This year, voters in Washington state have the chance for vote on Referendum 74, which if passed would affirm the legality of gay marriage in our state. I’m a Christian. I’m also voting YES on this ballot measure, and I’d like to tell you why. Before we begin, here’s the complete text of the referendum:
The legislature passed Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 6239 concerning marriage for same-sex couples, modified domestic-partnership law, and religious freedom, and voters have filed a sufficient referendum petition on this bill. This bill would allow same-sex couples to marry, preserve domestic partnerships only for seniors, and preserve the right of clergy or religious organizations to refuse to perform, recognize, or accommodate any marriage ceremony.
So why am I supporting this bill? A simple answer would be that, as I have been so blessed to know many LGBT couples and individuals, who are great, loving, and honest people, I wish to bless them with my support of the loving and committed relationships I have seen between people in this community. But, outside of the personal relationships that have enriched my life, here are three reasons why I’m voting Yes:
1. It does not infringe on anyone’s religious belief
If R74 passes, pastors and ministers would not be required to perform same sex marriages. This is a common misconception; but religious liberty is a first amendment right, and R74 is designed to respect that. Same sex couples seeking a marriage ceremony in a church will still need to find a sympathetic member of the clergy.
Were this not the case, I couldn’t in good conscience vote for this. I wouldn’t want to open up freedoms for one person while closing it for another. Thankfully, this is not the case with R74.
2. It opens up marriage for some without closing it for any
Religious liberty in America is a two-way street. Some Christians believe that same sex marriage is sinful, and they are free to believe that. Others, however, believe that same sex marriage is not incompatible with their faith. Others are not religious at all, and find no basis for objecting to same sex marriage. Are not the First Amendment rights of these Americans to be respected also?
Marriage is many things. As a married man (almost six years with my beautiful wife) I know that being able to celebrate your love and the consecration of your union with a community is very important, and a basic human right. R74 opens this blessed celebration up to more folks, without interfering in the lives of anyone else. Marriage is about family, about being part of a community, and about giving a safe place for children to be raised.
3. It is part of the rich American tradition of fighting discrimination
Marriage is good for our nation, and Americans seem to understand that. In the broader scope, our government recognizes the importance and significance of marriages through the legal code, tax code, and recognition of the church’s role in blessing marriages. However, not unlike many issues of civil rights, it’s been a bumpy road. It was not that long ago that interracial marriage was illegal in this country, and it was through a lot of disputes and debate in both the culture at large, and in our legal system, to right a wrong that persisted far too long.
The parallels to the modern marriage equality movement are significant. In this day, we see those who stood in support of interracial marriage as the leading edge of liberty, human rights, and the values that make America great. Few people today publicly object to interracial marriage. In the future, I fully expect to see marriage equality become part of our nation’s valued liberties, and those who stood in defense of it regarded as heroes. Standing up for marriage equality is standing on the right side of history.
Thanks for your articulate and thoughtful words and work, Sam!
Thanks Marj! 🙂
Thanks Sam- As a single guy, I know what it can feel like to not fit in with the community, so I can understand why this is an important referendum.
Yeah definitely, Bruce! I think the more people we can make feel included and valued in our world, the better. Obviously we don’t really want destructive individuals or people who delight in hurting others (there are other ways to rehabilitate them and we should strive for that for sure). But we do want people who are “life-giving” to be a part of the melting pot of our communities and we should make a discipline of hospitality. I think marriage equality definitely helps to fulfill that goal.
As a Bible believing Christian, the Lord Jesus Christ calls me to serve and obey Him over and above any other rule, opinion or law. He also calls me to be at peace with all men in as much as I can from my side. I believe that the strong movement toward homosexual practice and official acceptance by our society is actually a judgement from God in itself. He says in Romans that because of intentional suppression of the truth, “God gave them up to dishonorable passions….” Romans 1:26&27;. These two verses describe the acts in detail, and states the performance of them is actually a judgement. Heartbreakingly, America is steadily and continually turning away from the truth to lies. My prayer is that many will be restored to the truth before it is too late. The Lord God’s plan has provided abundant forgiveness for all who will repent and turn to Him, He loves men and women and desires their good, their blessing and unspeakable joy. It will never come through disobedience to His stated Word.
Dennis, I’m also a Bible believing Christian. I don’t believe that the Bible is “literally” true because that’s a preposterous assertion these days. It has been translated, re-translated, edited, and modified from its original form over thousands of years and dozens of cultures. I believe the Bible is a story about how some people, long ago, began to discover the creator of life, and began to try to figure out who this mysterious figure was. Much of the Bible is explicitly and implicitly metaphorical, and as metaphorical stories, their value is in teaching us how to get better and better at living with one another in love, and forming our lives around the true mission of God — Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. I don’t need to literally believe in a flood, or a 6,000 year old earth because those stories are so very clearly contradicted by evidence in the real world. But as stories about life, death, judgement, and redemption, they are everlasting.
However, I don’t think you believe in a literalist interpretation of the Bible, either.
Do you eat shellfish? Do you stone your children to death if they are disobedient? Do you make your wife recuse herself from the household during her menstrual cycle? Would you slay your brother if he worships a different god? These things are mandated side-by-side against homosexuality in the Bible.
So then, it seems that the both of us, albeit to varying degrees, have disregarded those parts of the Bible that have aged into irrelevance, or would be crimes to practice in our more enlightened era. Neither of us would genuinely like a return of the real values expressed in the Old Testament.
When those portions of the Old Testament were written, the world was a different place. The discovery of microbes, the workings of the brain, genetics, and cultures other than Middle Eastern semites were hundreds or thousands of years away. The very first “culture” ever invented was still the dominate force in their world. Humans tend to abhor aberrations or differences and a man who was attracted to other men, rather than women, would have been viewed with much suspicion and maybe even fear.
Now we know that genetic differences are responsible for homosexuality not only in humans, but in many hundreds of species of animals and insects around the world. It’s a sexual trait that’s nearly universal in the animal kingdom. We know that homosexual people are just like straight people in every single other aspect. We also know now that shunning others for being different is a universal wrong (and it’s a sin that’s barely addressed at all in the Bible, reflecting a more limited understanding of universal rights at the time of its writing). Similar cases are to be made with regards to the Bible’s viewpoints on owning slaves. It’s not until the New Testament that we even get an inkling that the writers of the Bible began to think that slavery might be wrong. In the Old Testament, slavery is assumed to be a natural part of a well-ordered society. The Bible itself reflects changing and evolving ideas about human rights and values.
So, Dennis, what’s the real problem with homosexuality for you? On what basis do you pronounce what we now understand to be a perfectly normal attraction between same sexes, capable of expressing exactly the same feelings of love and affection that straight people do through their committed relationships, as a sin and as lies, as you say? Why do you think you ought to be part of the movement of discrimination against law-abiding, loving couples?
What is indisputable fact is that, looking over the 19th, 20th, and now 21st centuries, a certain part of the church has been proven to have taken the wrong positions on so many issues: Slavery, treatment of native peoples, women’s rights, access to health care, civil rights for blacks, and more. I think now, as the 21st century dawns, the church has a real chance to move away from destructive and unloving behavior, and become the kind of community that the Kingdom of God has always gently bid us to. I would love for you to be part of that, Dennis.
Sam,
I appreciate the response. Finding your way back to some of these threads can be a challenge! I also appreciate the SpokaneFavs site for allowing discussion on important issues such as these. I believe they are having and will continue to have tremendous impact on our society. They are much more than philosophical musings meant to pass time more interestingly. I find that the more time I spend here the more I end up debating the same positions again and again with different folks. This topic of biblical truth or fable comes up again and again.
As I ponder your first statement that you also claim to be a Bible believing Christian and then in the next sentence admit that you don’t believe the Bible is “literally” true just blows my mind. You say that believing that is preposterous “these days” as if we have lately come up with some gamechanging evidence that makes the Bible untrue. Nothing could be further from the truth! The Bible is the most documented, carefully translated piece of literature of all time. It can be accepted at face value as literally interpreted in the same way as any other writing. Where it is meant to be taken literally and when it is obviously metaphorical are for the most part easily determined. To be taken literally means to let it say what it means and mean what it says. If it can’t be interpreted that way then it is basically meaningless, being able to be twisted and perverted into meaning anything the speaker wants it to mean depending on his or her own agenda. Jesus mission to the church is stated by Him in Matt. 28:19,20. After affirming that He alone has all authority in heaven and earth, He said to go and make disciples for Him teaching them to observe all that He commanded to them. To love God and love your neighbor isn’t our mission, it’s God’s righteous standard by which every single person who ever lived will be judged by. But to love Him means to love the things that He loves and hate the things that He hates (Prov. 8:13)
And again, there is not evidence that can be presented that clearly contradicts the literal interpretation of Scripture. There is passionate belief by faith in theories that contradict, by those who hate what Scripture has to say to them but that’s all. I think of the passage about Herodias, Herod’s wife who had John the Baptist beheaded because of the grudge she held against him for exposing their adulterous affair. It’s not the that Scriptures can’t be understood, it’s that it is so infuriating for us to have to live under it’s principles and commandments.
So you are mis-stating my lack of belief in a literalist interpretation my friend. Your setting up the strawman arguments to knock down have been put out there many times without result. The sitings about shellfish, a wife’s time of the month, and the execution of an idol worshiper all belong to the theocracy of the Old Testament times of Israel for them specifically, not for the church. That is what I mean about learning how to interpret Scripture. But it also means you have understood the Old Testament mandate regarding homosexuality. Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities were destroyed because of their rebellion against God as verified by their refusing of God’s order of creation of man and woman in marraige. That is affirmed in Jude verses 6 & 7. That passage specifically refers to them as having been destroyed for this reason just as the angels who left their proper position of authority, having had sex with human women, both with the result of eternal punishment. It leaves us today in the church not with a law, but with a principle from the Almighty God who does not change. These things are a sign of the state of our society, our country and our world.
The real problem with homosexuality for me is that I fear God, and He says it is wrong. I can look out with my own eyes and see that it’s true because of all the harm it does to men, women and children, turning them away from the true God who longs to receive them with love and grace, toward a false God of their own making. One who can’t save or help. The Bible says that the attraction is not normal, and I submit myself to the Lord Jesus Who commands me to obey Him and His truth above anything else. His very last words in Rev. 22:15-19 warn me not to add to or take away anything of His Word, and who will be in and out of the kingdom. Those are what are important to me, more than what anyone else would think of me. Those who know me, know that I’m not a harsh or uncaring person, but my heart is fixed on upholding and contending for God’s truth. Blessings to you Sam.
Dennis,
Thanks for taking part in these discussions. I hope more people will join the conversations. I agree with you that these are important things to talk about. I’m sorry if finding your way back to the threads is difficult though, we definitely have a lot of content don’t we?!
Hi Tracy,
No problem, I’m getting a better system down all the time! Thanks for your encouragement. I’ve been praying that I will learn how to present what I have to say in a respectful way, but that still holds to the fervent convictions I have about God’s Word.
And yes, there is a great amount of content. Thanks again for the opportunity to be involved!