I was playing with the words of our declaration and my strong feelings for marriage. I think it is one of the Biblical pillars and not only because our Lord uses it so often to describe our relationship with him. What do you think of my fighting words?
Marriage Charter
To our esteemed President, the Supreme Court and the Honorable Congress of the United States:
Be it known to you:
We the people hold marriage to be an unalienable right emanating from our Creator. No state organization or court may define marriage any other way other than that which has been handed down to us from our forefathers through the religions of the Jew and the Christian. We do not wish to oppress any nor uplift any in our assertion of this unalienable right; rather we wish to succinctly state that which is obvious from the historical record: marriage is an institution rendered by our Creator and is therefore inviolate. It can not be altered from its basic definition of a man and a woman enjoining for the purpose of living their lives before society.
Further,
Since we hold this right to be unalienable, we do not recognize the right of the state to alter or subtract from it in any way. We do advise you therefore of our concern on the part of some to redefine marriage. We consider such altering as tampering with that over which you have no recognized power. Respectfully we ask that you do recognize the sacrament of marriage as such a right. Governments are instituted among men to secure those unalienable rights, and when governments begin to stray, it is the duty and solemn obligation of the governed to revoke their consent of governance. Be it known to you that we will treat any usurpation of the sacrament of marriage with the utmost suspicion and will hold such usurpation in the lowest regard.
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9 comments:
Pat writes: >No state organization or court may define marriage any other way other than that which has been handed down to us from our forefathers through the religions of the Jew, the Moslem, and the Christian.<
Okay, you are aware, are you not, that in the Moslem religion a man may take more than one wife?
Not that most Moslems can afford to keep more than one. And, once married, the first wife would be disinclined for her husband to take another wife after her. (Would your wife like it if you opted for bigamy and took a second wife?) But, still. Moslem rules enshrine it. Mohammed had how many wives?
So, your citation of Moslem religion, a good idea?
Not so much.
There has been much of a push, of late, by the Left, to legalize plural marriage. It is part and parcel of their aim to disintegrate marriage as a social institution, an alliance with the proponents of gay marriage, most of whom are loony hetero Lefties with a mad on for America and traditional values.
Polygamy has been around in the US for a long time. We just do it one at a time. Time after time after time. But your point is correct. I did think about it when writing it, but my answer was that American Moslems do not seem to indulge in polygamy.
The looney left does not think very well. If they suceed in redefining marriage, why not polygamy, bestiality, or children? Where does the redefinition stop? If it stops morally, then the left must admit that morals define marriage now. If they do not assent to morals, then the door is left wide open. Ugh.
Pat
Well written Mr. D.
Honest question here: at what specific point did the Jews abolish polygamy?
The argument goes, from what I understand, that Adam and Eve set the standard, man sinned and fell away from that standard ... the Jews compromised and adopted pagan polygamy practices ... ... but when did it get back to one man and one woman?
Miroslav,
Good question! I think polygamy was fading out by NT times. I think Ephesus still practiced it, where if I remember right, Paul gives a shaded warning against it.
Our Lord of course told us that the intention of God was for one man to be with one woman, forever eradicating the idea of polygamy.
Interestingly he did also tell us that Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of our hearts.
My contention is that one at a time is just as scandelous polygamy as all at once. Yet we do have hard hearts!
Pat
Very powerfully stated Pat. My brother has bought into homosexuality and he and his partner are upset that they wouldn't get the same tax shelters given to husbands/wives if they do the civil union.
How does this work with equal protection/equal treatment? Is a tax shelter for a Judeo-Christian institution contrary to the principle of the separation of church and state?
Your thoughts?
David,
Sorry about your brother. I too have family members involved in homosexuality. In my perspective it just seems to warp so much of the way they look at the world and themselves.
As to your question, I think I would agree with thoughts from your blog that separation of church and state does preclude a tax shelter. However, historically it has not. Monroe of course supported a complete bill of divorce of church and state. The newest church members agreed with him because they were being persecuted from the state churches.But most citizens did not want to exclude Christianity from government,rather they wanted state not to sponsor a particular brand of Christianity.
I think it ironic that we still continue to argue this 250 years later- though from far more of an intrinsic atheist viewpoint than ever before. I do not think our forefathers would like what they would see happening to our country in the name of irreligion.
Pat
Wasn't polygyny generally reserved for the wealthy among the OT Jews? Kings and princes, successful businessmen and such. But, then, look at the patriarchs and prophets: Abraham had just Sarah, Moses likewise, etc. Even Herod.
Paul's letters suggest that polygyny was practiced in the provinces by the gentiles where the faith was taking hold, while he holds up a different standard, from the Jewish POV. Jesus' teaching suggests it was not an issue with the Jews. The moral logic is unambiguous in Jesus' teaching. Without even directly addressing the issue, he addresses it. If it is adultery to marry after divorce, then how much more must it be adultery to marry Jane while already married to Mary?
Jesus ties it up with a bow, here:
Matthew 5:32
But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.
Matthew 19:9
I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."
Mark 10:11-12
He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."
Luke 16:18
"Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
Jesus lays down the law, while Paul implies that polygyny is practiced in gentile church territories, but informs us that church leadership has another standard:
1 Timothy 3:2
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
1 Timothy 3:12
Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.
Titus 1:5-9
For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
Paul and Jesus present the Jewish POV for NT times.
Well said David!
Thanks
Thanks. There's nothing new under the sun.
God permitted the Jews to have polygyny, legal under their secular (man's) law, but contrary to God's moral law.
Moses permitted divorce, but Jesus says that to remarry after divorce still violates God's law. And what God has joined, let not man put asunder.
Today, divorce and remarriage are rampant, and the push is on to redefine marriage under secular (man's) law, to include gays, and, now, plural marriage (polygamy).
God permits sin. Existential freedom. The bondage of the will.
1 Corinthians 6:12
[ Sexual Immorality ] "Everything is permissible for me"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything.
1 Corinthians 10:23
[ The Believer's Freedom ] "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive.
Insofar as marriage is regulated by the civil authorities wrt "community property," paternity, parental obligations, child support, division of property, alimony and so forth, it is understandably a civil institution, subject to definiion or re-definition by civil authorities. The root of the connection of the state and marriage, I venture, is the disposition of children (future taxpayers!), and inheritance / lineage / succession (titled lords).
Marriage is a sacrament in the RCC, and governed by the church. At the same time, the RCC put the clerical calling and its vow of celibacy (vow not to marry) as being the spiritually higher calling. Luther rejected this idea that celibacy is spiritually superior to marriage, and the Reformation put marriage out of Protestant Church law, placing it with the civil authorities.
In "On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church," Luther asserted marriage was a civil affair to which the Church could give its blessing.
If the civil authorities today re-define marriage, it may be legal, but that won't make it right.
The state has the authority to make sin legal, and virtue a crime, but it can't change sin and virtue themselves.
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