Letter: Marriage is not a civil right

In his July letter about the “sunrise,” Jim Thompson felt I was attacking “marriage equality” – a phrase coined in this debate.

So Jane is standing on the corner and Joe says “I want to marry you.” Harry comes along and says “I have just as much right to marry you as he does.” “Marriage equality”? I am supporting the definition of marriage that has existed for 6000+ years of human history, in virtually every form of government and major religion Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Only in recent decades has this natural order been questioned. Knowing this is a “modern day social experiment” should concern people. We should want to study the results in other nations that have had these laws on the books for a while and discover the impact on the family, children, and society. The family unit: including a mother, father, and children has been the basic unit of society, civilization, and the community. When marriages are strong and healthy, society flourishes; when marriages are weak, struggling, and breaking, society is negatively impacted.

Calling this a “civil right” is simply not true. Do Pedophiles have the “right” to marry young children? Do polygamists have the “right” to marry 3-5 wives? Do brothers have the “right” to marry their sister? Thompson implied my words, because I am in disagreement, came from “Westboro Baptist Church,” a church that operates out of hatred. I am speaking the beliefs of myriads of people of faith a cross denominational lines, Catholic and Protestant: See the Manhattan Declaration (www.manhattandeclaration.org) for a fuller explanation.

Mr. Thompson insinuates I’m speaking: “Falsehoods, harmful statements, animus?” Which statement? That God made male and female? “That a man leaves his father and mother (basic unit of family) and cleaves to his wife and the two become one flesh?” (Genesis). The fact that male to male sex acts are a health hazard confirmed by the CDC (Center for Disease Control) is medical facts, not animus. Someone who loves warns people of the dangers. I’m crying out on behalf of young impressionable adolescents influenced by pop culture and media which are stacking the decks against them and encouraging every form of unbridled sexual expression.

The most current craze is transgenderism, which involves severely surgically mutilating body changing operations. Young vulnerable kids, who are confused about who they are and may be going through a phase, are given the idea of taking hormones to inhibit their growth, and changing their fundamental identities through castrating surgeries, when what they really need is help and understanding to get through a “temporary” phase. The state of Oregon, while usurping parental authority, offer these life altering operations to young impressionable adolescents. How is this not child abuse? Longitudinal studies that have explored transgender issues in the United Kingdom have found that the majority of those studied, who questioned their sexual identity got over this phase and were thankful they hadn’t opted for this surgery.

Behind closed doors is Bruce Jenner “weeping silently” because it really didn’t solve his struggles?

We are reaping the whirl wind of broken lives, increased sexual violence, and sex trafficking. This is not all because of the recent homosexual movement. My generation opened the door to the “sexual revolution” where the “fetters” of any vestige of morality were summarily destroyed in this nation. The repercussions to the break-down of marriage and family have been staggering. This is just the next step down the slippery slope to our moral demise.

I’d like to start a new movement! Let’s invite the God, who founded this nation, back into our lives. We have segregated God out of: a). our schools, where the words “Do unto others as you would have them do to you” are quoted as anonymous rather than to Jesus; b) our court rooms, from where the Ten Commandments were removed which guided all our legal jurisprudence from the foundations, leaving us to be guided by “whim” and “special interests”; and c) our government where corruption, lies, and “special interest groups”, and the “almighty dollar” rule. This exists even though the Christian God is central and intrinsic in the foundation of our form of Government in the founding history of this nation.

I propose, like Abraham Lincoln in 1863 that: “Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation. And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”

People of America, you have a decision to make: a path that leads to more and abundant life supported by history and valid research, or a path that leads to death and sorrow. Which will you chose?

This story was originally published September 14, 2015 at 11:39 AM with the headline "Letter: Marriage is not a civil right."