A Few More Thoughts on Gay Marriage
David Potter
Note: this article is submitted in connection with our recent Policy Statement on Marriage and Sexual Morality.
I wrote some of my thoughts about gay marriage in an earlier post. In light of recent developments I would like to add a few more thoughts.
The object of the gay rights movement is not legal status for gay couples. What they are looking for is a way to demonize and punish their opponents, even to the extent of using the apparatus of government to silence opposition. They have already done so. The IRS leaked the donors list of the National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay marriage group, to their opponents. Strong-arm tactics to intimidate the donors followed the publication of their identities. The investigation of this leak is ongoing, but don’t expect the miscreants to suffer too much.
Remember when Bob Jones University lost its tax exempt status for its stand on interracial marriage? You may disagree with that stand (even the current leadership of Bob Jones University disagrees), but think of what will happen when gay marriage achieves legal status nationally. No church or Christian school’s tax exempt status is safe. The IRS has already shown its ability and willingness to punish and harass those who are not well connected politically.
In the past I would have said that you are paranoid if you think that the government is spying on you. From recent revelations, it would seem that if you do not assume that the government is spying on you, you are not paranoid enough. Combine the spying and the animus toward biblical morality and you have a formula for persecution on an unprecedented scale. Tyrants and kings of the past have claimed sovereignty over every action of their subjects, but never before in history has a tyrant had the ability actually to regulate every action and monitor every thought expressed by his subjects.
Persecution is coming. The problem is not, nor ever has been, political. The problem is spiritual and so is the solution: the liberating, life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ.
UPDATE:
I wrote this article before the Supreme Court handed down its decision on the Defense of Marriage Act. The very idea that one man, Anthony Kennedy, could decide the definition of marriage for the whole nation is breathtaking. The arrogance of the American judiciary in thinking that they are qualified to overturn the law of God and erase the wisdom of millennia of human experience is astounding
David Potter serves as a missionary in Hungary with Baptist World Mission.