Thinking to Believe

Politically speaking, the same-sex marriage debate is over – at least for the foreseeable future. The Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage a Constitutional right. Even Republican lawmakers have caved on the issue when they passed The Respect for Marriage Act in December 2022 (39 Republicans in the House of Representatives and 12 Republicans in the Senate voted for it). Even on the social front, the debate seems to be over. Not only do 63% of Americans currently approve of same-sex marriage[1], but conservatives have disengaged from any public debate on the matter. We have conceded defeat with our silence. So why keep talking about the issue, then? While the debate is essentially over in the political and social arenas, it is still raging on in the church. While conservatives may still have the numbers on our side for the time being, the pro-LGBT and pro-same-sex marriage crowd has gained a momentum that may undermine our majority in the near future. Christians still need to know why same-sex marriage is morally incompatible with Christianity (theological), and still need to understand why we think that same-sex marriage should not be legal (political). This post will focus on the political issue (for a Biblical case against homosex, see my article “Homosexuality and the Bible”).

Many Christians take the “personally opposed, but…” approach to same-sex marriage. They say they personally believe that same-sex marriage is immoral, but they think it would be wrong to “impose” their religious beliefs on others in a secular society. But is it an imposition of our religious beliefs if we don’t expand the institution of marriage to include same-sex couples? Not at all. The argument against calling same-sex relationships a “marriage” does not require any religious presuppositions, yet alone Christian presuppositions. So what does a Christian argument against expanding the institution of marriage to include same-sex couples look like? Here’s one such argument:

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The Scripture says “for this reason the man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife.” The theological justification for marriage is that the woman was taken out of the man, and thus should be reunited with him in sexual union. That does not and cannot apply to same-sex couples. The man was not taken from a man, nor the woman from a woman. Same-sex marriage is excluded on theological grounds, not to mention moral grounds.

A farmer got evicted from a city farmers’ market because he does not permit same-sex couples to get married on his farm.  Violate your convictions or be punished.

On May 24 Taiwan’s constitutional court ruled that same-sex couples ought to have access to the institution of marriage, and gave the legislature two years to amend the civil code. They are the first Asian nation to adopt same-sex marriage.

A story broke on July 15 that I’ve been meaning to write about. During an interview[1] with Florian Mundt, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, made it clear that she does not want Germany to follow the American example of making legal provision for same-sex marriage.  Merkel said she supports civil unions with benefits equal to marriage, but she “make[s] a different at some point.” For her, that point is the definition of marriage: “For me, personally, marriage is a man and a woman living together.”

While I disagree with Merkel that same-sex couples should receive the same benefits as married couples, her position is actually quite sensible.  Essentially she is saying “Same-sex couples should be treated as equal to married couples in every way, but they have no right to have their relationship called a ‘marriage’ because a marriage is, by nature, a male-female union.”  She is drawing on the intuition that “marriage” has an essence – that marriage is fundamentally a male-female union, and thus it is impossible for a same-sex union to be a marriage. This position is quite rational since it is based on objective observations about human nature and biological function.

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