{"id":596,"date":"2008-06-16T17:35:52","date_gmt":"2008-06-17T00:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=596"},"modified":"2008-06-16T17:35:52","modified_gmt":"2008-06-17T00:35:52","slug":"gay-marriage-the-sky-is-falling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2008\/06\/16\/gay-marriage-the-sky-is-falling\/","title":{"rendered":"Gay Marriage — The Sky is Falling!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I get the Family Research Council’s email updates, mostly to see what the Religious Right is thinking about.\u00a0 Today’s email, offensively, was titled “Here Come the Grooms.”\u00a0 Among other breathless turns of fearmongering phrase, it tells us “When the clock chimes 5:01 p.m. (PST), the California ruling that threatens to undo thousands of years of natural marriage will officially take effect, triggering five months of social chaos that could wreak havoc on every state in America<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

And they wonder why reasonably educated Christians who live in the real world are increasingly unwilling to put up with the marriage\u00a0our faith to right wing politics?\u00a0 Does anybody really<\/em> believe that at 5:01 p.m. PST “thousands of years of natural marriage” will be undone?\u00a0 So, suddenly, all of the marriages recorded in my family geneology book going back to the 1600’s are going to disappear?\u00a0 Everything I know from my family and church about loving my wife and children will vanish from my brain?\u00a0<\/p>\n

And does anyone really<\/em> think there will be “five months of social chaos” starting at 5:01 PST?\u00a0 Gas prices will shoot up to $10 per gallon, the markets will collapse, Wall Street bankers will line up for food stamps, loving moms and wives will march in the streets against their husbands and children…\u00a0 not.\u00a0 Well, the $10 gas might get here, but not because of this court case.<\/p>\n

Whatever happend to the Church against which even the gates of hell won’t prevail?\u00a0 If we can’t “win” in American courts or legislatures, suddenly God’s creational ordinances relating to families will be repealed?\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Christians, we have ideals for human relationships, including the very special relationship of marriage.\u00a0 We very often don’t live up to our own ideals even within the Church, even within “natural” marriage.\u00a0 I’d daresay that pornography, workaholism, overconsumption, and just plain selfishness are far greater threats to our Christian ideals of marriage both within and without the Church right now than whether or not secular laws purport to give the status of “marriage” to gay couples.\u00a0 But even if our ideal includes a social order that gives a privileged legal space to life-long commitments between one man and one woman, it’s long past time that we realize we don’t live in a nation-state that endorses our ideals.\u00a0 America is not, never has been, and never will be a “Christian” nation — get over it.<\/p>\n

Should we then not advocate for what we believe are civil laws that reflect our ideals?\u00a0 No, we should not cease to advocate for what we believe is right and best.\u00a0 But our expectations have to be realistic, our tone and tactics have to be Christ-like, and our hope ultimately has to be patiently eschatological.\u00a0 Maybe this is a time when we are being called to live faithfully and counterculturally in Babylonian exile as the Church<\/em> and not as the State.\u00a0\u00a0 What if all the Christian families in America really practiced what we profess about mutual respect, love and perseverence within marriage?\u00a0 Nothing would then\u00a0“undo” marriage.\u00a0 And what if we all decided that our attitudes towards our gay neighbors must above all else be to love them as we love ourselves?\u00a0 Maybe then we’d start to become instruments of grace in places where the gospel often doesn’t get a hearing.\u00a0 (And no, “love” doesn’t mean “I’m ok, you’re ok.”\u00a0 One thing it means, I think, is “I’m a mess, you’re a mess — and here is Jesus, who loves to forgive and work on messes.”)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I get the Family Research Council’s email updates, mostly to see what the Religious Right is thinking about.\u00a0 Today’s email, offensively, was titled “Here Come the Grooms.”\u00a0 Among other breathless turns of fearmongering phrase, it tells us “When the clock chimes 5:01 p.m. (PST), the California ruling that threatens to undo thousands of years of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-law-and-policy","category-spirituality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-9C","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}