http://www.sptimes.com/2004/11/14/Columns/The_Pharisees_line_up.shtml
The Pharisees line up to cast their stones at gay partners
By HOWARD TROXLER, Times Columnist
Published November 14, 2004
This past Tuesday in Jacksonville, the Florida Baptist Convention
voted to support a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex
marriage.
The Baptists want the Florida Constitution to state that marriage is
"the union between a man and a woman and is the God-ordained building
block of the family and the bedrock of society."
"The church is the voice of morality," declared the sponsor of this
resolution, the Rev. Jay Dennis of Lakeland.
The voice of morality!
I have no quarrel with the Baptists being the voice of morality, even
though I was raised a Methodist. (Actually, a Wesleyan - so see, I
already know how this whole thing is gonna turn out anyway.)
My only question is:
Why just this morality?
Why just this sin?
Why is this now the moral crisis that deserves to be singled out in
our Constitution, the civil law of Caesar, so we can create a lesser
class of citizens who don't have the same rights of civil contract?
Could it be because this is an alleged "sin" that only Those Kind of
People commit, instead of equally serious sins that Decent People
(even Baptists) commit every day?
If we are going to start ranking the "sins," marriage between two gay
people who love each other and seek a lifelong commitment doesn't even
make the Bible's best-known top-10 list.
Sure, homosexuality is called an "abomination." The Bible says so, not
too far from where the Bible also says it's okay to stone your
headstrong son to death, and that you'd better stay away from
menstruating women.
And yes, the topic of homosexuality really freaked out St. Paul, no
question. But so did a lot of stuff.
On the other hand, you know what IS right smack in the Ten
Commandments?
Adultery.
Adultery! Now, that's a threat to the institution of marriage. You
bet.
Half of heterosexual marriages in our society end in divorce. We
heterosexuals are doing a lousy job of "defending" marriage. Adultery
is a big part of the reason.
So if we're going to rewrite our Constitution to "protect" marriage
from sin because it is the "God-ordained bedrock of society," then I
would think that adultery would be a much better target.
The Florida Constitution should be amended to say that there can be no
marriage licenses for anyone who has ever had sex outside marriage.
But wait, don't stop there.
Adultery is not the only marriage-threatening sin.
There's coveting.
That's in the Ten Commandments, too. Coveting your neighbor's wife can
get you in big trouble.
Bearing false witness is one of the Big 10, too, if I recall. Lying is
a pretty big threat to marriage.
No legal rights for liars! God created Adam and Eve, not
Adam-You-Can't-Believe.
So, you see, there are the sins that the majority of us Decent People
commit, such as lying, coveting, failing to keep the Sabbath,
worshiping the wrong things...
And then there is the Really Bad Stuff that God hates even more and
wants us to punish and fight by rewriting our Constitution.
I don't believe it.
I am just a poor layman, but I do not recall anywhere in the book
seeing instructions to rank what we consider to be sins, and to judge
only the ones we find in other people.
In fact, irresistibly, Matthew 7:5 keeps coming back to me:
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then
shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Of course, Jesus said a lot of other stuff, too. Rich people almost
certainly won't go to heaven. They should give away their money. We
should turn the other cheek to those who seek to hurt us. We should
clothe the naked and feed the poor and house the homeless.
We also should pray in private, without beating our breasts loudly and
rending our garments in the streets like hypocrites.
Jesus' words, not mine.
Maybe he meant we were supposed to just pick and choose the parts we
liked.
[Last modified November 14, 2004, 12:04:30]
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
.
|
