, food, and costume the nations of the world are fascinating. We are enriched when we visit them and learn their ways. Nevertheless, there is something exceptional about the United States, something exceptionally good. On this Independence Day it is fitting that we reflect on the many things make this nation great. This land has been blessed by Christianity, and not just any form of Christianity. The Christians who first settled the colonies were overwhelmingly Calvinist Puritans and Anglicans. The brand of faith that made this country so free and prosperous was thoroughly Protestant. The English Reformation accounts for our extraordinary generosity, our compassion, our entrepreneurship, our economic freedom, our work ethic and productivity, our high standard of living, and our willingness to fight tyranny around the globe. We have our problems, but God shed His grace on America in a truly unique way. It is all too easy to take for granted the goodness of this country. On this Independence Day let us be grateful. We thank the Lord for the many blessings we enjoy living here.

On the other hand, there are trends that are turning our nation away from what makes it great. One of those is the push for same-sex marriage. You have seen the news from San Francisco and Massachusetts. Liberal judges are intent on imposing same-sex marriage on our country. In an effort to stop the activist judges from arbitrarily redefining marriage, an ammendment to the Constitution is being advanced, an ammendment Christians should be supporting. Unfortunately, a few churches are doing the opposite by joining up with radical gay agenda that wants to impose same-sex marriage on the country. It now appears that the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop in the Episcopal Church will split the Anglican Communion, and rightly so. Only an apostate church would elevate to the bishopric a narcissist who abandoned his wife and children for a homosexual lover. Bishop Bruno of the diocese of Los Angeles has been an outspoken advocate for same-sex marriages and in fact ceremonially blessed one just a few weeks ago. The Anglican Church is debating this issue and we need to know how the homosexual church is using the Bible to prop up gay activity. We as the Church need to know how to help homosexuals, why need to be clear why same-sex marriage and partnerships are wrong, and finally we must be convinced of the monumental harm that will afflict United States if we allow same sex marriage to become the law of the land. That is our purpose.

With all the biblical prohibitions against homosexual activity, and with everything the Bible says about the institution of marriage in the Garden of Eden, how is it possible for anybody to make a case for same-sex marriage? It seems like the Bible is clear: God destroyed the people of Sodom and Gomorrah for their homosexual crimes (Gen. 19:1-13), two texts in Leviticus prohibit “lying with a man as one lies with a woman” (Lev. 18:22 and 20:13), and then St. Paul condemns homosexual activity on three different occasions (Romans 1:18-32; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; 1 Tim. 1:8-11). How does one get around these passages? Believe it or not a few theologians have discovered ways to reinterpret them. They say some surprising things. We can’t be caught off guard. It is claimed by gay theology that the Bible actually blesses committed, loving, homosexual couples and God accepts their relationships, and those relationships should be given full legal marital status. Let’s survey the Scriptures and see the position is justified.

We all the know the story of Sodom. God obliterated the city due to the wickedness of the people. What were they doing that brought God’s wrath? The traditional Christian view has been that they were guilty of homosexual practices, which they attempted to inflict on the two angels whom Lot was entertaining in his home. Behaving like animals they yell at Lot, “Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally.” It sounds like the men of Sodom wanted to commit homosexual rape. But gay theology points to the verb “to know.” The men demanded, “Bring them out to us that we may know them.” In other words, “Lot, bring out your guests so we can get acquainted with them.” Therefore, the true sin of the men of Sodom was not their homosexual lust but their violation of the rules of hospitality. They wanted to get to know the two angels without a proper invitation. The gay interpretation calls attention to the fact that the word “know” in the Bible does not usually mean sexual intercourse. This is true, but context is everything. Physical intercourse is obviously in mind because Lot tries to bring the crazed men to their senses by offering them his two virgen daughters as a substitute. The entire passage has to do with sex, not hospitality. Jude 7 confirms this conclusion. St. Jude says, “Sodom and Gomorrah… having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”

How about the texts from Leviticus? Leviticus 18:22 says, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.” Likewise Leviticus 20:13 says, “If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death.” These verses are hard to skirt but some gay theologians have found a way. They claim that the verses are meant to prohibit the Canaanite fertility cults that included ritual prostitution. In the days of ancient Israel when the Torah was written, temple prostitution among the pagan nations was a problem. This is the ritual that the writer of Leviticus was forbidding. Since these religious practices have long since ceased they have no relevance to same-sex marriage today. “The burden of proof is with them, however. The plain, natural interpretation of these two verses is that they prohibit homosexual intercourse of every kind. And the requirement of the death penalty indicates the extreme seroiusness with which homosexual practices were viewed.” [John Stott, Same-Sex Partnerships? p. 24. See also Erwin W. Lutzer’s The Truth about Same-Sex Marriage. See Maggie Gallagher’s web site marriagedebate.com]

The Romans 1 passage is another difficult passage for gay theology to overcome. Let’s read Romans 1:26. [Read it.]

Furthermore, when St. Paul writes of women who had “exchanged the natural use for what is against nature” and of men who had “left the natural use of the woman” he means by “nature” the natural order of things which God has established. What Paul is condemning, therefore, is not the perverted behavior of heterosexual people who were acting against their nature, but any human behavior which is against nature, that is, against God’s created order. What does creation have to do with it? In what way did God establish sex? In Genesis 2 God brought Eve out of the rib of Adam. She came out of him. God took one being and made two beings. When Adam saw her he was exceedingly happy: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

John Stott has some very insightful comments concerning the emphasis on the word “flesh.” He says that the “flesh” repetition in Genesis two has a purpose. “Flesh of my flesh,” and “one flesh” is no accident. “ It teaches that heterosexual intercourse in marriage is more than a union; it is a kind of reunion. It is not a union of alien persons who do not belong to one another and cannot appropriately become one flesh. On the contrary, it is the union of two persons who originally were one, were then separated from each other, and now in the sexual encounter of mariage come together.

It is surely this which explains the profound mystery of heterosexual intimacy, which poets and philosophers have celebrated in every culture. Heterosexual intercourse is much more than a union of bodies; it is a blending of complementary personalities through which, in the midst of prevailing alienation, the rich, created oneness of human being is experienced again. And the complementarity of male and female sexual organs is only a symbol at the physical level of a much deeper spiritual level.” [Close quote. pp. 34-35.]

Therefore the heterosexual union is innately superior to homosexual union. The two cannot be compared. And what is more, one is blessed by God and established in marriage, and the other, the same-sex union, is utterly forbidden by God, and never permitted as a partnership or marriage.

Let’s turn to another aspect of same-sex marriage. Why is it important? As openly gay congressman Barney Frank asked, “Who are we hurting?” How does redefining marriage and the family affect our own marriages, our own families, and our society? The simple answer is this: two incompatible understandings of the family cannot exist side by side for very long. One will vanish and it could very well be the traditional two-parent family composed of a husband and a wife.

Moreover, Gay marriage might well change society’s entire concept of parenthood. Because gay couples canot produce children on their own two men will rent the womb of a woman, and lesbians will adopt or get impregnated artificially. Whether raised by two lesbians or two homosexual men, these children will be denied either a mother or a father. And there is no way that two men can take the place of a mother’s love, or two women can equal a dad. This same-sex battle is worth fighting because it also strikes at women who intentially get pregnant in order to raise a child without the father. God intended that every child have a mother and a father. Every child deserves to see modeled both femininity and masculinity in a committed family relationship. This is the ideal, and same-sex marriage would destroy the ideal.

And then there are affects from same-sex marriage that we can’t even imagine yet. Anthony Esolen of Touchstone magazine has this to say, “It’s not the approval of homosexual marriage that I dread most, but the approval of homosexual everything else. If two men can marry, then two men can hold hands. Two men can kiss in public, and with passion. Two men can be shown in bed together on a TV sitcom. A man can talk in middle school about the first time he kissed his present husband. A boy can ask another boy to the prom, and nobody will be able to object. Boys can write each other love-notes.

“All this will be protected, and in the meantime something far more important and difficult will be deserted, something already struggling to keep up a fitful existence. That is friendship --- I mean the development of healthy friendship among boys, the comradeship necessary if they are ever to become, emotionally and intellectually, whole men.

“Imagine if the incest taboo were obliterated: Never again could an arm around the shoulder, a tickle, or a kiss be quite innocent. Always the shadow of eroticism would pass over the act. The best among us would simply retire and refrain. …Boys can play rough only so long as playing rough is only playing. They can throw an arm around the shoulder only so long as everyone can rest content that that is all it is. To approve of homosexuality is to place all these innocent acts in a sexual context, by necessity.” [Close quote. Touchstone, April 2004 p. 6.] We are only beginning to realize how far-reaching and profound the ramifications of same-sex marriage would be.

So far we have been speaking about the radicals. They are the ones who persuade judges to force on us a practice that will destroy the American family. Not every gay person is a radical. Many homosexuals and lesbians are looking for a way out. They are miserable, and prone to suicide and it is not because of homophobia. These men and women are hurting and they are the ones that we as a parish can reach out to. If they are seeking help and hope we must try to offer them that for we have the Gospel. 80% of Lesbians have been molested or mistreated by men – often by the father, a baby-sitter, or a stranger. Their hatred for men drove them into same-sex relationships that were difficult to break. Likewise, many boys are recruited by older homosexual men. They may have initially hated the experience, but because sex binds two people together the boys may begin to feel a sense of security and fulfillmnent within this relationship. Soon they seek out other partners, not because they were born homosexual, but because their initial experiences were so stamped upon their souls that they now follow the lead of their newly awakened desires. [Lutzer, p. 54.]

Let’s not accept the myth that homosexual orientation is indelibly etched on their beings. Homosexuality is fluid. Gay men can become straight. And lesbians can too. For some it will be easy; for others it will be nearly impossible. The ones who can’t change must remain celebate. There is no need for a person struggling with homosexual temptation to tell everybody about it, but he or she should tell somebody in the church. They need prayer, they need friendship, and they need our support. We work to help them out of their sins just like we help anybody addicted to adultery, premarital sex, gossip or pornography. God help us to love the homosexual who wants out. God help us to halt the radical movement that would legalize same-sex marriages. At this point only a Constitutional amendment will stop the activist judges.