Top Catholics and evangelicals: Gay marriage worse than divorce or
cohabitation
David Gibson ("The Salt Lake Tribune," January 28, 2015)
NEW YORK (RNS) A high-profile alliance of conservative Catholics and
evangelical Protestants is set to issue a sweeping manifesto against gay
marriage that calls same-sex unions “a graver threat” than divorce or
cohabitation, one that will lead to a moral dystopia in America and the
persecution of
traditional believers.
“If the truth about marriage can be displaced by social and political
pressure operating through the law, other truths can be set aside as well,” say
the nearly 50 signers of the statement, which is to be published in the
March edition of the conservative journal First Things.
“And that displacement can lead, in due course, to the coercion and
persecution of those who refuse to acknowledge the state’s redefinition of
marriage, which is beyond the state’s competence,” they say.
The declaration adds that some people “are already being censured and
others have lost their jobs because of their public commitment to marriage as
the union of a man and a woman.”
Social conservatives have rallied around a number of cases that they say
herald a gloomy future, including the recent dismissal of the fire chief in
Atlanta, who had given employees a copy of his book in which he detailed his
beliefs, based on his Christian faith, that homosexuality was “vile.”
Other cases include a New Mexico photographer who lost her fight to opt out
of taking pictures of a same-sex wedding; bakers and florists who wanted
to turn away gay customers; and an Idaho wedding chapel whose Christian
owners wanted to conduct only heterosexual weddings.
This latest statement, “The Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage,
” comes from the group Evangelicals and Catholics Together, a coalition
formed in 1994 under the aegis of former Nixon aide Charles Colson, an
evangelical, and the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest.
One of their goals was to encourage the two Christian communities to
overcome their historical suspicions and doctrinal differences in order to
battle
what they saw as a growing moral laxity in the U.S.
Neuhaus died in 2009, and Colson in 2012, but the movement has continued
and in some ways has become more focused as Christian conservatives have
grown increasingly united in their alarm over the sudden and spreading
acceptance of gay rights, especially same-sex marriage.
Discussions on a document on same-sex marriage began in June 2013 — the
same month the U.S. Supreme Court required the federal government to recognize
same-sex marriages — according to Russell Reno, editor of First Things and
a member of ECT; Reno provided a copy of the declaration to RNS.
But Reno said the members first had to agree to set aside their differences
on the legitimacy of divorce and contraception, for example, and even
whether marriage is a sacrament.
That enabled them to focus on the advance of gay marriage, which they say
not only betrays religious tradition but, more than any other development,
undermines society because “marriage is the primordial human institution, a
reality that existed long before the establishment of what we now know as
the state.”
“(W)hat the state defines as marriage no longer embodies God’s purposes in
creation,” says the 5,000-word statement, which was first reported by
Baptist Press. “An easy acceptance of divorce damages marriage; widespread
cohabitation devalues marriage. But so-called same-sex marriage is a graver
threat, because what is now given the name of marriage in law is a parody of
marriage.”
Signers of the statement include popular megachurch pastor Rick Warren and
longtime gay marriage foe Maggie Gallagher, as well as prominent
conservative Catholic intellectuals George Weigel and Robert George.
Timothy George, a Southern Baptist and dean of Samford University’s Beeson
Divinity School; Mark Galli, editor of the evangelical magazine
Christianity Today; and J.I. Packer of Regent University also endorsed the
statement.
The signers say they “do not dispute the evident fact of hormonal and
chromosomal irregularities, nor of different sexual attractions and desires.”
But they say that in legitimating same-sex marriage, “a kind of alchemy is
performed, not merely on the institution, but on human nature itself.”
“We are today urged to embrace an abstract conception of human nature that
ignores the reality of our bodies. Human beings are no longer to be
understood as either male or female,” it says. The result, it says, will
undermine
society by eliminating any moral compass except that which the state
declares to be the norm, to the exclusion of all others.
What effect the document might have is unclear. It reads like a declaration
of war, but in a battle that even many conservatives see as a lost cause,
or one they see no reason to fight. Increasing numbers of Christians, like
the rest of society, are more tolerant and accepting of gays and lesbians,
according to several surveys.
The document declares, however, that a “faithful Christian witness cannot
accommodate itself to same-sex marriage,” and it suggests that believers who
accept gay marriage are no longer fully Christian.
The signers themselves do not offer a detailed plan of action to counter
gay marriage, which is now legal in 36 states and the District of Columbia,
and pending in several others. Reno said the statement was not intended as a
road map for political or judicial action, but more as a rallying cry to
Christians and “to disabuse folks of the notion that we can just keep on
keeping on as we have been.”
The signers raise the possibility — which has been debated among religious
conservatives in recent months — that clergy could refuse to sign state
marriage licenses as an act of civil disobedience.
But they conclude simply that “whatever courses of action are deemed
necessary, the coming years will require careful discernment.” They say that
the
best strategy is for Christians themselves and others “of good will” to
live lives that are faithful examples of traditional marriage. “On this basis
alone can we succeed,” they say
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