Retiring open homosexual U.S Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA), has told the Washington Blade that the 15-member panel of the Democratic Party platform committee unanimously approved language calling for the unraveling of marriage via support for same-sex marriage. This is an historic policy shift that is in disagreement with the views of many Democrats.

Ironically, the platform will be voted upon during the party’s convention later this summer in North Carolina, the 32nd state adopt a marriage protection amendment that seeks to give the next generation the best shot at having both a mom and a dad.   Many observers believe that President Obama’s admission that he supports the undefining of marriage, and now this liberal platform plank, will cost him that state this fall.   Democrat support of homosexual marriage will hand those electoral delegates to Mitt Romney who understands that men and women are different and therefore both are vital, irreplaceable components of the family.

This position is also causing enthusiasm problems for the President among African-Americans who for decades have seen the devaluing of marriage and its negative implications throughout their communities.   Other segments of Democrat voters, particularly those with a faith basis or heritage, may also have problems with this move against traditional family values.

The Obama administration is clearly taking a gamble that this platform move will generate more campaign money from homosexual activists and campaign enthusiasm among liberals.   The risk is that it will alienate too many marginal Democrat voters and independents. 

Written by Owen Strachan (Baptist Press)

There’s been a lot of talk about evangelicals opting out of the culture wars recently. Some of that could be good. Few of us want to identify the church with the Republican Party, or to act as if anything is more needful than the promotion of the Gospel.

But some of this discussion has been deeply harmful. Why? Because there is a desperate need for the church to be the church in this fallen world. Now is not the time to back off from a robust cultural ethic. Now is the time to engage.

Some still think that they have the luxury of sitting out the national debate over homosexuality. They think, “Well, the battle over marriage is for those frothy-mouthed Christians who send out the weird newsletters and are always sounding the doomsday bell. I don’t really have the stomach for that; I don’t want, after all, to be weird, or unliked, or out of tune with The New York Times and NPR crowd. I’m educated and above the fray. Culture wars, as I’ve come to understand from the media, are for hillbillies and fear mongers, the God-and-country set. Nope. No thank you.”

Others are more biblical in their convictions, but still think they can opt out of the conflict over marriage and homosexuality. They think, “I don’t want my Christianity to be political. The church should do what the church does. I’ll sit this one out, as I usually do, and go on my way, trusting in a sovereign God.”

Both positions suffer from a common flaw: lack of moral realism as it relates to our cultural moment. You see, there is not going to be an “opt out” option in the coming days. Actually, let’s change that — there no longer is an “opt out” option. The conflict over homosexuality and marriage is here to stay. It’s only going to pick up steam. Barring a miracle from God, the clock will not be turned back. Most every Christian in every place in America is going to face a direct, confrontational challenge on this issue. You can’t escape this.

Do you see this? It’s different from abortion, which everyday Christians didn’t have to really get involved with. Because abortion happens behind closed doors in nondescript clinics, Christians like you and me could pretend it didn’t happen. We could occasionally pray, and occasionally give and serve, but because this menace was unseen, we didn’t have to get whipped up about it. We could leave that to “weird,” “in-your-face” Christians, whom we might subtly demean for their outspokenness.

But things have changed. I just learned on Facebook that gay pride groups marched in my hometown of Machias, Maine (and other Maine towns). Machias is a tiny coastal town. It’s a long ways from Manhattan, culturally speaking. But just a few weeks ago, in the Fourth of July parade, a group of gay and lesbian supporters marched, just as they did in numerous other small Maine towns.

I’ll ask this again: Do you get what’s happening? This is a Fourth of July parade. Over the years, there’s been no more “safe” cultural event for Americana. Everyone cheers the Shriners, the small-but-vigorous community band, the fire department as it blares its siren and throws candy to skittering children. Everyone. But that all, in a flash, changed in Machias, Maine. Here’s what I can guess: This will happen all across America. 

There is no perfect nonbiblical argument we can make to repudiate and oppose same-sex marriage. We can cite statistics and studies, and we should. We can offer sound logic and clear moral guidance. But at the end of the day, you and I have a choice as Christians: We either can sit this one out and let our society embrace a flagrantly sinful lifestyle. Or we can stand up and oppose these efforts. That’s it. Two options: capitulation or challenge.

This doesn’t mean that we can’t fully trust our sovereign God to work out His perfect will, which may mean hardship and many earthly defeats for American and Western Christians. Sometimes God wills this for His people, who are then challenged to remember that we serve a spiritual Kingdom, not an earthly one. Our hope is the Gospel, not a political end.

But these glorious truths should not cause us to retreat from the world. Pastors, churches and individual Christians will all have to work out their own unique ways to engage this and other pressures. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach here. Churches are not to be political bodies or political action committees. But no Christian should excuse himself or herself from this fight — and make no mistake, it is a fight. You can engage the other side in a godly manner, yes, and you must as a believer. But do not stoop to such breathtaking naïveté as to think that if you are clear on the issue of same-sex marriage you can avoid being disliked and even hated by unbelievers.

An hour of winnowing is coming and has come to America, even as it has already come to other western countries. Those who have previously defended marriage from a “neutral” set of presuppositions are not going to last; examine one-time traditional marriage advocate David Blankenhorn’s recent defection. That will happen in increasing measure in coming days, I think. Get ready to feel lonely, Christian, and to be unliked. It’s unavoidable for ethical, Gospel-driven evangelicals who know that they cannot sit this one out. Actually, we may even see a measure of unity in this battle; complementarians and egalitarians, for example, must and surely can find common cause on this issue, to cite just one common point of division. We need to do so. This is by no means only a complementarian issue.

Step up. Contribute to organizations that are contending in the political realm for biblical marriage. Contact friends to alert them to this hour of need. Figure out a way in your own corner of the world to get involved here. Collect signatures for petitions and send them to your legislators. Do whatever you can. Above all, pray. And do not — please do not — opt out. As always, engage this issue and those with whom you disagree with the love of Christ. We’re not opposing flesh and blood here, and even as we contend for biblical truth (Romans 1), we seek to win those who are lost just as we were lost before God’s marvelous grace saved us.

Lastly, remember Matthew 5:10-12. Let these familiar words ring in your ears, and let the resurrection hope of the One who said these fateful words wash over you even as you celebrate righteousness and oppose darkness:

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 

“Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Owen Strachan is assistant professor of Christian theology and church history at Boyce College in Louisville, Ky. This column first appeared at his website, http://owenstrachan.com. Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook (Facebook.com/BaptistPress ) and in your email ( baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP.asp).

Two Illinois state lawmakers are pushing back against an ACLU lawsuit seeking to overturn the Illinois’ 1996 marriage law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

Defying Michael J. Madigan, Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, State Reps. Tom Morrison (R-Palatine) and David Reis (R-Olney) have introduced House Joint Resolution 95 (HJR 95) in the Illinois House, which would allow Illinois voters to vote in the 2014 Illinois General Election on defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman in our state constitution.

(Note: A constitutional marriage amendment has been introduced in every General Assembly since 2003 but has never been given even a hearing.)

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is on record in support of redefining marriage as well as in support of the ACLU lawsuit intended to circumvent the will of the people to accomplish that goal. 

Rep. Reis is “calling upon Lisa Madigan to recuse herself and the resources of her taxpayer-funded state office from supporting two lawsuits questioning the constitutionality of Illinois’ gay marriage ban.”

“‘As Attorney General, it is her office’s duty to support the Illinois Constitution. Statutorily, it has been long established in Illinois that marriage is between a man and a woman,’ Rep. Reis said. ‘Madigan’s use of scarce taxpayer resources is an injustice to the oath of office she swore to uphold.’” 

“Attorney General Madigan stated her office would not defend the state’s marriage definition by law, saying her office will ‘present the court with arguments that explain why the challenged statutory provisions do not satisfy the guarantee of equality under the Illinois Constitution.’”

“‘Rather than questioning the constitutionality of a longstanding law in Illinois, the Attorney General’s office should be focused on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act implemented by the Obama administration,’ Reis stated. ‘Instead of standing with the twenty-six states across America who are challenging the constitutionality of Obama Care, Madigan has chosen to use taxpayer dollars to legalize same-sex marriage.’”

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to contact your state representatives and state senators, urging them to support HJR 95 and its call for an amendment to the Illinois Constitution that clearly defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. 

“If we don’t, this issue might very well get decided in the courts,” said Reis. 

Similar lawsuits have been filed in states like Massachusetts and in Iowa which resulted in their state supreme court legalizing the redefinition of marriage.

***Update:  State Representatives Paul Evans (R-Highland), Dwight Kay (R-Edwardsville), Jil Tracy (R-Quincy), Wayne Rosenthal (R-Litchfield), Mike Bost (R-Carbondale ), Adam Brown (R-Decatur), Brad Halbrook (R-Effingham), and Patricia Bellock (R-Westmont ) are now co-sponsoring this important resolution.

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It is sadly true that when abnormal is called “normal,” normal becomes abnormal.  If it is determined that having three fingers is “normal,” then those of us with five will be “abnormal.”  So, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Alderman Joe Moreno have broadcast to the world that the age tested and proven family value of intact one man-one woman families is not normal and not a Chicago value.  That which was declared by God to be His creation, and has been accepted as normal for as long as the human race has existed is no longer normal in Chicago. 

What is normal in Chicago and apparently what our good Mayor would call “Chicago values,” are homosexual “marriages,” broken homes, violent streets, and a murder rate near the highest in the nation, possibly the world.  These “values” are being put in place here, not because of sound, logical and cogent argument, but because their proponents bully and even terrorize the public into silent submission.  Witness the vicious name-calling by the Mayor,  Moreno, and other liberals.  How many private citizens are up to facing THAT onslaught?

To his credit, Dan Cathy, President of Chic-fil-A,  doesn’t support these “Chicago values.”   For that reason, the Mayor and Alderman Moreno are doing all they can to “protect” the city from Mr. Cathy’s demonstrably successful family values.  It is pretty clear, by their strident and hateful attacks on Mr. Cathy, what Chicago values are to the these men and their political buddies:  Undermine intact families and subsequently destroy community integrity, perpetuate violence and consequently the slaughter of innocent children.  That  is what Chicago values have become under Daley, Rahm, Moreno, and friends. 

Sure, no one would say that that is what they set out to do, but the policies they, and the liberal establishment have implemented over the last 50 years set the stage for such things.  A drunk, driving 80 down the street probably has no intention of killing anyone either, but that is what happens when you drive 80 miles an hour down city streets, regardless of your intentions.   Mr. Emmanuel and the Democratic Party don’t support the values of Mr. Cathy because traditional families take care of themselves and don’t need Democrats or Mr. Emmanuel.  We discipline our children, teach them to work, don’t let them join gangs or become dependent upon the state.  Of course the Mayor and Alderman loathe our family values! Our values don’t help them or their Party stay in power!  They apparently forget, of course, that it is our tax dollars that pay their salaries, support their welfare state, and their dependent voters.  The fact is that if Chicago were to adopt Mr. Cathy’s family values, the repeated slaughter of innocents would no longer be daily headlines.

Mayor Emmanuel and Alderman Moreno clearly have no qualms in opposing the values and principles that God has unequivocally defined in the Bible.  The Second Psalm addresses such men       “. . . the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and His Anointed saying, ‘let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.'”  God’s reaction is predictable: “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision.  Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure.”

So, it is not at all surprising that the consequences God declares will come to those who reject Him plague this city.  Paul wrote in the Book of Galatians that God is characterized by “love, joy, peace,” etc.  Thus, with its leadership ejecting God, Chicago finds itself overwhelmed by hate, tragedy and violence.  “Whatsoever a man (nation) soweth, that shall (they) also reap.”

I don’t know, but are you okay with the thousands of shootings and hundreds of killings here each year?  Just wondering.

Maybe our good  Mayor and his friends can find an island somewhere where they can all live out their “family values” and suffer the consequences of their own bad choices, but I for one, am weary of witnessing  the suffering their failed leadership has brought the innocent of this city!

It is really, really time for change!

An article  in the Star Tribune titled “Key Minnesota Pastors Opt Out of Marriage Fight” grossly misrepresents  how Pastor John Piper is addressing the November vote on a proposed marriage amendment to the Minnesota Constitution.

Star Tribune reporter Rose French states the following:

Two key conservative evangelical leaders in Minnesota are not endorsing the marriage amendment or directing followers to vote for it, marking the first time during debate over the measure that major faith leaders have not encouraged members to take a stand on the issue.

Influential preacher and theologian the Rev. John Piper came out against gay marriage during a sermon Sunday but did not explicitly urge members of his Minneapolis church to vote for the amendment.

French is correct in saying that Piper did not “explicitly” urge church members to vote for the amendment, but she is woefully disingenuous in saying that Piper did not direct—which means to move or guide—followers to vote for the amendment. She is equally wrong when she implies that Piper did not encourage his church members to take a stand on the issue.

It’s clear that Piper did, indeed, direct his church members to vote for the proposed marriage amendment. He did so by explaining how to think through this critical cultural issue biblically and logically, rather than merely telling them what to do in the voting booth.

Below are some excerpts from Piper’s recent sermon (which everyone should listen to) on the marriage amendment, from which French conveniently did not quote:  

Today’s message is…designed to give a biblical vision of marriage in relation to homosexuality, and in relation to the proposed Marriage Amendment in Minnesota. I asked that Hebrews 13:1–6 be read not because I will give an exposition of it, but to highlight that one phrase in verse 4: “Let marriage be held in honor among all.”

…

There is no such thing as so-called same-sex marriage, and it would be wise not to call it that.

The point here is not only that so-called same-sex marriage shouldn’t exist, but that it doesn’t and it can’t. Those who believe that God has spoken to us truthfully in the Bible should not concede that the committed, life-long partnership and sexual relations of two men or two women is marriage. It isn’t. God has created and defined marriage. And what he has joined together in that creation and that definition, cannot be separated, and still called marriage in God’s eyes.

…

[I]t would contradict love and contradict the gospel of Jesus to approve homosexual practice, whether by silence, or by endorsing so-called same-sex marriage, or by affirming the Christian ordination of practicing homosexuals.

We must not be intimidated here. The world is going to say the opposite of what is true here. They are going to say that warning people who practice homosexuality about final judgment is hateful. It is not hateful. Hate does not want people to be saved. Hate does not want people to join the family. Hate wants to destroy. And sin does destroy. If homosexual practice (and greed and idolatry and reviling and drunkenness) leads to exclusion from the kingdom of God — as the word of God says it does — then love warns. Love pleads. Love comes alongside and does all it can to help a person live — forever.

…

Deciding what actions will be made legal or illegal through civil law is a moral activity aiming at the public good and informed by the worldview of each participant.

Minnesota citizens are being asked this November to vote yes or no on this question: “Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?” And a blank vote is a no vote. If passed section 13 will be added to Article xiii of the State Constitution which reads: “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota.”

How should Christian citizens decide which of their views they should seek to put into law? Which moral convictions should Christians seek to pass as legal requirements? Christians believe it is immoral to covet and to steal. But we seek to pass laws against stealing, not against coveting. One of the principles at work here seems to be: the line connecting coveting with damage to the public good is not clear enough. No doubt there is such a connection. God can see it and the public good would, we believe, be greatly enhanced if covetousness were overcome. But finite humans can’t see it clearly enough to regulate coveting with laws and penalties. This is why we have to leave hundreds of immoral acts for Jesus to sort out when he comes.

Laws exist to preserve and enhance the public good. Which means that all laws are based on some conception of what is good for us. Which means that all legislation and all voting is a moral activity. It is based on choices about what is good for the public. And those choices are always informed by a world view. And in that worldview — whether conscious or not — there are views of ultimate reality that determine what a person thinks the public good is.

Which means that all legislation is the legislation of morality. Someone’s view of what is good — what is moral — wins the minds of the majority and carries the day. The question is: Which actions hurt the common good or enhance the common good so much that the one should be prohibited by law and the other should be required by law?

Here are a few thoughts to help you with that question.

1. A constitutional amendment should address a matter of very significant consequence. To give you an idea of what has been regarded as worthy inclusion in the state constitution, Section 12 of Article xiii was passed by voters in 1998. It reads as follows: “Hunting and fishing and the taking of game and fish are a valued part of our heritage that shall be forever preserved for the people and shall be managed by law and regulation for the public good.” In deciding whether the meaning of marriage is significant enough to put in the constitution one measure would be to weigh it against hunting and fishing.
2.  The recognition of so-called same-sex marriage would be a clear social statement that motherhood or fatherhood or both are negligible in the public good of raising children. Two men adopting children cannot provide motherhood. And two women adopting children cannot provide fatherhood. But God ordained from the beginning that children grow up with a mother and a father, and said, “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12). Tragedies in life often make that impossible. But taking actions to make that tragedy normal may be worth prohibiting by law.
3.  Marriage is the most fundamental institution among humans. Its origin is in the mind of God, and its beginning was at the beginning of the creation of humankind. Its connections with all other parts of society are innumerable. Pretending that it can exist between people of the same sex will send ripple effects of dysfunction and destruction in every direction, most of which are now unforeseen. And many of those that are foreseen are tragic, especially for children, who will then produce a society we cannot now imagine.
4. Before now, as far as we know, no society in the history of the world has ever defined marriage as between people of the same sex. It is a mind-boggling innovation with no precedent to guide us, except the knowledge that unrighteousness destroys nations, and the celebration of it hastens the demise. (Deuteronomy 9:5; Proverbs 13:25; Romans 1:24–32)

To summarize, Piper said, among other things, the following:

• His sermon was going to address the proposed marriage amendment.
• There is no such thing as same-sex marriage, and we shouldn’t call a sexual relationship between two people of the same sex marriage.
• Endorsing “so-called same-sex marriage” contradicts both love and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• Laws exist to preserve the public good. What constitutes the good is a moral question. All laws legislate morality. Voting is a moral activity.
• Constitutional amendments must address only significant issues. The people of Minnesota passed an amendment on the issues of hunting and fishing which are not nearly as significant as marriage.
• Legalizing same-sex marriage would make a clear and tragic statement that either mothers or fathers or both are expendable and have no effect on the public good.
• Marriage is the most fundamental of human institutions, and legalizing same-sex marriage is a deceit that will bring incalculable dysfunction and destruction to children and society.
• No society in history has ever defined marriage as between two people of the same sex.
• Legalizing same-sex marriage is unrighteous; unrighteousness destroys nations; and the celebration of unrighteousness hastens the destruction of nations. 

French must not have listened to or read Piper’s wise and compassionate sermon because no thinking person could hear or read his words and conclude that Piper has opted out of the fight for marriage. In unequivocal language, Piper provided clear guidance to Christians on the issue of amending constitutions to protect marriage.

Piper concluded by saying, “If the whole counsel of God is preached with power week in and week out, Christians who are citizens of heaven and citizens of this democratic order will be energized as they ought to speak and act for the common good.” If this is what “opting out of the marriage fight” looks like, let’s hope and pray that countless pastors across the country opt out as John Piper has done.

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Lambda Legal in cahoots with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois are suing the Cook County Clerk for purportedly violating the Constitution of Illinois when Cook County refused to issue marriage licenses to men who sought to marry men and women who sought to marry women. To make matters worse, these ethically challenged Illinois leaders have all expressed support for the lawsuit: Governor Patrick Quinn, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, and Cook County Clerk David Orr.

Lambda Legal is a homosexual legal organization hell-bent on using the judicial system to bypass the will of the people in order to impose its subversive sexuality theories on the entire country. This is the organization that shoved same-sex marriage down the throats of Iowans, which, not incidentally, brought the electoral defeat of those judges who threw their lots in with Lambda Legal.

Like the Iowa judges, Lisa Madigan and Anita Alvarez have crossed over to the dark side by abandoning all ethical and professional commitments to uphold and defend Illinois laws. Illinois’ Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act defines marriage as a legal relationship between one man and one woman. It was amended in 1996 to prohibit marriage between two people of the same sex. Even Lambda Legal attorney Camilla Taylor expressed shock over Anita Alvarez’ refusal to defend a duly enacted law, saying, “’I’ve never encountered this before.’”

Why should homosexuals be permitted to redefine marriage while other groups may not?

Lambda Legal and the ACLU hold the bizarre belief that there is a constitutional right for homosexuals to demand that the most fundamental constitutive element of marriage — sexual complementarity — be jettisoned.  It is, however, no more unethically discriminatory for the government to retain sexual complementarity in its legal definition of marriage than it is to limit marriage to two people, which effectively prohibits polyamorists from accessing marriage. I wonder if Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Illinois believe that laws limiting marriage to two people are unconstitutional because such laws will prevent three loving people in a polyamorous union from marrying.  And do they believe that laws prohibiting close blood relatives from marrying are unconstitutional because such laws will prevent a brother from marrying a male sibling with whom he is in love and hopes to raise children?  

Do governments construct marriage?

The government does not construct marriage out of whole cloth. Marriage has an inherent nature and purpose that societies and their governments merely recognize. Our government recognizes, regulates, and promotes a type of relationship that exists and best serves the needs of children.

Marriage is a particular type of relationship that has existed for the entire history of mankind and across all cultures. Men and women come together to form a union that is not merely emotional, but sexual and biological, which means it has a natural biological end (i.e., it is a procreative type of union, whether or not children result). Recognizing, regulating, and promoting this particular type of union is a legitimate interest of government. The government has no vested interest in “affirming love” through law. If marriage were centrally or solely about love and sexual desire and had no connection to either gender or procreation, there would be no reason for the government to be involved and no reason to prohibit incestuous or plural marriages.

Are laws banning same-sex “marriage” analogous to laws banning interracial marriage?

According to the Chicago Tribune, David Orr said that “he believes the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is akin to laws that once banned mixed-race couples from marrying.” But that assertion requires evidence that homosexuality is by nature akin to race, something that David Orr was apparently not asked to provide.

Here are some critical differences between race and homosexuality: Race is 100 percent heritable, in all cases immutable, and has no behavioral implications that are legitimate objects of moral assessment. Homosexuality, on the other hand, is not 100 percent heritable, is in some cases mutable, and is constituted by subjective feelings and volitional acts that are legitimate objects of moral assessment.

There are other reasons that laws banning same-sex marriage are utterly different from laws banning interracial marriage, including the following:

• Race is irrelevant to the inherent nature and purpose of marriage and to the government’s sole interest in marriage: procreative potential.
• Anti-miscegenation laws were based on a flawed understanding of human nature. As Dennis Prager explains, anti-miscegenation laws were based on the false notion that people of different races had different natures: “There are enormous differences between men and women, but there are no differences between people of different races. Men and women are inherently different, but blacks and whites (and yellows and browns) are inherently the same. Therefore, any imposed separation by race can never be moral or even rational; on the other hand, separation by sex can be both morally desirable and rational.”  Marriage laws that recognize that marriage is a sexually complementary union are based on the true belief that men and women are by nature different.
• Finally, anti-miscegenation laws were based on who the person is, whereas laws prohibiting marriages between people of the same sex are based on actions.  Thomas Sowell, who happens to be black, explains, “The argument that current marriage laws ‘discriminate’ against homosexuals confuses discrimination against people with making distinctions among different kinds of behavior. All laws distinguish among different kinds of behavior.” A black man who wants to marry a white woman is seeking to do the same action that a white man who wants to marry a white woman seeks to do. A law that prohibits an interracial marriage is wrong because it is based on who the person is, not on what he seeks to do. But, if a man wants to marry a man, he is seeking to do an entirely different action from that which a man who wants to marry a woman seeks to do. A law that prohibits homosexual marriage is legitimate because it is based not on who the person is but rather on what he seeks to do. Any man may engage in the act of marrying a woman (if she is of age and not closely related by blood).

Conclusion

Homosexual men claim they are attracted only to men. Homosexual women claim they are attracted only to women. Both sets of claims point to the truth that men and women are by nature different. If men and women are by nature substantively different, then unions composed of two people of the same sex must necessarily be substantively different from sexually complementary unions. It is perfectly legitimate for the government to treat different things differently.

Men and women who choose to make their unchosen same-sex attraction central to their identity are not prohibited from participating in the institution of marriage. They choose not to participate in it.  The starting point for homosexual activists in their analysis of the issue of redefining marriage is not the Constitution, the law, or deep thinking about the sources of morality. No, their analysis starts with their own sexual feelings. From there, like the Sophists of old, they concoct specious “reasons’ to persuade the public that gender and procreative potential are irrelevant to marriage.

The ignorance of homosexuality-affirming activists like Lambda Legal attorney Camilla Taylor is exceeded only by their hubris. We hope and pray that the efforts of the Thomas More Society and the Illinois Family Institute, which have stepped in to do what Madigan and Alvarez should be doing, will prevail over ignorance and self-righteous hubris.

Repeating what has been a rallying cry of gay activism for years, the cover of the December 16, 2008 issue of The Advocate announced, “Gay is the New Black: The Last Great Civil Rights Struggle.” Last week, on May 19th, headlines across the nation announced, “NAACP endorses gay marriage as ‘civil right.’” So, is gay the new black?

There are prominent black leaders who say yes, including Congressman John Lewis, who was active in the early Civil Rights movement. There are other prominent black leaders who say no, like Timothy F. Johnson, founder and president of the Frederick Douglass Foundation.

For a number of reasons, I concur with Johnson and others who say that gay is not the new black.

1. There is no true comparison between skin color and behavior. Although gays and lesbians emphasize identity rather than behavior, homosexuality is ultimately defined by romantic attraction and sexual behavior. How can this be equated with the color of someone’s skin?

Skin color has no intrinsic moral quality, and there is no moral difference between being black or white (or yellow or red). In contrast, romantic attractions and sexual behaviors often have moral (or immoral) qualities, and there is no constitutional “right” to fulfill one’s sexual and romantic desires.

Also, skin color cannot be hidden, whereas a person’s sexual orientation is, generally speaking, not outwardly recognizable (unless it is willfully displayed). Put another way, blacks do not have to “come out,” since their identity is self-evident, whereas gays and lesbians have to come out (or act out) for their identity to be clearly known.

2. The very real hardships endured by many gays and lesbians cannot fairly be compared with the monstrous suffering endured by African Americans. Conservative gay journalist Charles Winecoff wrote, “Newsflash: blacks in America didn’t start out as hip-hop fashion designers; they were slaves. There’s a big difference between being able to enjoy a civil union with the same sex partner of your choice – and not being able to drink out of a water fountain, eat at a lunch counter, or use a rest room because you don’t have the right skin color.”

Today, we have openly gay members of Congress, openly gay celebrities, openly gay CEO’s, openly gay financial gurus, openly gay sports stars, openly gay Hollywood moguls, and openly gay college professors, bestselling authors, scientists, and on and on. In the days of segregation in America, there were few, if any, blacks in such prominent positions, not to mention the fact that in many cities in America, even the lynching of blacks was accepted. Where in America are gays and lesbians being lynched today with societal approval? And what is the LGBT equivalent to the American slave trade?

3. Skin color is innate and immutable; sexual orientation is not. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no reputable scientific evidence that people are born gay or lesbian. Even the unabashedly pro-gay American Psychiatric Association stated that, “to date there are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality.” As expressed bluntly by lesbian author Camille Paglia, “No one is born gay. The idea is ridiculous.”

John D’Emilio, a gay activist and a professor of history and of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois, wrote, “What’s most amazing to me about the ‘born gay’ phenomenon is that the scientific evidence for it is thin as a reed, yet it doesn’t matter. It’s an idea with such social utility that one doesn’t need much evidence in order to make it attractive and credible.”

Also contrary to popular opinion, there are former homosexuals; there are no former blacks (despite the best efforts of the late Michael Jackson). This also underscores the fact that skin color cannot be compared to behavior, since even someone who remains same-sex attracted can modify his or her sexual behavior. A black person cannot modify his or her blackness.

Stated another way, genetics determine skin color, not behavior. Otherwise, if genetics unalterably predetermined behavior, then someone with a so-called violent gene could tell the judge, “My genes made me do it!” (For more on this important subject, see the chapter “Is Gay the New Black” in my bookA Queer Thing Happened to America.)

4. Removing the unjust laws against miscegenation (interracial marriage) did not require a fundamental redefinition of marriage and family; legalizing same-sex “marriage” does.Marriage between a black person and a white person always included the two essential elements of marriage, namely a man and a woman (as opposed to just two people), and as a general rule, interracial marriage could naturally produce children and then provide those children with a mother and father. In contrast, same-sex “marriage” cannot produce children naturally and can never provide children with both a mother and father. (Another newsflash: Two dads or two moms do not equal a mom and a dad.)

Removing the laws of miscegenation simply required the removal of anti-black bigotry (since a white man could marry a Native American woman but not a black woman), whereas legalizing same-sex “marriage” requires the redefinition of marriage (opening the door to polyamorists, polygamists, and advocates of incestuous “marriages,” who are already mounting their legal and social arguments) and the normalizing of homosexuality (beginning with elementary school education), among other things.

That’s why many black Americans are rightly upset with the hijacking of the Civil Rights movement by gay activists.

By Ryan T. Anderson, Robert P. George & Sherif Girgis at National Review Online

At least President Obama is not dissembling anymore about his views on marriage. And even though we consider his support of redefining marriage a deep error, he has done the nation a favor by revealing the truth about his position. So did the vice president, days earlier, when he opined about “the simple proposition” that “this is all about” — “what all marriages, at their root, are about.” That is, the administration has created a long-awaited and much-needed platform for a national discussion of the core issue in the debate: What is marriage?

Consider two competing views:

THE HISTORIC VIEW
Marriage as a comprehensive union: Joining spouses in body as well as mind, it is begun by commitment and sealed by sexual intercourse. So completed in the acts by which new life is made, it is specially apt for and deepened by procreation, and calls for that broad sharing of domestic life uniquely fit for family life. Uniting spouses in these all-encompassing ways, it also calls for all-encompassing commitment: permanent and exclusive. Comprehensive union is valuable in itself, but its link to children’s welfare makes marriage a public good that the state should recognize, support, and in certain ways regulate. Call this the conjugal view of marriage.

THE REVISIONIST VIEW 
Marriage as the union of two people who commit to romantic partnership and domestic life: essentially an emotional union, merely enhanced by whatever sexual activity partners find agreeable. Such committed romantic unions are seen as valuable while emotion lasts. The state recognizes them because it has an interest in their stability, and in the needs of spouses and any children they choose to rear. Call this the revisionist view of marriage.

President Obama has made it clear that he favors the second view. He hasn’t offered any arguments for it, merely pointing to his feelings and those of his children.

In our forthcoming book, What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, we argue that the conjugal conception of marriage is not only the one long embodied in Western law and culture; it is also, by a sizable margin, rationally more defensible. President Obama and his allies can now join this discussion by backing their intuitions with arguments — if they can.

Now that the president has disclosed his view, he — like all revisionists — must confront some tough questions. And he, like they, will run into a problem. Something must set marriages as a class apart from other bonds. But on every point where most agree that marriage is different, the conjugal view has a coherent explanation — and the revisionist has none.

President Obama, like most, surely thinks that marriage is inherently a sexual union. But why must it be, if sex contributes to marriage only by fostering and expressing emotional intimacy? Non-sexual bonding activities can do that. Why can’t the tender platonic bond of two sisters be a deep emotional union, and therefore a marriage? Or, if marriage is primarily about the concrete legal benefits — of hospital visitation, or inheritance rights — should these benefits be denied two cohabiting sisters just because their bond can’t legally be sexual? To all this, the conjugal view has an answer.

Again, if marriage is essentially about emotions and shared domestic experience, why should it be limited to two people? Newsweek says the U.S. has half a million polyamorous households — where emotions and experiences are shared with multiple partners. Surely three people can be emotionally united, and some say that the variety of polyamory fulfills them as the consistency of monogamy can’t. So if marriage is about emotional fulfillment, why stop at two? The conjugal view has an answer.

Finally, if marriage is distinguished just by being a person’s deepest bond, her number one relationship, why should the state get involved at all in what basically amounts to the legal regulation of tenderness? The conjugal view has an answer. The revisionist has none.

Indeed, our recently candid president should note that the more candid, and consistent, revisionists have long accepted these points. Years ago, 300 prominent scholars and activists signed a statement arguing that we should recognize polyamorous and multiple-household sexual relationships. These activists agree that making sexual complementarity optional would make all its other norms arbitrary — and therefore unjust to leave intact. We only disagree on whether this top-to-bottom dismantling of the institution of marriage would be a good or a bad thing.

The president has now created a platform for this very discussion; and it is a discussion we look forward to having. For as Obama himself implied, this is not a dispute featuring “bigots” on one side, any more than it has “perverts” on the other. It is a debate of reasonable people of goodwill who disagree about the nature of the most basic unit of society. In saying that he supports letting states decide the definition of marriage for themselves, Obama indicated that this issue shouldn’t be settled by judicial fiat. On this, we agree. Our national conversation shouldn’t be brought to an undemocratically abrupt end. But as it continues, advocates on all sides must contend with, and answer, the central question in this debate, without which we can’t know thewhat or the why of legal recognition, much less what justice demands: What is marriage?

— Ryan T. Anderson is editor of Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, N.J. Robert P. George is McCormick professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and a senior fellow of the Witherspoon Institute. Sherif Girgis, a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at Princeton University and a law student at Yale, is a research scholar at the Witherspoon Institute.

Written by Ryan T. Anderson and Thomas Messner (Heritage.org)

On Wednesday afternoon, President Obama announced that he supports same-sex marriage. This was not exactly a surprise.

Sure, when running for Senate in 2004, Obama said that “marriage is between a man and a woman.” And when campaigning for the presidency in 2008, he restated that view and also claimed he did “not support gay marriage.”

The truth, however, is that President Obama has repeatedly done and said things that directly undermine marriage as one man and one woman.

President Obama has openly opposed state marriage amendments, such as Proposition 8 in California and the hugely successful amendment adopted by voters in North Carolina earlier this week. These amendments would protect marriage from judicial activism in state courts and let voters decide the question through democratic processes. But Obama views such measures as “divisive” and “discriminatory.”

President Obama also supports repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal law that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman for purposes of federal law. And President Obama’s Justice Department has taken extraordinary steps to undermine DOMA in the courts, first by offering a soft defense and then by offering no defense at all.

These seeming inconsistencies led many to conclude that the President wasn’t really against gay marriage but was saying so for political reasons. Now, the President has finally owned up to what many people already suspected: that he supports same-sex marriage.

It is good that President Obama has decided to be more straightforward about what he really believes about marriage. The American public deserves at least that much.

But the President’s so-called “evolution” on the timeless institution of marriage marks an unfortunate turn. Society has a civilizational interest in promoting marital childbearing and the faithfulness of husbands and wives to each other and their children. Marriage is a vital social institution that promotes that interest.

The reason the state is in the marriage business in the first place is because sex makes babies and babies need mothers and fathers. As one source has put it, “but for children, there would be no need of any institution concerned with sex.” That “institution” is marriage, and it brings together men and women as husbands and wives to become fathers and mothers to any children their unions bring forth.

This binding together doesn’t happen by accident. Binding fathers to mothers and their children requires strong cultural and legal norms to channel adult sexual desire and behavior into an institution where childbearing leads to responsible childrearing.

Furthermore, undoubtedly one reason voters in 32 states have voted to protect marriage is the belief that, for children, the ideal situation is to have both a mother and a father. This belief is supported by social science, which demonstrates that children do best when reared by their married biological mothers and fathers. Mothering and fathering are not interchangeable phenomena. The ideal for children is love and attention from both a father and mother, as well as the role modeling that each can provide of masculinity and femininity.

By embracing same-sex marriage, President Obama has invited everyone in the nation to consider this basic issue: What is marriage? The President has sided with those who would redefine marriage by declaring that mothers and fathers are expendable and sexual complementarity does not matter. Under this view, marriage is whatever two consenting adults want it to be.

But once the President accepts these ideas, can he explain why marriage should involve only two people? Can he explain why, under his conception, childrearing would continue to have any meaningful relationship to marriage? Can he explain why commitments of permanence and sexual exclusivity should be the norm for marriage? Throw away the core meaning of marriage and these cherished norms logically go with it.

There is a truth about marriage, and most people intuitively grasp that it has something to with mothers and fathers, the offspring they bear through sexual union, and the mutual cooperation required to effectively rear offspring throughout many years of dependency. The marriage debate is about whether our laws will recognize and promote this truth or, rather, label it a falsehood and force society to fall in line.

President Obama has made clear where he stands on this issue. In the coming months, voting members of the American public will have the opportunity to do the same.

By The Editors at National Review Online

President Barack Obama is getting credit, even from some critics, for finally being honest and consistent in his position on same-sex marriage now that he has announced his support for it. But he is still being neither honest nor consistent. And his dishonesty is not merely a matter of pretending that he has truly changed his mind about marriage, rather than about the politics of marriage.

His claim that he believes that states should decide marriage policy is also impossible to credit. One of the purposes of the federal Defense of Marriage Act was to block this scenario: A same-sex couple that resides in a state that does not recognize same-sex unions as marriages goes to a state that does so recognize them, gets married there, returns home, sues in federal court to make the home state recognize the “marriage,” and prevails. Obama has long favored the repeal of the act. He does not truly want states to be able to continue to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

And really, why should he, given his premises? Does anyone doubt that he believes that the marriage laws of most states are not just wrong but unjust? His spokesmen have repeatedly said as much when registering his opposition to states’ attempts to undo judicial decisions to impose same-sex marriage. If these marriage laws amount to unjust discrimination against certain persons, then it follows that states have no right to enforce them. If Obama’s appointees to the Supreme Court join a majority that requires all states to recognize same-sex marriages, does anyone think that he will do anything but applaud? There is no reason to believe that Obama’s long-advertised “evolution” on marriage is now complete. 

All people, whatever their sexual orientation, have equal dignity, worth, and basic rights, by virtue of being human beings. We have previously explained why we believe that this premise does not entail the conclusion that the marriage laws should be changed (anddefended our views from critics). For now, we will merely repeat one point: The only good reason to have marriage laws in the first place — to have the state recognize a class of relationships called “marriage” out of all the possible strong bonds that adults can form — is to link erotic desire to the upbringing of the children it can produce.

We have already gone too far, in both law and culture, in weakening the link between marriage and procreation. To break it altogether would make the institution of marriage unintelligible. What possible governmental interest is there in encouraging long-term commitments with a sexual element, just as such? What reason is there to exclude from recognition caring long-term relationships without such an element? (In one of the editorials mentioned above we mention the case of two brothers who raise a child together following a family tragedy; other hypotheticals are easy to devise.)

Many people who support same-sex marriage sincerely believe that they are merely expanding an institution to a class of people who have been excluded from it rather than redefining it. But this view is simply mistaken. We will not make our society more civilized by detaching one of our central institutions from its civilizing task.

Written by Kevin DeYoung, The Gospel Coalition

On Wednesday afternoon, to no one’s surprise, President Obama revealed in an interview that after some “evolution” he has “concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.” This after the Vice-President came out last Sunday strongly in favor of gay marriage. Not coincidentally, the New York Times ran an article on Tuesday (an election day with a marriage amendment on one ballot) about how popular and not controversial gay television characters have become. In other words, everyone else has grown up so why don’t you? It can seem like the whole world is having a gay old time, with conservative Christians the only ones refusing to party.

The temptation, then, is for Christians go silent and give up the marriage fight: “It’s no use staying in this battle,” we think to ourselves. “We don’t have to change our personal position. We’ll keep speaking the truth and upholding the Bible in our churches, but getting worked up over gay marriage in the public square is counter productive. It’s a waste of time. It makes us look bad. It ruins our witness. And we’ve already lost. Time to throw in the towel.” I understand that temptation. It is an easier way. But I do not think it is the right way, the God glorifying way, or the way of love.

Here are five reasons Christians should continue to publicly and winsomely oppose bestowing the term and institution of marriage upon same-sex couples:

1. Every time the issue of gay marriage has been put to a vote by the people, the people have voted to uphold traditional marriage. Even in California. In fact, the amendment passed in North Carolina on Tuesday by a wider margin (61-39) than a similar measure passed six years ago in Virginia (57-42). The amendment passed in North Carolina, a swing state Obama carried in 2008, by 22 percentage points. We should not think that gay marriage in all the land is a foregone conclusion. To date 30 states have constitutionally defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

2. The promotion and legal recognition of homosexual unions is not in the interest of the common good. That may sound benighted, if not bigoted. But we must say it in love: codifying the indistinguishability of gender will not make for the “peace of the city.” It rubs against the grain of the universe, and when you rub against the grain of divine design you’re bound to get splinters. Or worse. The society which says sex is up to your own definition and the family unit is utterly fungible is not a society that serves its children, its women, or its own long term well being.

3. Marriage is not simply the term we use to describe those relationships most precious to us. The word means something and has meant something throughout history. Marriage is more than a union of hearts and minds. It involves a union of bodies–and not bodies in any old way we please, as if giving your cousin a wet willy in the ear makes you married. Marriage, to quote one set of scholars, is a” comprehensive union of two sexually complementary persons who seal (consummate or complete) their relationship by the generative act—by the kind of activity that is by its nature fulfilled by the conception of a child. So marriage itself is oriented to and fulfilled by the bearing, rearing, and education of children.” This conjugal view of marriage states in complex language what would have been a truism until a couple generations ago. Marriage is what children (can) come from. Where that element is not present (at the level of sheer design and function, even if not always in fulfillment), marriage is not a reality. We should not concede that “gay marriage” is really marriage. What’s more, as Christians we understand that the great mystery of marriage can never be captured between a relationship of Christ and Christ or church and church.

4. Allowing for the legalization of gay marriage further normalizes what was until very recently, and still should be, considered deviant behavior. While it’s true that politics is downstream from culture, it’s also true that law is one of the tributaries contributing to culture. In our age of hyper-tolerance we try to avoid stigmas, but stigmas can be an expression of common grace. Who knows how many stupid sinful things I’ve been kept from doing because I knew my peers and my community would deem it shameful. Our cultural elites may never consider homosexuality shameful, but amendments that define marriage as one man and one woman serve a noble end by defining what is as what ought to be. We do not help each other in the fight for holiness when we allow for righteousness to look increasingly strange and sin to look increasingly normal.

5. We are naive if we think a laissez faire compromise would be enjoyed by all if only the conservative Christians would stop being so dogmatic. The next step after giving up the marriage fight is not a happy millennium of everyone everywhere doing marriage in his own way. The step after surrender is conquest. I’m not suggesting heterosexuals would no longer be able to get married. What I am suggesting is that the cultural pressure will not stop with allowing for some “marriages” to be homosexual. It will keep mounting until allaccept and finally celebrate that homosexuality is one of Diversity’s great gifts. The goal is not for different expressions of marriage, but for the elimination of definitions altogether. Capitulating on gay marriage may feel like giving up an inch in bad law to gain a mile in good will. But the reality will be far different. For as in all of the devil’s bargains, the good will doesn’t last nearly so long as the law.

A week ago, the Chicago Tribune celebrated — again — the passage of the civil union bill as well as Obama’s decision to order the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

On Feb. 23, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that President Barack Obama has divined that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional and has ordered the Justice Department (DOJ) to cease defending it. President Obama ordered the DOJ to stop defending DOMA in court even though the DOJ is specifically charged with the responsibility of defending federal laws.

However did DOMA’s unconstitutionality escape the notice of the 85 senators and 342 representatives who voted for it in 1996? And however did its unconstitutionality escape the notice of the man who signed it into law: President Bill Clinton, attorney and Rhodes Scholar?

The intellectual vacuity of the Tribune’s position is best illustrated in the claim that “the sky didn’t fall” following the passage of the civil union bill. What they mean is that Illinois has seen no cultural cataclysm since the bill was signed into law. The Tribune? wins this sophistical skirmish: I will concede that the bill that was signed into law six weeks ago and doesn’t take effect until June has not resulted in climatic catastrophe.

It has, however, darkened the sky for Jim Walder, a bed and breakfast owner in Paxton, Illinois who is being sued by a homosexual couple for not renting his facility to them for their civil union and reception. (Read more about this HERE.) And it seriously threatens the religious liberty of Christian organizations that seek to live out the tenets of their faith. (Read more about this HERE.)

But most of the cultural damage will not be seen for years to come. Any thinking person understands that cultural change rarely happens instantaneously. For example, Stanley Kurtz has documented the destructive impact same-sex “marriage” has had on heterosexual marriage in Scandinavia — changes that did not appear in a period of weeks or even months.

The Tribune editorial board continues its assault on marriage without ever feeling the need to address the fundamental and fundamentally flawed analogy upon which the entire homosexuality-affirming movement, including the effort to radically transform marriage and family, is built. The entire house of cards is built on a specious comparison of race to homosexuality, and yet, I cannot recall reading a single editorial defending with evidence the ways in which race and homosexuality are ontologically analogous or equivalent.

I also can’t recall the Tribune editorial board wrestling intellectually with the fundamental question that Princeton Law Professor Robert George recently debated with homosexual journalist Kenji Yoshino, which is: What is marriage?

In a recent article, Chicago Sun-Times’ columnist Neil Steinberg criticizes the Illinois Family Institute’s website for not “addressing what an individual could do to improve his own family.”

While Mr. Steinberg would love to see our organization relegated to self-improvement, family entertainment and leisure activities, IFI is a public policy organization that addresses policy issues that are substantial and consequential to the families of Illinois. If Steinberg bothered to look past the home page of our website to the “About Us” section, he may have understood our mission and purpose.

The Illinois Family Institute is a nonprofit research and education organization committed to protecting and defending the family by influencing policy and promoting timeless values consistent with Judeo-Christian teachings and traditions.

Disagreeing with our mission and our positions on these issues is fair. Mr. Steinberg obviously disagrees with our position on homosexual behavior and specifically our statement that “volitional homosexual acts are immoral,” calling them “superficial, silly, ad hominem non-arguments.” He is right: that statement is not an argument. It is a moral claim for which there are both religious and secular justifications. Similarly, the view that homosexual acts are moral is not an argument. It is a moral claim that requires justifications.

Unfortunately, Mr. Steinberg offers nothing to substantiate his criticisms other than name-calling. While he waxes poetic about tolerance, Mr. Steinberg describes opposition to so-called same-sex marriages and civil unions as “sick,” “twisted sexual” obsessions, “creepy, fixated” fundamentalism, “religious prejudice,” “intolerant,” and “inhuman.”

He compares opposition to the radical, subversive, a-historical effort to jettison the central defining feature of marriage — sexual complementarity — to teeth flossing and clean underwear checks.

In his anti-IFI article, Mr. Steinberg points out that he doesn’t want to impose his values on other people or “write an amendment into the Illinois constitution” to impose his beliefs. Since he feels so strongly about the immorality of imposing values on others, will Mr. Steinberg write a column critical of the efforts of homosexuality-affirming organizations to impose through public education and legislation their unproven ontological claim that homosexuality is equivalent to race and their unproven moral claim that gender is irrelevant to marriage?

And in his self-righteous advocacy of absolute moral neutrality in the public square, will he defend polyamorists’ right to marry?

Mr. Steinberg ends his tirade with an emotional appeal saying that our country “is a vast, varied place where people from all sorts of races, religions, creeds and, yes, differing sexuality, dwell together in harmony…” I guess this sentiment applies to everyone except religious conservatives.

If the superficial, silly, ad hominem non-arguments that constitute the sum total of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg‘s indictment of conservative positions on homosexuality were not so dangerous, they would be laughable.

In a rant in the Sunday Feb. 14 Sun-Times, Mr. Steinberg describes opposition to faux same-sex marriages and civil unions as “sick,” “twisted sexual” obsessions, “creepy, fixated” fundamentalism, “religious prejudice,” “intolerant,” and “inhuman.”

He compares opposition to the radical, subversive, a-historical effort to jettison the central defining feature of marriage–sexual complementarity–to teeth flossing and clean underwear checks.

Ah, yes, I can hear the mellifluous tones of tolerance wafting through his rhetoric.

One wonders if Mr. Steinberg applies these same epithets and feckless analogies to opposition to jettisoning any of the other defining features of marriage, like the binary requirement, or the blood kinship requirement. Are those who oppose adult consensual incest or polygamy sick, twisted sexual obsessives, and creepy, fixated fundamentalists?

Mr. Steinberg’s cliche non-arguments lead me to wonder if he has ever engaged with the substantive arguments of real intellectuals, either in person or through a thorough study of the best writing of conservative scholars. I think not because nary a substantive counter- argument can be found in his thicket of epithets.

Here are some questions for the moral philosopher, Mr. Steinberg:

• Is homosexuality ontologically equivalent to race or skin color? If so, what is your evidence for that claim?
• Is homosexuality morally equivalent to heterosexuality? If so, what are your justifications for that belief?
• What is the basis of the government’s involvement in marriage?
• Is the government in the business of simply affirming affection and sexual desire?
• If so, why not affirm through legal mechanisms like marriage or civil unions the affection and sexual attraction some siblings feel for each other, or the affection and sexual attraction polyamorists feel for multiple people?
• Is marriage an utterly private institution, or does it impact the public good?
• If marriage is an utterly private institution with no impact on the public good, then why is the government involved at all?
• If the government’s involvement in the marriage business is wholly severed from supporting the type of relationship into which children may be born, why limit it to two biologically unrelated people. (After all, in Mr. Steinberg’s moral universe, no one should be permitted to impose his intolerant, inhuman moral views on others. How very sick and prejudiced it is for anyone to prohibit those who love and want to express that love sexually to their siblings or multiple people. Moreover, how could a marriage between two siblings or five people hurt anyone else’s marriage?)

Islam, Orthodox Judaism, The Roman Catholic Church, and many Protestant denominations believe that volitional homosexual acts are immoral, and that marriage is by nature a heterosexual union. Before writing another anti-religious screed devoid of intellectual substance, it would behoove Mr. Steinberg to spend some time studying the work of the following scholars:

Hadley Arkes, Francis Beckwith, Henri Blocher, Joseph Bottum, Michael L. Brown, Don Browning, D.A. Carson, Charles Chaput, Mark Dever, Anthony Esolen, Douglas Farrow, John S. Feinberg, David F. Forte, John Frame, Robert Gagnon, Robert George, Arthur Goldberg, Wayne Grudem, John Finnis, Harold James, Stanton Jones, Walter Kaiser, Meredith Kline, Peter Kreeft, Daniel Lapin, Al Mohler, Douglas Moo, Russell Moore, Jennifer Roback Morse, Mark Noll, David Novak, J.I. Packer, John Piper, Patrick Henry Reardon, Leland Ryken, Thomas Schreiner, Roger Scruton, Janet E. Smith, Katherine Shaw Spaht, John Stott, Seanna Sugrue, Bruce Ware, Thomas Weinandy, W. Bradford Wilcox, Christopher Wolfe, N.T. Wright, and Ravi Zacharias.

Chicago Tribune reporter Rex Huppke recently wrote an article titled “Marriage benefits costly for gay couples” in which he addresses the economic costs for gay partners to legally protect their relationships. The article failed to address the underlying issue in this debate: the public purpose of marriage.

Marriage is not a relationship that society created in order to give some people benefits and deny them to others. Marriage is the institution that societies worldwide have recognized and encouraged because this unique relationship between a man and a woman provides particular benefits to society, chief among them, the procreation and nurturing of the next generation.

If marriage were centrally or solely about affirming love between individuals, the government would have no reason to be involved in the business of sanctioning marriage. Government sanctions the type of relationship into which children may be born and raised because the government recognizes that that institution which best serves the needs and rights of children is the institution that best serves a healthy society.

Of all the criteria that define marriage — number of partners, blood kinship, minimum age, and sexual complementarity — the one that has been historically and cross-culturally the most fixed is sexual complementarity.

The social science is clear and irrefutable: children do best in stable, healthy homes with both a mom and dad. The government acts in the interest of children and society when it protects the institution of marriage through legal benefits.