I understand where you see the contradiction. I guess my point in saying I didn't intend on creating a Christian theocracy, was to explain that my goal in the post was not to convert everyone or to demand that all our political leaders and decisions must be explicitly Christian. However, on this issue, regarding the question on the ballot, I will vote by my personal conviction in hopes of preserving the distinction of the institution which I believe was created by God, from the beginning of time, for His purposes.

You are mistaken Penny. Brenton is simply stating why he believes a certain way. Is someone trying to create a Christian Theocracy when they vote to make murder illegal because the Bible says it's wrong? Simply having morals that are rooted in a religious tradition and voting in line with those morals is not in any way an attempt to form a theocracy. Why should "state law" be based on another person's particular understanding of marriage? Is another view superior simply because it's not religious?

That's a very, very, non-comparable example. See, the thing is. Murder has a victim; marriage doesn't. When we advocate for laws against murder, the rationale is not "we should prevent people from making the mistake of killing someone", it is "we should prevent people from being killed". With marriage, there's no victims to "protect".

If you can't point to the victims, and show how they're harmed, and your arguments for something being bad are that your religion teaches that it's bad, then: Yes. Trying to legislate that is exactly what theocracy is about.

Gabe - I understand why Brenton believes the way he does, and Brenton, it surely goes without saying that you certainly have that right. However, when you vote on a constitutional amendment, it's not just about what you believe should be the outcome, it's about how you believe the decision should be made in a civil society. I don't think a status over which there are clearly differing opinions even within religious communities should be enshrined in the constitution because the majority is convinced of the rightness of a particular religious belief. A nonreligious rationale is not prima facie superior, but there needs to be a persuasive nonreligious rationale as well, or it darn well is a theocracy of the majority. If the majority believes fervently that women should cover their heads and be silent in public, is that enough for a constitutional amendment requiring it, in a nation with the First Amendment? If you believe that a purely religious rationale is sufficient in the case of marriage, how can you distinguish that from this example other than by bringing in the presence or absence of nonreligious rationales? Shouldn't one fervently held religious belief be just as valid as another, as long as it has enough votes?

BTW, I very much appreciated this excellent article by Rev. Emily C. Heath in yesterday's HuffPost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-emily-c-heath/how-to-determine-if-your-religious-liberty-is-being-threatened-in-10-questions_b_1845413.html.

Thanks Gabrielle. I really wanted to be respectful in sharing my opinion and I'm grateful you took it that way. I am guessing you meant "fitting with the time" in your comment.

There is a great tendency for human beings to edit the Bible in hopes of making it relevant to their wants and desires. I'm sure I do this, just like anyone else. The Bible itself teaches that human beings desire to be in the place of God and make decisions about right and wrong, instead of obeying God. Thomas Jefferson was said to have read through the Bible with a razor blade, cutting out the parts he didn't like! But the Bible is not a Word doc that people get to edit to make it fit the times.

I completely understand your examples, and why they would seem confusing, or why it seems justified to reinterpret the Bible based on our current cultural context. However, when you read the Bible you have to understand the cultural context behind the text, and then you have work to extract and apply the normative principles that are being taught (and confirmed, importantly, by the rest of the Bible). If you do this it is easy to see how the examples you listed (and many of the Old Testament laws) were given by God for a specific reason in that time and place, rather than being specific directives for all times. This is different from the concept of marriage is outlined in Genesis 2, repeated by Jesus in the Gospels, and explained even further by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians.

I agree completely. Nicely put. Heterosexuals can be and often are married in a civil ceremony. Such a wedding by definition is both expressly NOT a religious covenant (in fact, think of the many over time who have not had a church wedding because for one reason or another they are not ALLOWED to be married in their church) and IS absolutely accepted as a marriage by the civil authorities. Clearly, the word "marriage" already means more than one thing and the civil definition s not based on "the" religious definition -- even assuming there were one agreed-upon religious definition, which there is not. The many churches that have come out against this amendment clearly agree.

Exactly. That is a very nice example, Drea! You may believe that according to your faith, marriage must be heterosexual and monogamous. However, this country was founded on the principle of separation of church and state. Everyone should have equal freedom under the law. Religion is completely separate.

I love this... It's refreshing to see someone who is religious and believes in the Bible who isn't intent on shoving their own beliefs down another's throat. Bless you!

I can't agree more! Any politician that would vote for this will NEVER get my vote! And anyone that would vote for this needs his/her head examined!

Just because it is in the Bible - the various forms of marriage - doesn't mean it is God's approved or intended way. God used liars, murders, thieves, prostitutes, pagans and many more to advance His plan of redemption for mankind, but that doesn't stand as an endorsement of those actions. Solomon's marriages were a large contribution to his downfall in fact - clearly outside of and against God's intended way.

Chris, there are passages where God condemns liars, murders, thieves, prostitutes, etc. I don't know of a verse where God condoms polygamy even though it was common practice. Among the laws are some that would require people in certain situations to enter polygamous relationships (Deuteronomy 25:5)

So I don't understand how you can compare the Biblical view of polygamy with murder.

I completely agree. While it was the unbelievably, inconsistencies, and contradictions in the Bible that lead me to atheism, I know few religious leaders who are against gay marriage, even though I have met probably hundreds who use it as their rationale for being against it. I have studied the Bible, and know almost every verse that people usually point to about homosexuality, and I don't think any one of them (except maybe Leviticus, but come on, you eat shellfish, right?) is really about homosexuality.

Keith, maybe I'm wrong, but from the tone of your writing it seems like you've possibly been burned in the church world. If that's true I am sorry. If not true, my mistake. And for the record, I would never presume you to be outside Christian faith simply for being a Lutheran. I love many Lutherans! Martin Luther himself is a personal hero of the faith.

To your point, the difficulty in pointing to a specific example of Biblical marriage is that all the marriages you mentioned in Scripture fall short of the ideal of God. In a way this is deeply reassuring because it means my shortcomings and mistakes are not different than the men and women in the Bible. This does not however, mean that God does not have a standard and a goal.

Keith, as a retired pastor, I assume you are familiar with the multitude of examples in Scripture, both literal and metaphorical, of marriage being between a husband and wife. The first marriage, of Adam and Eve, was referenced as a marriage by Christ himself, and later referenced by Paul as being a foreshadowing of the relationship between Christ and the Church, which the Bible on more than once occasion calls the Bride and the Bridegroom. Maybe we disagree about how to apply this teaching?

I'm not trying to use the Bible for any political wedge. What I am doing is using my understanding of the Bible to drive my decision making.

Oh no, don't get Chad started on polygamy... :)

Brenton, I think the distinction here is...

When I use the Bible to guide my decision making, that means it tells me how I will live. So... Could you point me at the New Testament passage where we are told to make our moral beliefs into law so that others are required to follow them whether or not they are persuaded of them? Because if there's no such passage, it seems to me that the Bible guiding your decision making should affect how you personally live, and should not be used as a justification for imposing rules on other people.

"Oh no, don't get Chad started on polygamy"

You are right. But it is because one of these issues Christians just seem to gloss over when they talk about "Biblical Marriage." All the other things Chris listed have passages (some a lot) in the Bible that speak against them. I don't know of a verse that speaks against polygamy. It seems like God even promotes the practice through the law.

And if you say those marriages fall short of God's ideal. It seems pretty clear to me that both Paul (1 Cor. 7:8) and Jesus (Mat. 19:12) say the ideal for Christians is to remain single so they can better serve God.

None of the examples that you gave are held up as an ideal in Scripture, and none of them are homosexual in nature. Are you saying that simply because there are examples of sinful people perverting marriage in Scripture that means we can have no biblical standard? That just makes no sense. Simply follow the link to John Piper's sermon above and you will have exactly what Scripture teaches about marriage. You have this issue backwards. It is not the people who believe in traditional marriage trying to impose their view on society. It is the relatively small group of people who are seeking to impose their lifestyle on the rest of society. If I don't want to recognize what I consider immoral behavior, then I should not be forced to. It is the behavior that people have a moral objection to. If is truly about giving people equal rights then civil unions would be a meaningful solution to the problem because they would not have anything to do with a person's sexual behavior but it would still afford the necessary rights that any free individual should have. Yet this option is rejected. That is unreasonable.

David is most certainly held up as an ideal in general; we are told that God blessed him with his many wives, and that it was disgraceful of him to have someone killed to get another -- but that if he had wanted more without stealing them, that would have been fine. The Old Testament rules not only permitted polygamy; there were circumstances under which they absolutely mandated it!

John Piper can write whatever he wants; unless he can make dry bones dance, he is not in a position of authority that I recognize. If you want to convince me of something about the Bible and marriage, I'd suggest starting with what Jesus said on the topic. :)

Seebs, I find it strange that you would interpret my direction to John Piper’s sermon as some sort of claim that he has divine authority. I’m simply pointing people to a resource that can explain more clearly and completely than I am able to in this limited space what the Bible, including Christ’s words, teaches about marriage. Gen. 2:23-24; Matt 19:4-6; Ephesians 5:24-32 are a few important passages.

As for David, he is certainly held up as a great man of God, but also a deeply flawed one. I realize that there is no out and out denunciation of polygamy. However, in my interpretation, there is every reason to believe that polygamy is a practice that perverts God’s plan for humankind. Deut 17:14-17 says that the king shall not have many wives. I Kings 11 tells how it was Solomon’s many wives who turned his heart away from the LORD. Polygamy was never spoken of positively and every positive reference to marriage in Scripture is in relation to a one man, one woman union.

Your reference to Scripture mandating polygamy must be a reference to Deut 25:5-6 which I don’t see as an endorsement of polygamy but rather a way to protect a woman who lost her husband and in that society may have no other choice than to become a servant or befall some worse fate.

Gabe, my point was that the claim that marriage has always been one man and one women in the Bible is incorrect. And yes David is punished for taking another man's wife and then murdering him to marry her. The punishment is God killing his child.

Now if you want to talk about ideals it seems that Paul (1 Corinthians 7:8) and Jesus (Matthew 19:12) say the ideal for Christians would be to not marry so they can more fully devote their time to God.

Again, if we believe that the Hebrew laws were provided by God, they *require* polygamy. Not permit. REQUIRE. If you are married, and your brother is married, and he dies, you must marry his widow. PERIOD. No excuses.

As to Piper's authority... If he has no divine authority, then he's a fallible human, and his views on what the Bible teaches about marriage are no more significant than mine. There is no reason for which I should accept his views as superior to my own. I personally think he's missed the point completely.

We come from very, very, different traditions. And here is where I think this becomes a really important issue:

What about MY religious freedoms? I believe, quite strongly, that the "mainstream" view of Christian teaching on homosexuality is the perversion of what Jesus taught us. When I was living in the Cities, I went to a church that had been recognizing same-sex marriages for something over twenty years.

So what about my religious freedoms? What makes it right for the government to absolutely endorse your version of Christianity as authoritative as to the nature of marriage, and prohibit mine from being recognized?

The only solution to this that is consistent with the Constitution is for the government to stay out of the question and let people decide for themselves whom they do or don't think can be married. Changing the constitution to violate that is an insult to our government.

Thank you for pointing that all out. It is ridiculous. And please vote No. We'll need it because unfortunately it seems like a lot of people think the Bible is law.

I think there is more to it than that. This is the old Jim Crow laws, come back to target a new group. Any time people start realizing that society is changing and starting to include people who used to be excluded, they react by trying to prevent this from happening. It's not just a waste of resources; it's a considered and premeditated attempt to further postpone the extension of civil rights to a group of people.

I have mostly lost hope in the idea that our legislature could do much about a lot of our problems. I have found that if I want people to be fed, the fastest way to achieve this is to just feed them myself, rather than hoping the government will suddenly realize that starving is bad.

Civil unions cannot provide the core social value of marriage, which is the creation of family bonds. That happens when people recognize someone as your spouse, not just your partner. And that has to happen for us to get the social benefits that marriage brings not just to the direct participants, but to all of our society.

Chad, I think you're hitting on what makes the water so murky here. It is very difficult when religious and social constructs collide. I think you are right in identifying the core issue which is, in a sense, "protecting" the Christian sacredness of the term marriage.

Part of the fear people have, I think, in using the word marriage to define any kind of committed relationship, is that it feels as though another aspect of traditional Christian faith is being wiped away. This makes people uneasy, because it appears to be just another small step away from Christian values, and another step towards pluralistic, humanistic, atheistic values.

Brenton, if Christianity had been the only thing ever to define marriage, I would be much more sympathetic to this, but the fact is, we are latecomers. The Christian Church did fine for about a thousand years treating marriage as a thing the temporal powers took care of, and we have never disputed that members of other religions, or no religions, are also quite clearly capable of getting married.

Furthermore, be aware that there are Christians -- millions of them -- who have prayed and studied and found themselves led to conclude that gay marriage is an affirmation of their core moral values and teachings. The church I went to in the Twin Cities has been recognizing gay marriages for roughly *25 years*. And they have found that it enriches the community and brings the congregation closer together, because marriage does that.

And even if it were otherwise: I absolutely assert that the government can, should, and *must* be "pluralistic and humanistic". I believe that it is wrong for people to swear oaths, because Jesus told us not to. But watch closely as I do *not* attempt to introduce a constitutional amendment banning them. See, that's the whole point; we are called to live by our beliefs, not to demand that the government require other people to.

"Part of the fear people have, I think, in using the word marriage to define any kind of committed relationship, is that it feels as though another aspect of traditional Christian faith is being wiped away."

But the government cannot wipe away Christian faith or tradition. If that were the case then there would be no early church. They did not depend on the government to reflect their faith.

The only way the state can wipe away Christian tradition is if it is a theocracy. Which you state at the beginning is not your goal.

And it is not like churches have been arguing to protect the term marriage from secular sources. Like I mention above a lot of marriages that happen today would not be approved by particular churches. But they haven't fought against these.

Marriage is a secular term. It may also be a religious one to some but that doesn't mean they own the term.

I love your paragraph about the terrible, diminishing effect of reducing all of marriage to one factor. It's reminiscent of Rob Hardy's lovely poem that he read at the Vote No kick-off.

Seebs, I'm confused about how you go from being a straight couple to a potentially gay couple. I tried to read between the lines in your Star Tribune article, but I'm still not sure. I guess, my response to your question in paragraph two would likely be related to a better understanding of your situation and the choices that lead you there. And I think the very personal nature of your specific situation is not suited best for blog comments.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this post. You obviously have a very unique perceptive on these things, and I've been mentally challenged and sharpened by your comments.

Okay, starting with background: If you dissect human brains, and do things like use dyes to make nerve connections more visible under a microscope, there are noticeable differences between male brains and female brains; our sexual dimorphism is not limited to the large scale external anatomy. My spouse's sense-of-self reports him as "male", and what we know from brain studies is that that means there is a >99% chance that his brain would, if studied in a laboratory, show the characteristic structures and traits of a male brain, until you got down to the chromosome level and noticed the XX chromosomes.

What this does or doesn't mean is unclear, but the basic conclusion of most modern medicine is that there are two choices:
1. When people tell us what gender they are, we accept them at their word.
2. We drive them to a >50% suicide rate.

Those are the only options currently available to us. The sense of self is not negotiable.

So for me to keep my promises, I have to consider myself married to a man. Which, me being male, would make it a gay marriage.

And here's the thing: It changes *nothing*. It really is the same thing. Marriage remains what it has always been; there is no difference here.

I must be pedantic. That's not a letter, that's an opinion column. Letters are shorter and get bundled together, opinions columns are full-length articles.

That was my position for a long time, so I'm certainly sympathetic to it. However, on longer consideration, and reading some of David Blankenhorn's writings, I've concluded that this is not a good policy.

Marriage predates every known religion. It is found among non-religious people, but they appear to have very similar views about its significance and meaning. And that is the thing -- "marriage" is a social act, a relationship not just between two people but between them and the society they live in.

The Christian churches didn't perform "marriage ceremonies" until hundreds of years after they came into being; prior to that, they viewed marriage as essentially a matter for the government, as much of its significance was property, and most Christians didn't have much (see also "sell all you have and give it to the poor").

A "domestic partnership" between Romeo Hatfield and Juliet McCoy would not end a feud. A marriage could. The government has a legitimate interest in encouraging and supporting the formation of family bonds which are recognized and respected by other people.

In short, not everyone has religious beliefs, but that doesn't mean they don't have a strong feeling about marriage's definition and purpose, or a desire to get married.

Ben you bring up some good points. I would look at it differently though. I think that people who believe in traditional marriage usually state why they believe what they believe in terms of what the Bible teaches about marriage. That is fair because they are entitled to their own beliefs.

What I think is unfair is when one group's beliefs are forced on others. Which is exactly what the pro gay marriage movement does when it tries to force their definition of marriage on those who have a moral objection to it. It's the homosexual behavior that people object to. People are free to live the way they want, but when they try to force the rest of society to recognize their behavior, they overstep what is reasonable. It if is simply a question of allowing a human being to have the same rights as another human being then there are ways to do that, but it's not about that. It's about recognizing a specific behavior.

I don't think that it is wrong to constitutionally define marriage as it has always been defined. However some non religious people might object to recognizing my marriage since for me it is very much based on my biblical view of Christ and the church. Frankly I would just as soon see all unions recognized by the State be civil unions and leave marriage to the religious institutions. Either way I'm voting Yes.

There are tons of people whose marriages other people regard as invalid. Divorced and remarried? The Catholic Church says you are not validly married. But do they demand that remarriage be made illegal? No. Do their companies deny health benefits to legal "spouses" who happen to be remarried after a divorce? No.

And the thing is... It really is about having the same rights. Marriage, in and of itself, is a fundamental civil right. And what you are doing here is denying other people that right. You are demanding that the law enforce your beliefs. They are asking for permission to act according to theirs, not asking anyone else to agree.

People who have been together for thirty years are denied deathbed visitation rights, because they cannot get legally married. And you want this. You may say that you don't, but actions speak louder than words; you will vote to mandate that this state of affairs persist for as long as possible. That's all this law is about: keeping those people from enjoying the same basic rights and privileges you take for granted.

If you don't want that, put your money where your mouth is. Show me how you are campaigning to ensure that all couples get the same legal treatment. And if you aren't doing that? Then don't pretend you don't want those people to suffer. You can't act to bring something about, never act to prevent it, and claim you don't "want" it. That's what "wanting" is.

Amen! =)

Your faith pushes you to demand that other people be denied basic legal rights?

Keep in mind, there is nothing, nothing at all, on the table here but legal rights. We are not talking about who can or can't stand at altars, we aren't talking about who gets to show up for Thanksgiving dinner. The only question on the table is whether same-sex couples are entitled to legal rights like hospital visitation rights or notification if one partner is killed in action.

What religion is this, that teaches that it is necessary that people die alone for having the wrong kind of sex?

Pretty impressive red herring. People have been getting legally married for health or legal benefits for as long as we've had health or legal benefits. It's nothing new, and in practice, it's a very small number of cases; it's not common enough to justify effort spent worrying about it. In short, if you don't want to pay more money, the answer is "don't police this". If you want to spend $10 to prevent $1 of alleged fraud, well, that's up to you to make the case for new legislation.

Fact is, there is no real legal requirement that people being married be in love, or have romantic feelings, and there's no obvious reason there should be. Marriage was not historically about romance; it was about property ownership and family ties.