Contrary to advance reports which claimed the U.S. Presbyterians would vote to redefine their understanding of marriage, the Presbyterian General Assembly meeting in Pittsburgh this weekend voted to uphold their traditional understanding of marriage:
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) narrowly rejected a proposal to revise the traditional definition of marriage on Friday, a year after it struck down a barrier to ordaining gays.
The Presbyterian General Assembly, meeting in Pittsburgh, voted 338-308 against changing how marriage was defined in the church constitution from a "civil contract between a woman and a man" to a "covenant between two people." The assembly also rejected measures that would have affirmed a traditional definition of marriage or sought more theological study of the issue.
Other mainline Protestant churches have approved gay ordination or have permitted individual congregations to celebrate same-sex unions in recent years. The U.S. Episcopal Church, which is holding its national convention through next week in Indianapolis, will consider official prayers for blessing same-sex unions. However, only one major Protestant denomination, the United Church of Christ, has endorsed same-sex marriage outright. -- NY Daily News
U.S. Methodists voted to retain their traditional definition of marriage by an even wider margin recently.
43 Comments
Congratulation racists! Keep trying to dictate who is allowed to marry who! Worked out so well in the past
You're not going to find very many gay people who will have a problem with that. It isn't the various churches' policies that are at issue, it is civil marriage (the non-Jesus kind) that the law deals with. If a gay couple wants a church wedding, there are already denominations that will do it for them.
The only business the government has in marriage is providing incentives for mothers and fathers to stay married so they are better able to care for their children. This, is turn, leads to stronger children who will grow up to be much more productive and healthy members of society.
Redefining marriage severs that link between parents and their children, thus rendering marriage as a social building block meaningless and leading to many related problems for those children.
It does no such thing. How does my (existing, hello!) marriage impact anyone's or their link to their children? Preposterous.
You may believe that government has no other business in marriage, but the fact is there are over 1,000 rights and benefits to marriage. Are you proposing that those be abolished?
James, were your rights to a mother and father ripped away from you as a child? I think not.
People who have gay relatives and friends in loving relationships who support s-s civil marriage should boycott this site. The vitriolic hate from NOMers now runs so deep that there is absolutely no chance of a dialogue.
Gay people are attacked as sodomites, perverts, disease ridden, haters, destroyers of families. If we boycott and stop posting any opposition then they will get tired of hearing their own rants and self congratulatory postings and start sharing lovely verses from scripture.
Without s-s supporters this website will be as exciting as a church bulletin. Besides we only serve NOM's purpose in firing up their zealots to get them to donate more.
Actually, since my parents divorced when I was 2, yeah, I guess so. Are you guys against divorce too?
My (again, existing) marriage has nothing whatsoever to do with children, so your argument makes little sense anyway.
We the people do not have a vested interest in promoting sexual depravity.
If NOM intends to use "Oh! Won't somebody please think of the CHILDREN?!?" as their main argument against same-sex marriage, I've got to wonder what they're doing about divorce. Or adoption. Or out-of-wedlock births. Or all kinds of (legal) situations where a kid does not live in a mommy-daddy-kid nuclear family. Not to mention the issue of marriages (straight and gay) that have no children.
This type of argument is fine on an internet forum, or in your curch, but it falls apart in court.
Happy for them. A win for society and religion.
It does no such thing. How does my (existing, hello!) marriage impact anyone's or their link to their children? Preposterous.
Yes it does. It does not matter if your phony marriage does not impact others children. The state is involved not because your counterfeit marriage harms others but because male/female marriage benefits all including me John N. a supporter of NOM WHO IS SINGLE!!!!!
The state justification for marriage and the reason why there are over a 1000 benefits is because these are incentives to procreate. Male/male unions provide absolutely no benefits to the rest of us and have no value except to the homosexuals involved. A better question is how does your false marriage benefit us including me single John N. I see the benefits to all of us with male/female couples as their offspring pay the future entitlement taxes the rest of us depend on.
You may believe that government has no other business in marriage
Nope that is the only business government has in marriage. The state interest in promoting our future offspring and responsible procreation and these offspring being raised by their mothers and fathers.
but the fact is there are over 1,000 rights and benefits to marriage. Are you proposing that those be abolished?
No need to abolish them now as they serve their usefull purpose of procreation. This is why so called SSM should never be recognized. People who willfully do not procreate do not deserve the 1000 benefits intended for procreation. After all, I single John N. does not have these procreation benefits so why should homsexuals.
Well, it's their constitutional right as a church to come to this conclusion, even in places where same-sex marriage is legal.
More power to them if that's what they want as churches reserve the right to recognize which unions they want to.
Just don't go forcing this decision on others through laws, please.
No congratulations. A win with 52.3% is no victory, for a religious organization. It says nothing about their personal beliefs.
If Ron Paul were there, he'd have voted with the 338.
As I said, your argument fails in court. As long as unmarried people have kids, and as long as some married people choose not to or cannot have kids, your entire argument falls apart. You are not trying to prevent infertile people from having legally recognized marriages. Nor older people. Nor those who just don't want to have kids.
This boils down to the NOM side simply not liking gay people, or wanting them to participate equally in society. This is evidenced in countless comments and in countless blog posts here. It would be nice if the pretense of protecting a dictionary definition of a word were just dropped, and you guys just came out and admitted it.
And if you're going to call my legal marriage "phony" anyway, then what in the world is the big deal? You could continue doing that if it were legal nation-wide.
Just a matter of time. They will soon follow the Episcopalians. I expect you will highlight that positive news soon. The under 30 crowd supported the change in huge numbers Check out the numbers. .
James, traditional man woman marriage is time tested to be best for raising children. Exceptions do not change this ideal family structure, they are not the norm. The recent esteemed peer reviewed family structures study (Regenerus) confirms the serious harmful outcomes when innocent children are forced to witness homosexual relationships.
Speaking personally, I'm also against divorce because of the damage it does to children.
BTW: Regardless of which "side" a denomination comes down on, church doctrine should not be made based on majority rule, it should be based on the Bible and/or Church Tradition.
The sad part of this is that the vote was way too close. What is wrong with these no voters in ignoring the will of our Creator.
Remember Jesus words about friendship with the world. You cannot be a Christian and be friends with the world. As the no voters try and appease by being friends with the world, they are making themselves enemies of God. We are here on planet Earth because of God's will. We serve him and always realize that God's law supercedes the laws of man.
@James,
"As I said, your argument fails in court. As long as unmarried people have kids, and as long as some married people choose not to or cannot have kids, your entire argument falls apart. You are not trying to prevent infertile people from having legally recognized marriages. Nor older people. Nor those who just don't want to have kids."
False. When a court is *actually* applying rational basis review, they reject the tired infertile people argument saying that rational laws don't have to be narrowly tailored to a legitimate state interest. They can be over and under-inclusive, and even result in some inequality.
So long as a fundamental right is not at stake--ssm is not a fundamental right--and so long as a suspect classification is not drawn--"sexual orientation" is not a suspect classification--then the laws of the legislature and people are granted deference and presumed rational. It is the duty of the challengers (SSMers) to negate *every* conceivable basis for the law.
Not only have most courts concluded that procreation is a rational basis for defining marriage as opposite-sexed, the SCOTUS did so in Baker v. Nelson. In fact, when presented with your arguments, they acknowledged that such demands (i.e. ensuring that every married couple procreate) wouldn't be practical and would violate the rationale of Griswold v. Connecticut.
But since you reject the procreation theory, please explain to us why our country has even been involved in the sexual relationships of men and women via marriage. I'm sorry but your "because they hated gay people" theory is not plausible.
You put the cart before the horse and started yapping about benefits. *Why* does the government regulate marriage, let alone ascribe benefits to it? What is the societal imperative? You rejected John's argument, so what is yours?
If you don't have anything to offer, i'll have to conclude that your posts were a bunch of "no it isn't" and "so what?"
James, I responded to your post. Stay tuned.
It is interesting to me that people can even think to vote to agree or disagree with what God has declared and then go with the vote of man (either way) as truth. Who gave man the right to change God's word? Or do people think he doesn't care or reveal truth anymore? If He wanted to change his word, He could.... but Eternal truths do not change.God is the same, yesterday, today and forever, and He established Marriage as a man and a woman.
Well stated, John N. Thank you!
As expected, the Episcopal Church's General Convention's central prayer committee today approved of a resolution that would construct a liturgy to bless same-sex marriages, though there are still provisions for individual priests who object to marriage equality.
Religious freedom lives !!
Religion is in decline and so we are seeing religious institutions stray away from their teachings.
Good to know they voted to adhere to their doctrine. But we're going to need another Great Awakening.
First of all the non-gay people must always be mindful of the words we use in English language to indicate, specify or designate some thing. Words are tricky, they stick in the mind and when repeated a hundred or thousand times begin to sound authentic and finally become a part of the culture. Like the words “SSM”. We can never, never, never accept the phrase "SSM" as a legitimate saying. For there is no such thing as SSM, it is not found in any literature of any age. It boggles my mind how one can even think of redefining marriage of man/woman. It simply cannot be done. Marriage is the word (in all languages of the world) for a union of one man and one woman. Any other arrangement cannot be called a marriage. Who do you think you are fooling; find your own words, why do you mess with my language.
If you love life you would stand by the marriage of a man and woman, the very source of life. Any other arrangement, other than the consensus of marriage of between a man and a woman is the source of death; death of individuals, death of families, death of a society and the death of a nation. Why would this generation want to descend in the annals of history as the culture of death?
@Barb. Very nice post #2. First paragraph compact and right on. And nice follow up @John N. #9
James L. Greenlee: you are so naive. The strength in the same-sex pseudo-marriage support comes largely from Christians who, out of sympathy, have permitted themselves to be confused with reinterpretations of biblical passages, even though upon inspection, those reinterpretations don't hold water. The churches have had to try it, and gradually they realize their great mistake. It is a positive experience of growth. There are a lot of sins the denominations do not condone. But sin has social consequences (that's why it is a sin). We cannot offend God, not really. Sin is pointed so we can decide to avoid it, so we can be happier. Without the support of the Church of Christ, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans and the Methodists, same-sex marriage wouldn't have gotten off the ground. Since these very large denominations got taken by the rhetoric and sympathy for those 'born that way', the membership actually voted to support it, civilly, not only in the church's administration.
John N.: There's not 1000 [federal] benefits of marriage. Don't believe the count, because the count has never been made.
James L. Greenlee: The argument from pro-creation does not fail in court. Oh, you mean a district court, or do you mean the Supreme Court. How come you don't specify? Trying to get tricky? If the argument from pro-creation is removed by the Obama administration, in court, then of course they lose the court case. It's not just pro-creation, because moms of Single Status also pro-create, and specially now with Welfare. So terminology has to be well-defined or we argue in circles on and on.
Barb #2,
The difinition of a word has absolutely nothing to do with how parents of any orientation care and love and provide for their children. Nothing you people think you are doing is going to change anyone's family and to suggest that one orientation can care and love and provide better than another is routed in ignorance and hate.
Whatever happened to supporting acts already considered the law of the land.. Like DOMA the defense of marriage act which the President instructed the DOJ not to defende... Since when does a sitting President have the authority to chose which laws to defend. He also will not enforce existing immigration laws and tho the dream act has been defeated several times already when it has come up for a vote... He thinks He is the ultimate law maker and mandates his version....what has happened to we the people, we are supposed to have reps who represent us... not decide what they think is best for us... Let's get back to governing by the people and for the people....
I obviously meant the Prop 8 case, which so far has had a very, very weak defense. The "marriage is about children" argument was tried and fairly well demolished. The case has now been upheld a couple of times. I can't predict the eventual SCOTUS decision, because that body often does some acrobatic legal pretzel bends, but if they use the original case as a basis for their decision, it will strike down Prop. 8.
By the way, it does not matter *why* benefits were attached to marriage, the fact is, they *were.* As a taxpaying citizen in a long-term marriage--that differs in no substantial way from any other--I deserve the same rights and benefits that Kim Kardashian enjoyed for 72 days, or any drunk straight couple who staggered into a wedding chapel in Las Vegas after knowing each other for a weekend.
I couldn't give a flying fig about what Jesus or God allegedly have to say about it. This is supposed to be America, where we have religious freedom (which is supposed to work BOTH ways).
@#1 - Gays are not a "race" therefore people who do not agree with you cannot be called racists. Whatsamattah.... homophobe not working for you anymore?
@#2 - You just said gays don't really have a problem with churches not accepting your arrangements and the guy in #1 is hurling the race card....inaccurately too. What a joke.
@#6 - You keep talking about boycotting this blog but you NEVER LEAVE! So leave and take James, Austin, 14, Garrett, Elias, Jonathan and all the other trolls with you. You have never changed any minds here and you never will. You are a speed bump on the road to marriage rejuvenation.
@#11 - Great but add procreate AND long term care for children in a committed relationship. I don't want people just procreating but nurturing too. As far as benefits, I don't want my tax $'s going to abortion , porn, SSM or any other liberal causes.
And @ #? - You were born with a FULL tool kit of rights long before you thought you were gay and that's all you're ever going to get. No one is taking any of those away or advocating that. Rights do not cost other people $. There's no right to health care, education, a house, etc. These made up rights that liberal/progressives come up are going to be the death of liberty in this country.
@#14 - Infertility cannot be a disqualifier for marriage since it is almost always a medical condition. Frequently people do not know that they have infertility problems when they get married and when they do find out they can often be cured with medical intervention and have healthy children. Plus there would be no fool proof way to medically check for this. There are plenty of people who are told they can't have children and later...... they do anyway. Doctors can't conclusively tell.
@#26 - Words are important. We can never give up the word marriage for redefinition. Liberal/prog. are now trying to redefine liberty by saying evil corporations are trying to take yours away. The defense of liberty has always been against big govt who is the real danger to us all. Romney 2012 (even if you don't like him. The alternative is the loss of our liberty, our freedom of thought, reckless spending and exorbitant debt and peril for our childen.
James L. Greenlee: Prop 8 has had a strong defense, but the California head Judge Reinhart is the most reversed Judge in California. As long as a court case is on appeal, we don't have the final say. You are certainly welcomed to disagree. The judicial system is purposefully slow and costly, so people think of using it only as a last resort. Why would we ask your legal opinion regarding prop 8? It is more than just an issue about 'glad' marriage. It is about whether elected official can effectively veto the results of a voter initiative, thereby rendering all voter initiatives mute. It is a major issue, not just about celebrating homosx.
@James,
The marriage is about procreation and child-rearing argument has not been "demolished" in most courts, but has actually led to victory in a majority of decisions (and these decisions don't include ones on appeal, unlike those regularly touted by SSMers). It's very hard to demolish the arguments for a law under rational basis review.
Prop 8 will be upheld. What justification is there to strike it down? Is a suspect class being harmed? No. Is a fundamental right at stake? No. Is there any conceivable basis for having a government recognized relationship called "marriage" and defining it as opposite-sexed? Absolutely. What justification is there to strike it down? None, when looking at the issue from rational basis review. The judiciary can't read the minds of the people, or attempt to judge the logic, wisdom, and fairness of society's choices. And surely SCOTUS won't espouse the idea that the people of a state can't amend their constitution to correct the state judiciary's interpretation of it. So there is really nothing left to strike down Prop 8; but we shall see at SCOTUS.
It does matter why benefits are attached to marriage, or why the government is involved in the first place. It's ridiculous to say that the government involves itself in personal relationships and gives them benefits for no reason, or for a reason that doesn't matter.
Why try to change something and you don't even know the purpose it serves? Why not advocate for the abolishment of marriage instead of ssm, since the government is just handing out benefits for no reason?
My comment is in the filter...again. Stay tuned.
@Littleman, #28: Having been in both the Methodist and Presbyterian churches over a lifetime, I have to point out the inaccuracy of your statement that those denominations' support have "gotten SSM off the ground". The Methodists and Presbyterians have both now supported marriage between a man and a woman in denominational representatives vote. We have studied this issue in depth. The internal devisiveness by a minority of same-sex union advocates has been a source of contention for more than thirty years; it is time to move on!
Readers might ponder the spectacle of an SSMer [see footnote] spending time and effort to write comments under a blogpost regarding the Presbyterian Church and then his punctuating those remarks by declaring:
"I couldn't give a flying fig about what Jesus or God allegedly have to say about it."
What might that say about the SSMer's behavior?
Footnote: James L. Greenlee.
A H Abraham, interesting comment.
You said:
"We can never, never, never accept the phrase "\'SSM' as a legitimate saying. For there is no such thing as SSM, it is not found in any literature of any age."
When marriage defenders use "SSM" we do so mostly out of a courtesy for those with whom we disagree. That courtesy is routinely spat upon; and often abused by SSMers who pounce on the usage as ceding far more.
S.S.M. does not really mean "same-sex marriage" for, as you suggested, the phrase is oxymoronic and abuses the word, marriage.
Marriage is not merely a word, of course. It is a social institution that is foundational to civil society. It is identifiable by its core meaning. And from societal regard for that core meaning we can decide to show it preferential treatment (among all other types of relationships) and to delimit eligibility (draw the boundaries around that core meaning). Marriage is a word, it is a social institution, and it is a set of coherent principles and practices around which society may draw boundaries.
The SSM idea is none of that. Rather, it is a rejection of the core meaning of marriage.
Thus, S.S.M = Specious Substitution for Marriage.
James L. Greenlee said:
"it does not matter *why* benefits were attached to marriage, the fact is, they *were.*"
Government bestowed benefits can be detached.
The anti-8 litigators said to the CA state supreme court that abolition of marriage would solve the problem they perceived in marriage law. Your own remarks here strongly suggest the same sort of shrug.
Yet marriage does have a core meaning; it is that core that justifies the special status of the union of husband and wife. Around that core society draws lines of eligibility and ineligibility. Treating marriage differently from nonmarriage is not unconstitutional. The reason? See the core meaning of marriage.
Haven't learned that core meaning yet? That may have something to do with your frivolous attitude as displayed in your comments.
Well, stick around and pay attention to reason and respect for human dignity. You'll learn more about marriage here than you will about the SSM idea. But that is not because of lack of queries about the SSM idea; and not because of lack of workman-like efforts of SSMers to try to prop-up the SSM idea with failing rhetoric and failing argumentation. You might even figure out that SSM is not marriage at all, afterall.
James L. Greenlee said:
"As long as unmarried people have kids, and as long as some married people choose not to or cannot have kids, your entire argument falls apart."
Here you did what SSMers routinely do. You invoked certain rules that you insist must be used to test the legitimacy of marriage law.
Those rules would knock the knees out from under your pro-SSM claims.
1. If (fill-in-the-blank) can occur outside of marriage, then, it is not a legitimate basis for lawmaking on eligibility.
2. If (fill-in-the-blank) does not always occur within marriage, then, it is not a legitimate basis for lawmaking on eligibility.
If you really believed in the decisiveness of those rules you just invoked, then, you would have to explain SSM in terms that conform to those rules.
For example, you have repeatedly demonstrated an emphasis on homosexual this and that.
Well, is same-sex sexual attraction limited to SSM, wherever SSM has become entrenched in the law? Nope. How about same-sex sexual behavior? Nope. Or same-sex sexual romance? Nope. Does any one of those things show-up as requirements enforced by government with 100% perfection? Not even close -- there are no such legal requirements for those who'd show up to SSM -- none enacted and none proposed.
Okay, so you can drop your emphasis on same-sex sexual attraction, same-sex sexual behavior, same-sex sexual romance, and even on gay identity. None of that is essential to SSM.
According to your own invoked standards.
Now, it is up to you to identify the essential (or essentials) of SSM such that it would be distinguishable from the wide range of types of relationships and types of living arrangements that are not SSM (and not marriage), by your lights.
Remember, arbitrariness is a no-no, according to the basic complaint of SSMers against the man-woman criterion.
Of course, that criterion is not arbitrary, but you have invoked the standard that the law must be justified or else it must be revised. You say that about the legal requirement for a bride and a groom but then SSMers drop your own stated standards when it comes to testing the SSM idea.
What do you imagine makes SSM the same as the union of husband and wife; and what makes it different from nonmarriage?
If you say, the law, then, you are being arbitrary. You obviously think that sometimes marriage law gets stuff wrong; but you can't reasonably believe that unless marriage has a reality independent of the law.
So your shrug is convenient, perhaps, but that is probably just because your own stated standards pull your SSM idea apart.
The supporters of SSM within the Presbyterian Church ten to oppose the basis for the special status of marriage in their own Church teachings. Their alternative idea of marriage is little more than a regurgitation of the SSM political campaign's progay bigotry. It is obstinate rejection of reason and intolerant advocacy of immoral sexual behavior, within the context of the Church's teachings on the union of husband and wife.
Churches are not perfect.
When there's an abundance of churches, the competition gets rough for attracting members. Worse, sometimes the pastors and deacons want to attract the richer people. Such is the case with Presbyterians, Methodists, and Church of Christ (in general). Each type of church models itself to attract certain types of social classes, vaguely defined. Look at the type of people the Charismatic denominations attract, in general.
How does a pastor attract the richer people to his/her church?
a) Don't preach on sin. It makes people feel uncomfortable, though it the topic of sin essential teaching from Jesus. It is not politically correct to preach about sin. Why? Because of the association to the hell, fire & brimstone type of preaching in the 1800's. With less interdependence, modern society feels it can afford to 'sin a little'. So, if a pastor cannot preach against sin, what remains? To preach about love, as if that was all Jesus preached about. Not so. Jesus preached even against cursing someone. I cannot live up to Jesus' rules. But that was his point. Still, for our own benefit, we try to live by his teachings on both love and sin, not because we have a way to make God mad. We would have power over God if that was possible.
b) Emphasize the relationship with 'your neighbor' rather than BOTH your relationship directly with God ('Be ye holy as i am holy') and (secondly) the relationship with 'your neighbor' (doesn't mean just your next-door suburban neighbor). It means those who form part of your immediate social context (which now could be over Internet!). One's neighbor is not the terrorist about to blow himself up in front of you. That's your nation's enemy, and we are called to serve Caesar (our government) dutifully, which means our duty of voting and participating in the democracy, and representative form of government, and protecting our fellow citizens who don't abuse others.