Civil Unions?

This came up while talking politics – specifically McCain’s position on gay marriage – and that is the concept of civil unions.

A civil union is a legally recognized union similar to marriage. Civil Unions are intended to provide same-sex couples with equal rights, benefits, and responsibilities as straight married couples. Many homosexuals are critical of civil unions because they say they represent separate status unequal to marriage. They want the title marriage over their relationships. Others are critical because they say civil unions allow same-sex marriage by using a different name.

Looking at it from a Christian point of view – there is absolutely no difference between condoning gay-marriage or civil unions for homosexuals. Both cases legally condone homosexuality. Thus, politicians who oppose gay marriage but support civil unions are feeding their constituents a line of crap. They are playing with words to attempt to appease both sides of the argument.

Now many homosexuals may wonder why it is that Christians come down against them on this issue. After all – if we Christians believe that each man is accountable for his own sin unless they are saved under the grace of Christ, why are we so concerned about whether or not our neighbor Jeff is married to a girl named Sue or a guy named Ted? Why do we care?

I think you have a lot of homophobia in American Christianity, but I don’t think it’s fair to claim that to be the exclusive reason for Christian opposition – and I don’t even believe its the number one reason for Christian opposition. I believe the biggest reasons we Christians oppose gay marriage and civil unions comes down to these two points.

The will of God and the response of God to our actions.

First and foremost – no matter how people may try to twist the scriptures – we repeatedly find the Bible is all about straight relationships and it condemns homosexuality.

There  are the prohibitions in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, which declare that for a man to “lie with a male as though lying with a woman” is “an abomination” or “detestable act”. While we may not be under the Law in Christ – this certainly reveals God’s view on homosexuality. We know God is consistent about this as Romans 1:24 -27 reveals.

Thus – we do try to save people from this grave and dire sin against God. We warn them with our words, we sometimes rebuke them with our protests, and sometimes – despite the Christian call to be patient and compassionate – we go too far against homosexuality – instead of letting them be we try to force our will on them, which is wrong.

But there is a second reason Christians should oppose gay marriage and civil unions. And in this second reason there is justification for we Christians to take moral stands. Its not something that is completely unknown to anyone – but it is readily denied by many. Ask yourself this, “how much will God bless a disobedient nation?”

America is steeped in sin – abortion, adultery,  drunkenness, fornication, greed, drugs, porn, war mongering… and now – gay marriage and civil unions. Throughout the Bible – nation after nation – including Israel had to deal with the consequences of their sins. America is no different. Make no mistake – if Israel suffered for her transgressions as a nation – so shall the USA!

If you look at our nation – the more sin we’ve accepted into our everyday lives, the worse the nation has gotten. Many would argue that these declines are natural and would happen regardless of what we accepted – but that is a lie.

We are what we live. We are what we put into our society. If we feed the kids captialism – they become capitalists. If we feed them teen movies saying sex and drugs are cool – we get a generation of partiers who made horrible parents. If we tell them abortion is a choice, and not murder – we see abortion as a form of birth control. When society started to accept homosexuals – it became ok to be gay… now that society believes thats ok – the new push is its ok to be gay and get married…

(Can you hear the screeching brakes?!)

America is going to hell in a hand basket – and we’ve got no one but ourselves to blame…

Is it fair we hyper focus on gay marriage? Of course not – we should be fighting against all immorality equally, realizing that there is a point that we should dust off our feet and trust the Lord to do what must be done. With that said – I think most Christians involved in the gay marriage debate realize that we’ve already lost the other battles so gay marriage is almost like our Alamo in American society.

For me – its all a matter of watching America lose whatever blessing she might have left. I have already witnessed much of the grace depart this once great land in my short 40 years on this earth – and it won’t be long before America will be thought of as a fallen empire like Rome…