The Editor’s Desk

I have a few fundamental questions to ask in this debate about gay "marriage". First and foremost, my question involves what is the purpose of marriage? Our society has conferred marriage a special place in our society as part of a code that is designed to support family. In that context, the promotion of family, lives as the center of our marriage and family law codes. While procreation is not a requirement of marriage, the intent is to provide support for children through the concept of a stable family unit. We have long held that a loving father and a nurturing mother provides the best support for the raising and rearing of children. So, my first question is, if this is not a primary purpsoe for marriage, then what is the purpose of marriage?

Secondly and more troubling, if we are as a society to choose to re-define marriage as any two loving people who are willing to commit to one another in accordance with laws and traditions, then my question is why this definition and not some other definition? Why not for example a brother and a sister? A mother and a son? A Father and a daughter? One woman and 5 men? Three men and two women? This is where the argument about the issue being biological vs choce begins to break down for me. What makes the rights to two men or two women more important than say the rights of a Father and a Daughter when it comes to marriage?

Look, I want to be very, very clear here. I have no issue with what two (or several) people choose to do in the privacy of their own home. I will go even further to say, if they wish to display affection in public, it is not my concern. I simply am troubled by conferring this government sanctioned declaration of marriage in a manner that dilutes the meaning and unique value of marriage. Again, if marriage is not only between a single man and a single woman, what is a defensible definition of marriage that deserves the support and recognition of society.

Mr. Meacham: Your case fails. You state as fact that a person's sexual identity is innate. This is simply untrue.

I refer you to the website of the National Association for Research and Treatment of Homosexuality. Narth.com.

James W. Lung
Greensboro, NC

Dear Mr. Meacham, I was raised in a very strict Catholic home. Closeted, and very afraid to reveal myself to my own family for 35 years, for fear of very real rejection, I managed somehow, to pretend to be something I wasn't for the sake of everyone and everything else. After having been a devout, faithful servant to my church for that many years, I decided to come out to my family at which point I was not only rejected my them, but no longer welcome in the Catholic church. I am happy to report today, that I became married in California 3 weeks before Prop. 8, to the man I have loved for 8 monogamous, wonderful years. And I continue to worship in churches who don't promote exclusion and hatred, but embrace us with open arms and celebrate our mutual joy. I hope those readers who disagree, will consider this: It is not gay people who abandon family and faith. It is family and faith who abandon us. Respectfully, Gary Garski Phoenix, AZ

Jon, How could you get it so wrong? John Strang's "simple" is truth; your complex is folly. -- Richard Campbell

As a gay Christian, I can with all authority say that not only did Christ save me from my sins, he has validated my sexual desires as well. As long as some Christians cherry-pick what sexual mores they want and what they don't---they will remain confused about the central message of Christ coming to save lost people. If following scripture were enough--especially the holiness codes--the Pharisees would have been first in line to Heaven without Jesus. Jesus is the necessary ingredient in the human life, not a set of OT codes; not confusing Jewish sexual practices of the ancient world, but Love in the modern world. The longer "Christians" try to stand between gays and God, the sooner they will be circumvented completely. The Baptist church will fall, and another inclusive church will emerge that will again allow Jesus to save that which was lost. Christians who continually say that God is against gay activity has not done much research on the topic--it is necessary to speak too with Gay Christians. Like the disciples of old, we are thought to be drunk in an early hour on Pentecost, but we have the gospel message and we must share it too. God still speaks. Thanks Lisa Miller and Newsweek--a fine job.

What a flippant and misleading treatment of the Old Testament in Lisa Miller's Religious Case for Homosexual Marriage. She describes the "handful" of Scriptural references against homosexuality, especially those in Leviticus, as "peculiar texts," as irrelevant today as it regulations on haircuts and blood sacrifices. She completes her analysis with the suggestion that since we no longer follow these rules regarding shaved heads, why bother with the passages on same-sex intercourse?
What Ms. Miller fails to explain, is that Leviticus Chapter 18 forms the core of long-standing and widely held conventions on conjugal unions. The verses leading up to the "throwaway reference" to homosexuality as an abomination, succinctly forbid sexual union between close relatives: between a man and his mother, or his mother-in-law, aunt sister, sister-in-law, half-sister, daughter, daughter-in-law, or granddaughter. The verse directly after reviles bestiality of any kind.
So we should ask Ms. Miller - why indeed follow any of the arcane teachings in Leviticus? Perhaps because they provide the norms and standards for conjugal relations for nearly every nation and culture in the civilized world! Without them we would have chaos. Far from being obscure, irrelevant, or odd, these guidelines ring as true today as the day they were written, untold centuries ago.

Brad Broemmel
Bristow, VA

I think David Cloud (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, mission of Way of Life Literature) responded best to Jon Meachem's assertion that recognizing the preserved word of God (e.g. the Authorized King James Bible) as being inerrent, infallible, and true as a "worst kind of fundamentalism" in his "Friday Church Notes" dated 12/19/08: "In fact, after a millennia of critical attacks on the Bible, the critics have proven nothing except their own bias and spiritual blindness. The Bible says that man is a fallen sinner, and that is something that can be observed within one's own heart and in the world at large. It also says that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who
died to make atonement for man's sin. That is the central message of the Bible, and the individual who rejects that message has no ability to judge the rest of the Bible properly. 'In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them' (2 Corinthians 4:4)."

It still shocks me that state governments recognize weddings officiated by religious people. Only civil weddings should be recognized by states, which after all administer the laws related to marriage. Those who wish to have a religious wedding could do so as a separate act. Religious organizations would still be free to discriminate according to their beliefs and refuse religious weddings to couples of the same sex. This kind of system already exists in several secular countries.
Civil weddings should comply with the US constitution, which is the legal foundation of the USA and protects the rights of all US citizens. Thus there would be no discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Never in modern history have we beheld such irresponsible reporting and dissemination of swill and tripe as this lead essay and follow-up drivel of an editorial. Congratulations to Newsweek and its plebeian editor for acceding to the ranks of the supermarket tabloid.

By the way, your authority on "religion" Lisa Miller, may be just that; your authority on religion. Religion is sole and separate from spirituality, which is an actual, alive, ongoing, daily relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. By the way, I agree with my pastor who more than once said, "Religion is boring, it puts people in bondage". I don't claim to be religious because it's all about enslavement, which is where Lisa is getting her information. There are how many different religions in the world? You would have that information more at your fingertips than I would.

If you really want to take the pulse of the Christian community, if you are at all interested, hire someone that is a spiritual Christian, not someone that is drowning in "religion". Your missing the boat on what God is all about and what he is trying to teach us, all of us.

There is a well-thought rebuttal posted here by the Washington Post, Newsweek's parent company. (Had to split the link in half to fit it in the column):
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/
2008/12/no_case_for_homosexuality_in_b.html

If you think this is brilliantly written, then frankly you must love one-sided, ill-researched, grossly unfairly biased, slanted yellow journalism. This is a complete liberal whitewash of Biblical truth-a complete sellout of journalistic integrity to the gay agenda and the idea that if you liberally ''persuade??? enough people to be immoral then it's ok to be immoral. Truth does not condone your ends justify the means ideology to legitimize homosexuality over time. No biblical scholar of any serious academic integrity would ever say that the God of the bible condones homosexuality and gay marriage, only an Alinsky-esque liberal mouthpiece would say that. If you believe this Newsweek article and Lisa Miller's article as truth, then my friend you are in darkness and being Biblically ignorant either on purpose or to separate yourself from the authority of God. Good luck with that...There is a better way, the victorious Way, the Way of Jesus Christ--the true model for biblical inclusion, not your liberal left "politically correct" bogus inclusion and redefined "tolerance" (tolerance of your own ideology only,attack the bible-believing Christians with no tolerance like the intolerant No on prop8 rebels do). All are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28), that is true inclusion, all are not one via liberal ideology--that is a lie and a myth (see 2 Tim 4:3-4). 'Homosexuality is not a sin' is another myth; it violates God's design and violates natural law. Christians hate the sin, not the sinner. Go to Joe Dallas' organization exodus international and they will teach biblically and with humility and respect and TRUE INCLUSION how to respond to homosexuality. If Christians treat gays disrespectfully, trust me that is not God's plan in the New Testament nor my intention. When people are living a lie I don't pretend they are not-that disrespects them and I am not being true to them. Jesus desires all to come to Him and for not even one to perish. If you cling unrepentantly to a homosexual lifestyle, you will eventually perish. That is not negotiable nor can you explain it away with any integrity before God. That is not my judgment but God's in his Word (I Cor 6:9-12). But it is also biblically promised by the apostle Paul, speaking with Jesus' authority, that if you are in sin god will find a way for you out of that sin! You must have the courage to take it. Grace is not a license to sin (Romans 6:1-2) and homosexuality is an unnatural lust(Romans 1:26-27). THERE IS A WAY OUT! Choose God, Choose Jesus, be baptized into Christ for the complete remission of your sins and to get the Holy Spirit(Acts 3:28) and get some strong biblical Christian fellowship--Jesus will not let you down for he CHOSE to save us, if we are willing, while we were still sinners. Until you reject Him for the last time, his hand will always be out for you, and I will pray for you my hopeful future brothers and sisters. In truth and respect -Jonathan Mirabile

Homosexuality is wrong for many reasons, but essentially because of Separation. Separation is a key element of Judeo-Christian doctrine and faith(Creation separation, Male-Female separation, Jews to be separate from the Gentiles mostly to foster the Messiah Jesus and by Divine command, Christians separate because they are called to endure godless unfair attacks and persecutions like this article for Christ's sake, and so on, until the final separation-Heaven and Hell). Separation does not condone evil, nor call evil good(like you are doing to homosexuality and your distortion of marriage, from creation onwards 1man 1woman was the godly standard-man acted poorly and wickedly)--it separates GOOD from EVIL, and light from darkness and evil does not justify evil. Show some journalistic and academic integrity Jon and Lisa. Your article is grossly slanted and unfair and just plain wrong on so many fronts it's had to list them all.

Jon Meacham undermines his ???Judeo-Christian religious case for supporting gay marriage??? by ending his argument with ???History and demographics are on the side of those who favor inclusion over exclusion???. The biases of contemporary populations have no more relevance in determining universal spiritual values than those of the religious conservatives whom Mr. Meacham decries. In the ???transcend and include??? process of assessing past Judeo-Christian scriptures for 21st century application, religious conservatives would include all historical doctrines with no consideration given to spiritual evolution, while Mr. Meacham it seems would jettison everything that does not fit within today???s definition of ???inclusionary???. Between these two extremes lies the thorough, deliberative course of action in which the timeless spiritual tenets that have undergirded the one man/one woman marriage principle are contemplated, and then determinations are made as to whether those timeless tenets are best upheld by adherence to or transcendence of heterosexual marriage exclusivity.

This is brilliantly written. I've never enjoyed a letter from the editor more. Thanks Jon.

this is briliantly written Jon.

Oh, man, are you gay or what? Sorry, but without the Bible, there is no Christianity. It *is* the word, or do you get your scripture from the back of a Frootloops box? Duh....

he church has only been involved in marriage for 500 years. Prior to that it was an arrangement designed to link land holdings and titled families. If "keeping marriage traditional" is really the point, then we should go back to at least those roots -- where women were possessions, where men dallied with whomever they pleased and left bastards to be raised in poverty by single mothers, and where no one owned land but the aristocrats.

Of course, a mere 500 years of human history is but a scratch in the surface of time. Prior to the church's involvement, marriages were performed by handfasting ceremony, a pagan tradition, long before Judeo-Christian churches were even imagined, and could last merely a year and a day. If bride and groom found the year-long test drive not to their liking, they could split and try it with someone else. Perhaps this is what is meant by "traditional?"

Reality check: marriage has been evolving in your lifetime. Married women couldn't take birth control until 1967 (Griswold v. Connecticut). Wives could be raped by husbands. Women couldn't own marital property; it was always in the husband's name. Shall we keep with that trend?

Until ignorance about our own human, religious, and marital history is defeated, all the fuss and fidgeting over god this/church is more pointless naddering. Human history, all 35,-000 years of it, has always favoured the outcome of inclusion (even the stories of Christ favoured inclusion). Using religion to keep The Other out has never worked in the long run. There's hope that it will once again fail in the near future.

If you MUST make marriage about baby-making, institute fertility tests and age restrictions so that no one over the age of 40 may be married. Also, if marriages do not produce offspring withing a stated time (is two years long enough?), the marriages should be put aside and let the fertile ones have a go at it. THAT would at least be consistent with the dogmatic rhetoric being used to buttress the "procreation" argument.

The church has only been involved in marriage for 500 years. Prior to that it was an arrangement designed to link land holdings and titled families. If "keeping marriage traditional" is really the point, then we should go back to at least those roots -- where women were possessions, where men dallied with whomever they pleased and left bastards to be raised in poverty by single mothers, and where no one owned land but the aristocrats.

Of course, a mere 500 years of human history is but a scratch in the surface of time. Prior to the church's involvement, marriages were performed by handfasting ceremony, a pagan tradition, long before Judeo-Christian churches were even imagined, and could last merely a year and a day. If bride and groom found the year-long test drive not to their liking, they could split and try it with someone else. Perhaps this is what is meant by "traditional?"

Reality check: marriage has been evolving in your lifetime. Married women couldn't take birth control until 1967 (Griswold v. Connecticut). Wives could be raped by husbands. Women couldn't own marital property; it was always in the husband's name. Shall we keep with that trend?

Until ignorance about our own human, religious, and marital history is defeated, all the fuss and fidgeting over god this/church is more pointless naddering. Human history, all 35,-000 years of it, has always favoured the outcome of inclusion (even the stories of Christ favoured inclusion). Using religion to keep The Other out has never worked in the long run. There's hope that it will once again fail in the near future.

If you MUST make marriage about baby-making, institute fertility tests and age restrictions so that no one over the age of 40 may be married. Also, if marriages do not produce offspring withing a stated time (is two years long enough?), the marriages should be put aside and let the fertile ones have a go at it. THAT would at least be consistent with the dogmatic rhetoric being used to buttress the "procreation" argument.