Marriage: Another Definition?‏

Hello Friends!

Over the past several months, many EC readers have inquired of information pertaining to the controversial Minnesota Marriage Amendment issue taking place in our home state.  Much media publicity has been circulating encouraging voters to voice a "NO" decision on the 2012 ballot.  With this article, I will address this very important topic by contending for the "YES" side of this debate. Personally, I am not willing to dishonor the very One who instituted marriage between one man and one woman - The Lord our God, Creator of heaven and earth. Contrary to popular opinion, this discussion is first and foremost a spiritual issue - not a political one. Nor is it a Civil Rights issue. That said, morality can indeed be legislated. The question is, who's morality (or worldview) will be legislated?

We here at Encouraging Concepts realize not everyone believes as we do. However, we encourage everyone, regardless of religious or political affiliations, to research this important issue for themselves before marking their November ballots - our very existence as a society depends upon it.

Marriage: Another Definition?

 

The debate over the definition of marriage has unfolded across America and at the federal level for the past several years, and is the subject of the proposed amendment on the November 2012 ballot to preserve marriage in Minnesota. But what is the debate really about, how does it affect society and what is at stake in the outcome of the amendment vote?

Marriage as the union of one man and one woman has existed long before there was any governmental structure, and is a common feature of virtually every world religion. Government in virtually every country on earth later adopted this ubiquitous understanding of marriage. Until the last few years, there was never any thought that "religious" marriage could be separated from "civil" marriage. It has only been in the past ten years or so that gay activists have launched a political movement to redefine marriage and de-couple it from its religious underpinnings.

In the beginning, God our creator instituted marriage between one man and one woman. Jesus confirmed God's words in Genesis by stating in the New Testament Gospel of Matthew:

 Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female? And for this reason man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh - Matthew 19:4 & 5

 
For several years, opponents of the marriage amendment have defended their position by saying something like "same-sex marriage is already illegal in Minnesota; we don't need an amendment."  To hear them talk, one would think marriage is safe and secure behind a bulwark of laws and judicial decisions. The truth is the statement "We don't need an amendment" is the worst kind of political spin.  It is a simplistic message designed to misdirect the voter and maintain political power. True, current statues prohibit same-sex marriage in Minnesota.  But well funded groups like Lambda Legal of New York plan to circumvent these laws and attack marriage via unprotected state constitutions - this is where the danger lies.

Should the Constitution be amended? Law professor Richard Wilkins explains why this is necessary:

"Ten years ago, I would have explained that amending the Constitution to define marriage is clearly wrong - for at least three important reasons.  First, the Constitution says nothing about marriage; why should that change?  Second, marriage is a question the Constitution wisely leaves to the people within their respective states; why change that?  Third, and finally, the last thing America needs is more powerful federal courts; why tempt the judges by inserting a new topic into the Constitution? 

"But that was then.  And this is now." 

"Now, when I hear devotees of the Constitution repeat arguments that are almost a part of my DNA, I shake my head in disbelief.  The very concerns that, ten years ago, would have prompted my opposition to a marriage amendment now compel my support."

 
Many people mistakenly believe that proposals to allow so-called "same-sex" marriage are about allowing a new, different and separate form of marriage to coexist alongside traditional man/woman marriage. They envision it as a different expression of the same marriage institution they have always known. However, that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the legal issues involved in the debate, and with the proposed constitutional amendment in Minnesota.

What's at stake here in this debate are two competing definitions of marriage. One definition - advocated by gay "marriage" activists - would define marriage as the union of any two people regardless of gender, with the law treating the parties' genders as irrelevant to the meaning of marriage. The other definition, contained in the proposed constitutional amendment and reflective of the collective understanding of virtually every nation throughout recorded history, is that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.

Under the law, one definition of marriage would not exist alongside the other. Only one of the competing definitions of marriage would legally exist. As noted in a scholarly review published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy:

 ".once the judiciary or legislature adopts 'the union of any two persons' as the legal definition of civil marriage, that conception becomes the sole definitional basis for the only law-sanctioned marriage that any couple can enter, whether same-sex or man-woman. Therefore, legally sanctioned genderless marriage, rather than peacefully coexisting with the contemporary men-woman marriage institution, actually displaces and replaces it."

 
Why has virtually every society throughout history defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman? The answer can be summarized in one word: children.

Protecting the interests of children is the primary reason that government regulates and licenses marriage in the first instance. After all, government does not license or regulate any other form of intimate relationship - not friendship, or dating, or cohabitation. People are free, under the law, to live as they choose, cohabitate with whomever they choose and engage in sexually intimate relationships with whomever they choose - all without any governmental recognition or regulation.

But marriage is a special relationship reserved exclusively for heterosexual unions because only the intimate relationship between men and women has the ability to produce children as a result of that sexual union.

Marriage serves a vital and universal societal purpose - to channel biological drive and sexual passion that might otherwise become socially destructive into enduring family units that have the best opportunity to ensure the care and education of any children produced by that biological drive and sexual passion. Indeed, the United States Supreme Court has said that marriage is:

 "fundamental to the very existence and survival of the [human] race." The noted British philosopher Bertrand Russell (hardly a conservative - Russell was a liberal anti-war activist and socialist) said, "But for children, there would be no need of any institution concerned with sex.It is of children alone that sexual relations become of importance of society, and worthy to be taken cognizance of by a legal institution."

 
By encouraging men and women to marry, society helps ensure that children will be known by and cared for by their biological parents. Whenever a child is born, her mother will almost always be nearby. But the same cannot always be said of her father. Men, especially, are encouraged to take responsibility for their children through the institution of marriage. Marriage is society's mechanism of increasing the likelihood that children will be born and raised by the two people responsible for bringing them into the world - their mother and father.

While death and divorce too often prevent it, the overwhelming body of social science evidence establishes that children do best when raised by their married mother and father. Simply stated, children need both a mother and a father. No matter one's view of homosexual "marriage," it is undeniable that every child born into a same-sex relationship is intentionally denied the love and affection of one of her biological parents.
David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values and a self-described liberal Democrat, said of marriage:

 "[M]arriage is a gift that society bestows on its next generation. Marriage (and only marriage) unites the three core dimensions of parenthood - biological, social and legal - into one pro-child form: the married couple. Marriage says to a child: The man and woman whose sexual union made you will also be there to love and raise you. Marriage says to society as a whole: For every child born, there is a recognized mother and father, accountable to the child and to each other."

 
Fundamentally, same-sex marriage advocates propose to shift the marriage paradigm away from what definition of marriage is best for society - especially for children - and squarely onto the desires of the individual adults who seek to marry. Under a genderless definition of marriage, the interests of children - and therefore society's intrinsic interest in marriage - is eliminated entirely. Only the wishes of the two adults in question matter.

When a court or a legislature adopts a genderless definition of marriage, legal experts warn (and actual experience from other states and countries confirms) that there will be profound consequences for society. Those people who refuse to accept this redefinition of marriage will be punished by the law. Churches and religious organizations can lose their tax exemptions and be forced to abandon their core moral principles or face punishment. Individuals, small businesses and groups will be subjected to lawsuits and regulatory action if they refuse to condone the "new" understanding of marriage. Perhaps most profoundly, children at a very young age will be taught in school that marriage is between any two adults, no matter what they have been taught at home, in church or in their ethnic traditions. Under the law, those who believe otherwise will be treated as the legal and moral equivalent of bigots.

With all of this said, what is at stake with the outcome of the vote on the proposed marriage amendment?

First, of course, is which of the two irreconcilable and conflicting definitions of marriage will be the only form of marriage legally recognized in Minnesota:

The amendment preserves Minnesota's historic and traditional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman - the same definition adopted by voters in every state to consider the question (31 of 31 states have voted to define marriage in this way), adopted by a bi-partisan majority in Congress and signed into law by President Clinton, and adopted by virtually every society in every nation to ever live, from the ancients to current times.

Additionally, passage of the marriage amendment ensures that the people of Minnesota themselves, and not activist judges or politicians, decide how our state will define marriage in the future.

Without a marriage amendment in our constitution, activist judges can substitute their values for those of the people of Minnesota. This is exactly what happened in Iowa, Massachusetts and California. Similarly, legislators can redefine marriage without the permission of the people, as several legislators in Minnesota have pledged to do. The marriage amendment ensures that if activists want to redefine marriage in the future, they must receive the approval of voters to do so.

* The 2012 Minnesota Marriage Amendment question on the ballot, along with the measure's ballot title, will be presented to the state's voters in November as follows:

Limiting the status of marriage to opposite sex couples.                         

"Recognition of Marriage Solely Between One Man and One Woman."

• YES
• NO

        Constitutional changes

      The proposed amendment would add a section to Article XIII of the Minnesota Constitution. The section is as follows:

Section 13

Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota.

( http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Minnesota_Same-Sex_Marriage_Amendment_(2012) )

In Closing:

Marriage as the union of one man and one woman is in the public good and should be the Biblical standard of truth for every individual that claims the title of "Christian" - a follower and disciple of Jesus Christ. This definition of marriage serves the interests of men, women, children and of society itself. The Marriage Amendment on the November 2012 ballot gives voters the opportunity to preserve this special institution. A "YES" vote would honor Him. A "NO" vote would go against His perfect design & purpose and would be an abomination to our Creator.

Please pray for America and specifically for Minnesota during this extremely important 2012 election season. May the citizens of this beautiful country uphold God's Word and His fundamental foundation of any society - the traditional family.

The following link is a an excellent source of information from the National Center for Constitutional Studies (NCCS) that addresses many of the questions, concerns and objections pertaining to the topic of marriage and the Constitution: http://www.nccs.net/newsletter/apr04nl.html


We are not guaranteed tomorrow - tomorrow may be too late!  If you haven't yet made that most important decision of your life, won't you make Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior today - before it's too late? Today is the day of Salvation!

Keep looking up and sharing the Gospel while there is still time… Hallelujah and Maranatha – come quickly Lord Jesus!

Blessings on your studies and involvement in understanding and sharing the Truth!

If you have been blessed by this message or have a specific question, prayer request or testimony, please send me a note to: encouragingconcepts@live.com

I love hearing from you.  Keep reading Encouraging Concepts!

Blessings!
Shane K. Morin <><

 

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