Gay Marriage: Taking a Plunge in a Pool With No Water

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Matt Barber

Matt Barber is an attorney specializing in constitutional law. He serves as director of cultural affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action, and receives e-mail at jmattbarber@comcast.net.

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Gay Marriage: Taking a Plunge in a Pool With No Water

By Matt Barber | Published 06/6/2008

As one of those pop-cultural non-conformist types, please indulge me while I go ahead and toss that stifling, mind-numbing muzzle called political correctness.

I’m going to dispense with the subtleties and point out what most are thinking but won’t say for fear of the inevitable “progressive” backlash (shhhh… they’re everywhere): So-called “same-sex marriage” is a counterfeit. It’s a fraud and not even a good one at that. If marriage is a Rembrandt, then the ridiculous and oxymoronic notion of “gay marriage” is a Rembrandt knock-off from the pages of Mad Magazine. It’s a silly novelty.

I know. I’m “mean-spirited.” But in light of the California Supreme Court’s recent opinion--which enigmatically manufactured a “constitutional right” to “same-sex marriage” out of thin air--I think we need to come back to earth for a moment. Mind you, re-entry into reality’s atmosphere will inevitably burn some folks.

When same-sex friendships (or more often, seconds-old acquaintances) are twisted and sexualized, practitioners of “the sin that dare not speak its name” are forced, at every level, to merely mimic the genuine article. They jump through a series of inelegant hoops to create a fantasy world wherein two people of the same gender clumsily imitate natural heterosexual pairings properly designed for procreation and the healthy rearing of children.

Even “gay sex” (male-male anal sodomy) is a crude, man-made imitation of the natural heterosexual reproductive process (only the fallen mind of man could concoct such depraved and foul behavior). Sadly, as millions of homosexuals have had to learn the hard way, this disordered, makeshift simulation of a natural biological process is coldly rejected by the very human biology it mocks.

As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has illustrated time and again, unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences. Homosexual conduct--especially among males--creates an environment ripe for infectious disease and emotional and spiritual injury. This, by definition, is perversion. (“Perversion: Pathology. A change to what is unnatural or abnormal: a perversion of function or structure.” – Dictionary.com)

Homosexuality is a dead end. It’s emotionally, spiritually, and physically sterile. But it’s not surprising that, as with most sins, those trapped in the aptly named “queer” lifestyle desperately seek affirmation of their behavioral choices. Deep down, I believe most of us know when we’re doing something immoral, let alone unnatural and unhealthy, and so we want others to convince us otherwise. But that isn’t how the real world works. God calls on us to repent and believe in His Son. In return, he saves us from death, giving us the gift of eternal salvation.

Consider comedian and talk show host Ellen Degeneres. After recently announcing that she intended to “marry” her friend, Portia DeRossi (a woman), Ellen sought approval from presidential candidate John McCain, whom she had as a guest on her show.

She, along with so many other self-described “gays,” “lesbians,” and “bisexuals,” desperately want others--especially those who respect God’s natural design for human sexuality--to join them in ignoring the pink elephant in the room: Homosexual conduct has always been and always will be, in every way, wrong. It is unhealthy, and it is sin.

I’ll admit it, Ellen is a sympathetic figure with a quick wit. I’m sure she’s a very nice person, and I don’t dislike her at all. But she’s playing with fire. Ellen compounds the sin of homosexuality by using the platform she’s been given to lead others astray. She guides her many adoring housewife fans into rebellion against God’s divine and explicit natural order by suggesting they celebrate sin and entertain, along with her, the “gay marriage” delusion.

Still, God will not be mocked. It’s the height of humanist hubris to believe that man (including judges) can radically redefine that which God has created. We can never sanctify that which natural law rejects and God expressly condemns. Especially when God Himself, out of sheer love for each of us, offers us so much more.

I’m sorry (well not really) for my lack of contrived “sensitivity,” but Ellen, sweetie (to borrow from a presidential candidate), no amount of wishful thinking or going through the motions will make your illicit same-sex “relationship” with Ms. DeRossi a “marriage.” You may get a piece of paper that says it is, but, in the eyes of God and most of the world, your counterfeit “marriage” will never be worth the paper it’s written on.

Again, I know. I’m a hateful, homophobic bigot … yada yada yada. But for those who disagree, your gripe isn’t with me; it’s with your sovereign Creator who loves each of us in spite of ourselves.

While on Ellen’s show, Senator McCain famously wished her “nothing but happiness.” I echo his sentiment. I wish Ellen nothing but happiness. But not the kind of quasi-happiness that comes in the temporal through sinful self-indulgence. Of that, God requires Ellen--and all of us--to repent. Happiness derived from sin inevitably rings hollow. If Ellen wants real happiness, the kind of happiness that’s accompanied by “the peace which surpasses all understanding,” I pray she’ll have a conversation with Jesus Christ. May we all follow the example of Moses who rejected the temporary “pleasure” of sin in Pharoah’s court in favor of peace beyond understanding, of doing what’s right even if it’s a lot more challenging.

To those of you who, like Ellen, may be planning a “same-sex marriage” in order to somehow affirm your “relationship,” know that you’re only fooling yourselves. True affirmation comes not from me, not from society, not from government, but from God alone--and He’s said, unequivocally, that none of us will get it unless we repent of our sin. The Good News is, He calls us to repent. He wants us to repent. He’ll give us the power to repent and to live for Him in the joy only He can provide.

But nonetheless, what a Pandora’s Box the California Supreme Court has opened. These four black-robed autocrats have engaged in the worst kind of judicial activism, abandoning their role as objective interpreters of the law and, instead, constructively legislating from the bench.

It’s absurd to suggest that the framers of the California state constitution could have ever imagined there’d be a day when so-called “same-sex marriage” would even be conceptualized, much less seriously considered. If anyone then had suggested the ridiculous notion, early Californians would have laughed their smocks off.

For now, however, the court’s ruling is relatively toothless. Governor Schwarzenegger is compelled by his oath of office to order officials to disregard the court’s opinion until either state lawmakers or “we the people,” through ballot initiative, actually legalize “gay marriage.” And if Schwarzenegger directs officials to start issuing “gay marriage” licenses before that, no county clerk has constitutional authority to do so absent a change in law. The court cannot change existing statutes, only issue an opinion as to the constitutionality of those statutes. And an opinion is just that, an opinion.

Nevertheless, since the court refused to stay its own opinion--as Liberty Counsel, the Alliance Defense Fund and attorneys general from nearly a dozen states had requested--and since Schwarzenegger and many county officials in California will, by all indications, submit to the court’s “supreme” will and begin issuing marriage licenses to homosexual duos on June 17, the court’s opinion will essentially be receiving a set of false teeth courtesy of the Governator. At that point, the court will have effectively imposed “gay marriage” on Californians in direct defiance of the express will of the people as overwhelmingly ratified with Proposition 22.

The court will have, for all practical purposes, “legalized” “same-sex marriage” (albeit through an arguably illegal process which paradoxically both invokes the constitutional “checks and balances” firewall and abuses it at the same time) because the other two branches of government will have waived the right of challenge.

Therefore, “same-sex marriage” will be treated as legal in California (whether or not it actually is) at every level of government. This “marriage” experiment from the Island of Dr. Moreau will have effectively, though not genuinely, been “legalized.”

Undoubtedly, out-of-state “gay” duos will then “marry” in California and head back to their home states demanding their “marriages” be given “full faith and credit.” Look forward to legal chaos. The California decision is the goose that laid the golden egg for Lambda Legal/ACLU types.

Still, hope remains. A measure that would amend California’s Constitution to maintain the definition of marriage as a union “between a man and a woman” has been certified and will be on the 2008 ballot. And there’s a good chance it’ll pass.

But more must be done. Anyone who ever said that the marriage “decision should be left up to the states” and that a federal constitutional marriage amendment was unnecessary, is now eating crow. It’s clear, now more than ever, that a federal constitutional amendment protecting marriage is the only foolproof means by which to ensure that legitimate marriage and family are not radically redefined into oblivion.