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A third objection offered by those in favor of same-sex marriage is:

We shouldn’t be denied the freedom to love who we want.

Here are a couple of comments made by recently “married” lesbian couples in San Francisco:

Now we’re not second class citizens; now we can have a loving relationship like every other maried couple we know.

Anybody who is in love and wants to spend the rest of their life together should be able to do it.

These comments imply that same-sex marriages secure new liberties for homosexuals which have been denied them thus far. This is not the case as no personal liberty has been denied them. Everything which married couples can do, a gay couple can do, such as express love, set up housekeeping, share home ownership, have sex, raise children, receive inheritance, and spend the rest of their lives together.

Same-sex couples can even have big weddings. No law prevents that. Denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples does not restrict any liberty. Anyone of any age, race, gender, class, or sexual preference make make life-long loving commitments to each other. Certain entitlements may be denied, but not freedoms. Denying the state’s sanction on same-sex marriage onlly witholds social approval from a lifestyle which homosexuals have complete freedom to pursue without it. The issue is not liberty - it is respect.

Koukl, in the article at Townhall.com, of which this series is a summary, quotes other newly “married” same-sex couples:

It was a moving experience after a truly lifelong commitment, to have a government entity say, “Your relationship is valid and important in the eyes of the law.”

This is about other people recognizing what we have already recognized with each other for a long time.

I didn’t start out feeling this way, but that piece of paper, it’s just so important I can’t even put it into words. It’s so important to have society support you.

The marriage license does not confer liberty on same-sex couples. It confers legitimacy. In the word’s of Andrew Sullivan:

Including homosexuals within marriage would be a means of conferring the highest form of social approval imaginable.

So, same-sex marriage is not really about civil rights. It is about validation and respect for a lifestyle which many find “offensive, contrary to nature, socially destructive, and morally repugnant.” Koukl quotes Jeff Jacoby of The Boston Globe:

The marriage radicals have not been deprived of the right to marry – only of the right to insist that a single-sex union is a “marriage.” They cloak their demands in the language of civil rights because it sounds so much better than the truth: They don’t want to accept or reject marriage on the same terms that it is available to everyone else. They want it on entirely new terms. They want it to be given a meaning it has never before had, and they prefer that it be done undemocratically by judicial fiat, for example, or by mayors flouting the law. Whatever else that may be, it isn’t civil rights.

Next, a response to another objection.

Yesterday, I began a series of posts discussing the objections which are offered against those who seek to defend the traditional understanding of marriage as being a life-long commitment between one woman and one man. This series attempts to summarize the excellent arguments of Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason on this subject as found in a recent Townhall.com article (See yesterday’s post). In an effort to promote same-sex marriage, its proponents often exclaim:

They said the same thing about interracial marriage.

This is one of those responses which has great rhetorical force. This is due, in part, to our rightful disdain of racism. Upon closer inspection, however, this response is rather silly. Just because an argument was used incorrectly in one situation, does not bear on its correctness in another situation. Only if the circumstances are the same, is the the fact that the same objection has been used to deny a thing relevant. If the circumstances are in fact quite different, the fact that the same objection has been offered is irrelevant. When comparing interracial and same-sex marriages, the circumstances are completely different, having nothing in common.

Human skin color is morally trivial. There is no difference betwen a black and a white human being. There is, however, enormous differences between a man and a woman. As Koukl points out:

Ethnicity has no bearing on marriage. Sex is fundamental to marriage.

If this response has merit, we would certainly have to allow polygamous or incestuous marriage, as well. One could just throw up the objection, “Well, in the past they wouldn’t allow interracial marriage either.” The objection may be the same, but the circumstances differ. That is why it works in one case and not in the other.

Next, a third response.

If you read this blog regularly, you know that I think very highly of the work done by Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason. In this recent article by Greg at Townhall.com, he deals with the challenges offered by those who wish to revise the very meaning of marriage in modern America. I’d like to summarize the responses because I’m not sure if I’ve heard a more well-thought-out response anywhere.

The first challenge offered against traditional marriage has to do with civil rights:

We’re being denied the same rights as heterosexuals. This is unconstitutional discrimination.

Greg, first of all, points out that there are actually two complaints here: First, that homosexuals don’t have the same liberties under the law which heterosexuals have. Second, that they don’thave the same legal benefits. Regarding the first charge, it simply is not true. Homosexuals have exactly the same liberties under the law as do heterosexuals. Any homosexual can marry and receive the same protection as heterosexuals. He simply cannot marry someone of the same sex. But for that matter, neither can a heterosexual marry someone of the same sex. All citizens have the same rights regarding marriage. To ask for the ability to marry someone of the same sex is to ask for special treatment under the law, as no one has this liberty or right to do. Denying a homosexual this right is not a violation of equal protection under the law.

What about the claim that homsexual couples do not have the same legal benefits, such as concerning taxation, family leave, health care, etc.? It is true that those couples do not enjoy the same benefits as do married heterosexual couples. But why should they? There are other non-married relationships which do not have these privileges, e.g., a pair of spinsters, non-gay brothers, etc. If homosexuals are treated unfairly in this area, so is every other arrangement of unmarried citizens, regardless of whatever loving commitments they may have to each other.

So, why do married couples receive special benefits and others do not? There is good reason. That reason is not because they are long-term, loving, committed relationships. The reason is that they involve children. The government has a significant interest in building stable families in which future citizens are raised. Marriage is not meant to be a shortcut to tax relief, insurance rates, or other benefits. Marriage has a unique purpose to which unique benefits are fitted.

Koukl quotes Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council in summation. Gay citizens…

… already have the same right to marry as anyone else – subject to the same restrictions. No one may marry a close blood relative, a child, a person who is already married, or a person of the same sex. However much those restrictions may disappoint the incestuous, pedophiles, polygamists, and homosexuals, the issue is not discrimination. It is the nature of marriage itself.

Next, further objections by those who wish to redefine marriage.

As I have made the case for Intelligent Design, I have often been told that science must necessarily hold to methodological naturalism (Science entails that observable effects in nature are explainable only by natural causes with irrelevance to the assumption of the existence or non-existence of the supernatural). If one adheres to MN, then one can be a good scientist, regardless of what one beliefs about the supernatural. We are often told that MN does not entail philosophical naturalism (the metaphysical claim that only natural things exist; there exists no supernatural entities). It seems however, that this is not actually the case.

According to this NY Times article, Marcus Ross, has recently earned a PhD in geosciences from the University of Rhode Island. Some academicians are arguing that his religious beliefs should keep him from receiving this degree. Wow! I’ve always been told by those who oppose ID as a movement that one may believe whatever he wishes in private as long as he plays science by the rules of the game - methodological naturalism.

Macht, at Telic Thoughts, comments:

Marcus Ross seems to be taking MN very seriously. He also seems be taking these people at their word - that there is no link between MN and PN. Ross decided that he wanted to be a scientist and the way to do that was to accept the “ground rule” of MN. But the mild kerfluffle that Krauze mentioned the other day is interesting, since it seems to fly in the face of this standard meme from ID critics. Ross is being dishonest, we are told, for playing the game, for accepting the rules that science now seems to be operating by and for accepting the received wisdom that MN doesn’t entail PN. Apparently, if you accept MN as a “ground rule” for science, but don’t accept the results of that science as the truth, you are a liar.

This makes me wonder if all this talk about how MN doesn’t entail PN is something they really believe. Somebody who truly believe that the former didn’t entail the latter and that MN is a rule that scientists use because it works and not necessarily because it leads to the truth wouldn’t accuse Ross of lying. Lying is a serious charge afterall. Note, though, that this has very little to do with what Ross believes about MN or the age of the earth or even if he was lying. This is about the consistency some of his critics in holding a instrumentalist position about science but then getting upset when a YEC’er does the same thing.

An instrumentalist position regarding science is one that asserts that science does not tell us what is acutally true about the world, rather it tells us what works in describing the world. On this view, it doesn’t matter if science describes the way the world really is as long as it makes accurate predictions and works in our everyday lives. Opposed to this position is the realist position concerning science - that science describes the world as it really is. It gives us true knowledge about the world.

It seems like the MN’s would like to have their cake and eat it to. Are they saying that there really is no such thing as the existence of anything supernatural, or are we just assuming this to make science work?

In an effort to avoid offending anyone, we often hear such claims as, “We all worship the same God.” Well, do we? This is an important question! If we don’t and we say that we do, consequences follow.

I’m reminded of Christopher Seitz, author of Nicene Christianity, who commented on the “God at 2000″ conference. At this conference, Marcus Borg claimed:

I grew up in a time and place where it was taken for granted that Christianity was the only true religion and Jesus the only way to salvation… I find it literally incredible to think that the God of the whole universe has chosen to be know in only one religious tradition.

This statement expresses the pluralism which so characterizes religious thought in western religion today. Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and every other -ism all really worship the same God, so we should not be divisive by claiming to have “the” truth about God. There is a problem with this statement - It cannot be correct! For example, Christians claim that Jesus Christ is God and to reject Him is to reject God. Islam claims that Christ is not God and to equate any other being with God is the unforgiveable sin. Are both correct? Hardly. One commenter at the “God at 2000″ conference rightly summed up the conference when she said:

Surely, there is no one participating in this conference who really believes that this conference is about God at 2000. This conference is about us at 2000.

Seitz also quotes an Islamic follower who was present at the conference who provided sound advice:

If you accept that your religion is relative you will not follow it. There must be something of absoluteness within religion… Otherwise, there weill just be languages that don’t mean anything.

Well said!

As regards my own sins it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are not really so good as I think; as regards other men’s sins against me it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are better than I think. One must therefore begin by attending to everything which may show that the other man was not so much to blame as we thought. But even if he is absolutely fully to blame we still have to forgive him; and even if ninetynine percent of his apparent guilt can be explained away by really good excuses, the problem of forgiveness begins with the one percent of guilt which is left over. To excuse what can really produce good excuses is not Christian charity; it is only fairness. To be Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.

This is hard. It is perhaps not so hard to forgive a single great injury. But to forgive the incessant provocations of daily life - to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son - how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.” We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it is to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what he says.

- C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, pp. 135-136

Is there such a thing as morally neutral ground? Can one find a place where he is completely impartial and makes no judgments on the actions of others, where no “forcing of personal views are allowed? Every person in this idealized state would take a neutral posture toward the moral convictions of others. This would be “tolerance” utopia.

Greg Koukl references a piece by Faye Wattleton, former president of Planned Parenthood in which she argues for tolerance in moral issues and allowing all people the right to their own moral beliefs. One would think Wattleton may have reached that utopian position of tolerance, right? Not quite. She closes her piece with the following statement:

When others try to inflict their views on me, my daughter or anyone else, that’s not morality: It’s tyranny. It’s unfair, and it’s un-American.

So much for tolerating others’ moral viewpoints! Wattleton, rather than standing in that morally neutral position she so venerates, first argues how each of us should act. She then implies any other view than hers is immoral and tyrranical. She seeks to impose her absolute moral principles on others when she states that “fundamental respect for others is morality of the highest order.” Moral Neutrality? A myth! Even the statement that one ought not to be judgmental is a moral judgment!

Alister McGrath, who holds a PhD in molecular biophysics, is professor of historical theology at Oxford University, the same university where one finds Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. A few days ago he gave a brief critique of Dawkins and his book here. Dawkins accuses Christians of being immune to argument, yet McGrath asserts it is Dawkins who is guilty of coming across as a “dogmatic aggressive propagandist.” I found McGrath’s description of how he arrived at the conclusion that the Christian faith is true and the most reasonable conclusion to be an example of McGrath’s reasonable approach to his faith. Here is his description:

Of course, back in the Sixties, everyone who mattered was telling us that religion was dead. I was an atheist then. Growing up as a Protestant in Northern Ireland, I had come to believe religion was the cause of the Province’s problems. While I loved studying the sciences at school, they were important for another reason: science disproved God. Believing in God was only for sad, mad and bad people who had yet to be enlightened by science.

I went up to Oxford to study the sciences in 1971, expecting my atheism to be consolidated. In the event, my world was turned upside down. I gave up one belief, atheism, and embraced another, Christianity. Why? There were many factors. For a start, I was alarmed by some atheist writings, which seemed more preoccupied with rubbishing religion than seeking the truth.

Above all, I encountered something at Oxford that I had failed to meet in Northern Ireland - articulate Christians who were able to challenge my atheism. I soon discovered two life-changing things.

First, Christianity made a lot of sense. It gave me a new way of seeing and understanding the world, above all, the natural sciences. Second, I discovered Christianity actually worked: it brought purpose and dignity to life.

HT: Thinking Christian

My classes at Biola have just begun again. Between that and other commitments, I’ve missed a couple of days blogging. Hopefully, I’ll be up to speed again soon.

Romans 1:18-21 (ESV):

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

This passage in Romans is perhaps the most important text of the New Testament concerning the God’s general and special revelation through which he has revealed himself to man. A few important thoughts from this passage:

1. All men “clearly perceive” God’s glory reflected in the created world.
2. They understand its divine implication.
3. They “know” that the Creator exists.

According to this passage, all people have some authentic, accurate knowledge of God. It’s plain to all people. It’s not ambiguous, it’s “plain to them”. So why aren’t all people theists? Paul explains that the natural predisposition of man since the fall is to “suppress the truth”. Why? Well, at least one reason would be to dodge any moral accountability which would be owed to such a God.

This tendency to suppress the truth has been called by Christians the “noetic effects” of the fall. The cognitive or belief-forming faculties of man have been dulled and distorted by sin. So, although all men have ample evidence for the existence of God, many will choose to suppress that truth. Only through God’s grace and special revelation of himself in Christ can any hope for salvation.