On the news this morning, I heard a story about a judge who had ruled that the people of California were in error when they voted that same-sex marriage was unlawful.\u00a0 I know this may not be typical content for my blog, but I can’t help but write a few thoughts about it.\u00a0 As I see it, there are two issues at the heart of the matter.\u00a0 1) Can the state define marriage.\u00a0 2) Can the state provide privileges to those involved in marriage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I say the answer to both questions is yes.\u00a0 The state must be allowed to define\u00a0the terms used in the making of it’s laws, or those laws are meaningless.\u00a0 If the state cannot define “marriage,”\u00a0“free speech,” “discrimination,”\u00a0“obscenity,” “religion,” or “life” then how can it’s laws\u00a0which use those very terms have any meaning?\u00a0 This is also\u00a0at the heart of the abortion issue.\u00a0\u00a0 But while many Americans may not agree\u00a0what constitutes human life, most\u00a0Americans\u00a0DO believe “marriage” should be defined as the union of one man and one woman.\u00a0 For those of us who look to\u00a0the\u00a0Bible for ultimate truth, we can go along with that definition.\u00a0 (Although it might be a little more difficult to defend the “one” part based on biblical history.)<\/p>\n
Secondly, once defined, can the state give special privileges to the institution of marriage?\u00a0 I say, certainly.\u00a0 The state\u00a0does that\u00a0kind of thing all the time.\u00a0\u00a0 Government organizations, schools, religious organizations, scientific communities, professionals (such as doctors, lawyers, etc.) are all endowed with certain privileges because of their affiliation, license, or organization membership.\u00a0\u00a0A marriage may be a small organization, but it is one none the less.\u00a0 And, ANYONE of age\u00a0can join that organization.\u00a0\u00a0 Just because a gay person does not WANT to marry a person of the oposite sex does NOT mean he\/she does not have the right to do so.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t want to go to medical school.\u00a0 I don’t even like the site of blood.\u00a0 But I\u00a0can use a thermometer and I would like to be able to write my own perscription for antibiotics.\u00a0 Even so, it would be silly of me to cry that my rights are being denied just because I can’t make my own definition of “medical doctor” as “one who can use a thermometer” then\u00a0write prescriptions and practice medicine with all the state-sanctioned rights of other doctors.\u00a0 If you want to join the club, you\u00a0have to\u00a0pay the dues and live by the club rules.<\/p>\n
So, there’s my argument.\u00a0 It may not be the typical reading for my blog, but it is what’s on my heart this morning.\u00a0 I believe it is also a matter dear to God’s heart.\u00a0 He laid it out pretty clear in the first few pages of His Book.\u00a0 It’s obvious that He cares about the issue, as well as the people on both sides of it.\u00a0 So should we.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the news this morning, I heard a story about a judge who had ruled that the people of California were in error when they voted that same-sex marriage was unlawful.\u00a0 I know this may not be typical content for my blog, but I can’t help but write a few thoughts about it.\u00a0 As I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,32,33],"class_list":["post-644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consider","tag-gay","tag-marriage","tag-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=644"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":646,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644\/revisions\/646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}