Ministers Affirmation on Marriage

   In Massachusetts (2003/4) and Connecticut (2008), the respective Supreme Courts imposed same-sex marriage without regard to the historical nature of constitutional rights. The California Supreme Court did the same before being overturned by the vote of the people (2008). Same-sex marriage advocates fear a level playing field of honest debate. The ultimate answer lies in a political reformation that puts honest people into political office.

   The original draft of this Affirmation was published in the Hartford Courant in 2003 with 200 ministers of the Gospel, and other church leaders, in Connecticut as signatories; and in 2005 with 700 such signatories. Not one leader or advocate of same-sex marriage in the state has ever been willing to publicly criticize or dispute one word of the original Affirmation. The present Affirmation is updated and shortened.

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An Affirmation by Ministers and Christian Leaders:

Yes to Man and Woman in Marriage

 No to Same-Sex Marriage

   First, we affirm that the unalienable rights of life, liberty and property, and hence the power to pursue happiness, are given by the Creator to all people equally, as individual people, regardless of religion, sexual identity or other criteria. This affirmation is rooted uniquely in the assumptions of Genesis 1-2, and reflected in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

   We also affirm that the Creator defines human sexuality in the context of the marriage of one man and one woman in mutual fidelity, serving as the basis for a healthy society and the well being of children. In human history, no society rooted in the approval of homosexuality, in any capacity, has ever produced unalienable rights for the larger social order.

   Nonetheless, same-sex marriage has been advanced, without historical precedent, as an unalienable right – shrewdly in the Goodridge ruling in Massachusetts, brazenly in the re: Marriage Cases ruling in California, and deceitfully in the Kerrigan ruling in Connecticut. Therefore, we believe same-sex marriage advocates need to answer four questions:

1. Are unalienable rights being redefined?

2. If so, why?

3. If so, what is the new basis for these rights?

4. What are the consequences? For example, would the “right” to same-sex marriage thus prevail over the religious, political and economic liberty to dissent from it?

   Second, “sexual orientation” is changeable, and there is no scientific basis for a supposed genetic or social determinism to homosexuality. Namely, there are those who have changed from a heterosexual to a homosexual identity; those who claim a bisexual identity; most self-identified homosexual persons are those who have a history of intimate heterosexual relationships; many of the same are divorcees of heterosexual marriages; and then there are those who have changed from a homosexual to a heterosexual identity.

   Therefore, we believe same-sex marriage advocates need to answer two further questions:

 

5. What is the evidence that homosexuality is a fixed and “immutable trait," and thus equal to a consistent class of people for civil rights purposes?

 

6. What prevents any other group of people from claiming a subjective identity as a civil rights class?

 

   Unless these six questions are answered with clarity and substance, then same-sex marriage advocates are knowingly not confident in their own position.

 

   And finally, we affirm the words of Jesus: “Come to me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

 

   For those who struggle with homosexual temptation, or any other temptation, Jesus invites us to come to him, and on his terms. We too, as ministers of the Gospel, and leaders in the church, have the exact same need, daily, to seek God's grace to overcome any range of temptations that may come our way – as is common with all people.

 

   Jesus affirms marriage as defined in the biblical order of creation, he fulfilled the Law of Moses that says no to homosexual acts, and the apostle Paul ratifies the same. Therefore, those who wish to be reconciled with the biblical understanding of Jesus are invited to affirm marriage as one man and one woman, and to forsake all other definitions of human sexuality.

 

   All people are created as image-bearers of God, seeking peace, order, stability and hope; to live, to love, to laugh and to learn. The question is whether we seek these qualities on our Creator’s terms, or on our own broken terms.

 

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