By James Wilson
(Author Note: The US Supreme Court handed down a ruling today mandating
same sex marriages in all fifty states. My heart is too heavy to address this ruling yet.)
The Private Member Marriage Bill introduced into the Australian National Parliament by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was withdrawn by its sponsor before debate could begin on Monday, June 1. Initial vote counting saw sixty MPs favoring, sixty opposed, and thirty undecided. Prime Minister Tony Abbott, a staunch supporter of traditional marriage, gave permission for a so-called conscience vote – members would not be required to vote with their party – apparently enhancing the measure’s prospects for passage. Shorten’s withdrawal – following a massive prayer effort in Australia and the US – makes the issue academic for now. Its defeat is a profound victory for gay and straight alike in both nations.
Same sex marriage was without precedent in every nation of the world until the dawn of this century. Even Ancient Greece – which embraced homosexual practice as perfectly normal – never accepted it as a shape for marriage. Western European nations that have accepted it in our time have enough history to see the fruit, which is only tragedy.
It is victory for those who do not anticipate with joy the unraveling of the family structure that is the foundation of human culture. In nations embracing gay marriage traditional bonding into nuclear families is less frequent, less enduring, and less resilient for protecting and nurturing members growing to maturity – authentic maturity – as people of God. There is also the second deficit – every nation embracing same sex marriage documents tolerance – for those who disagree – soon disintegrates into bigotry and repression. That has begun in America – and Australia – pre-dating changes in law. The defeat of this bill is a victory for truth.
But it is just as surely a victory for the gays if they realize it. Same sex marriage is a bad bargain for homosexual people. The gay community thinks their liaisons will be strengthened by legalization, but the horrifically high per capita rates of divorce, adultery, domestic violence, and suicide are unchanged – not to mention addictions, cancers, and sexually transmitted diseases. They brought a class action lawsuit in 2009 after Canada legalized gay marriage and none of the benefits they promised themselves materialized – they demanded the government provide specially enhanced health benefits to compensate for what any sane analyst could have told them would not happen. But the added tragedy of hope crushing is deep and consequential despondency in the community.
The best hope for gays and straights alike is repentance in both communities. That repentance for gays looks like acknowledging their problems are not the result of other people’s attitudes, but of deepening bondage to their condition, which itself bears all the earmarks of an addiction. Gays do not choose their condition, but they can be set free from it, as thousands of former homosexuals attest.
Repentance for straights looks like permitting God to break our hearts over the suffering gays endure daily seeking legitimate love that fails so long as they seek it from their own gender. They suffer from diseases of mind and body resulting from endemic promiscuity – and physical torture inflicted on one another – not because they enjoy it but because they are addicted to really painful ways of sexual activity. They suffer from hopelessness which can only deepen until they acknowledge that weakness in which God can at last perfect His strength. I tell people if they cannot speak to homosexuals from the standpoint of a broken heart they are better to say nothing at all. And if they cannot hold a gay person in their arms while he dies – as I have done – their hearts are not broken as Christ’s heart is broken. He gave His life that none should perish.
The Word of God (Romans 1) states all incur sexual dysfunction – one way or another – as consequence of our refusal to worship and serve God to the exclusion of all others. Our Abba – Father – adds (1 Corinthians 6) that no sin addict can inherit the Kingdom of God and we who might condemn had best recall we were once the very thing we condemn. But the answer for all of us is simple. Mark 1:1-4 says the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ is that all we need to do is turn – repent and re-focus on Him – to be made whole.
That is the best news for any of us, gay or straight. God is coming and He comes in love for all. Let us not miss His arrival because we were going along with it when men called what is evil good. Homosexuals are wounded people of God. Same sex marriage is of an enemy who hates all whom God has created.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships, The Holy Spirit and the End Times and Kingdom in Pursuit – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at praynorthstate@charter.net
