Regis Nicoll, a freelance writer and men's ministry leader, takes up Obama's DOMA dereliction:

His ideas on the matter have been, as he put it, “evolving.” While stumping around the country, candidate Obama said that although he approved of civil unions for gays, he believed that marriage was reserved for heterosexuals.

Scarcely more than two years later, President Obama announced that his administration would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).* In a statement released to the press, the attorney general made the point that the President’s decision came after “careful consideration” of the law’s constitutionality. Given the timeframe for his turnabout, it would appear that Obama’s ideas on the matter have undergone a revolutionary change, rather than an evolutionary one.

... The validity of the President’s judgment hinges on what marriage is and what purpose it serves. Is marriage a fluid convention socially constructed to satisfy a culture’s felt needs and desires? Is it a religious institution foisted on civilization to promote sectarian values? Or is it something intrinsic to our human design, something that fulfills, in a way that nothing else can, a universal human longing and essential social function?

Christian teaching aside, some valuable insights come from the ancient Greeks. They were folks who understood a thing or two about sexuality, things that many moderns have overlooked or ignored. [Continue reading]