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Title: Pastors Prepare Pulpits for 'Marriage Protection Sunday'
Source:
The Christian Post
URL Source: http://www.christianpost.com/articl ... rriage.protection.sunday/1.htm
Published: May 24, 2006
Author: Pauline J. Chang
Post Date: 2006-05-24 09:28:59 by Red Jones
Keywords: None
Views: 310
Comments: 28
Pastors Prepare Pulpits for 'Marriage Protection Sunday' Christian and pro-family groups are creating a ''groundswell of support'' for traditional marriage among pastors and conservative churchgoers. Wednesday, May. 24, 2006 Posted: 7:01:31AM EST WASHINGTON – With less than two weeks remaining before the Federal Marriage Amendment hits the Senate floor, Christian and pro-family groups are creating a ''groundswell of support'' for traditional marriage among pastors and conservative churchgoers. The Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention has dubbed June 4 “Marriage Protection Sunday,” and is requesting pastors to preach about gay marriage and encouraging Southern Baptists to tell their senators to vote for the amendment. “Supporters of traditional marriage need to bombard their senators’ offices with e-mails and phone calls,” ERLC President Richard Land told Baptist Press, “and preachers across America need to let the pulpit ring forth in clear and no uncertain terms on Marriage Protection Sunday, June 4, and help create a groundswell of support for this amendment. “I can assure you the opponents of traditional marriage are doing their best to let their voices be heard in the corridors of the Senate. It is up to us to let our voices be heard loudly as well,” he said. The 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention is among a host of familiar players in the same-sex marriage debate that has amplified the voice of “values-voters” in Washington. The denomination is working with a powerful pro-marriage amendment coalition that includes groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council to foster support for the Senate resolution through mass-mailing, conference calls, and internet outreaches. The Washington-based Family Research Council has already collected nearly 38,000 names in an online petition calling on U.S. Senators to preserve traditional marriage in America. The group hopes to gather 50,000 names by the week of June 5, when the Senate is slated to take up the measure. Meanwhile, Focus on the Family Action has promoted a postcard campaign to get pastors involved in the effort. James Dobson, chairman of FOFA, joined with the Southern Baptist’s ERLC in sending an Apr. 12 letter to mobilize 43,600-plus Baptist churches around the issue. Since the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in that state in 2004, pro-family leaders rallied for a national constitutional amendment that would protect traditional marriage in other states and overturn the notorious Massachusetts court decision. They warn that without such an amendment, states would be powerless to protect its laws from being overturned by “activist judges.” They also call the issue “the most important” in the effort to protect families and preserve God’s will for mankind. “Very few issues threaten the foundation of our culture as deeply as the same-sex marriage issue,” a statement from the ERLC read. “Help preserve God's design for marriage in the United States by supporting the Marriage Protection Amendment.” Some recommendations for Marriage Protection Sunday include preaching about the issue on June 4 and distributing information on same-sex marriage. Lay Christians are encouraged to email, call, or hand-deliver mail to their senators, telling their representatives to pass the amendment. The Senate Judiciary Committee on May 18 approved the Marriage Protection Amendment in a 10-8 party-line vote. The Senate is slated to discuss the amendment on June 5, and will likely vote on it by June 6 or 7. Ratification of an amendment to the Constitution requires passage by two-thirds of both the Senate and the House, as well as approval by three-fourths of the states. Neither houses of Congress came close to a two-thirds majority when a similar amendment was placed on the floor in 2004. Traditional marriage supporters are hoping that the new Republican-majority Congress will garner enough votes to pass this time around. "We certainly don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t have more votes this time than last time,” Duke Barrett, vice president of the ERLC told BP. “The Senate is decidedly more conservative, certainly more Republican, than it was the last time. We believe that if enough senators hear from their constituents, the MPA can be passed. "It’s obvious that a significant majority of Americans throughout the country do not want same-sex marriage," he said. "If that significant majority will communicate their convictions to their senators, the amendment should be passed.” > Pauline J. Chang pauline@christianpost.com
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#1. To: All (#0)
in mobilizing these people in this manner they are actually supporting the politicians who have created the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result of these two wars millions of children will be born with birth defects. The pastors have failed to tell the people that the war is wrong. and now they're using a less-important issue to support the politicians who support the war. they are in full support of the birth defects and the death and the destruction. These wars are an abomination before god. man is made in god's image and to kill men on a large scale like this for no reason whatsoever and to cause the birth defects on a large scale like this is far more outrageous than whether or not a few same-sex perverts pretend that they are married. the same-sex marriage issue is used as a decoy to support the war. these pastors participating in this effort are 'fallen-away'. and they are actively supporting evil.
I don't believe in gay marriage either, but I think these preachers should also be preaching against no fault divorce and living together without getting married and having kids out of wedlock. To be fair, those things are more hurtful to the institution of marriage and society in general than gay marriage.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
I wholeheartedly support marriage between any consenting adult. Government has no right to dictate who people love and who they wish to bond with. Heterosexual marriage is a train wreck - has been for decades - with divorce, marginalization through contract marriage, and other problems endemic to it that have reduced it's value and impact as a bond to use as a foundation for relationships and families. These people picking on others in a wedge issue fashion for their own power base building purposes need to worry first about their own problems before they worry about those they perceive in others. I know several couples - mostly women couple as Eugene is a Mecca for lesbians on the West Coast - and if they consider themselves married, I do to. And I am proud to do so.
The state has no business licensing ANYTHING.
I have to disagree with you there. To me marriage is not just about a relationship between 2 people. It's the building block of an entire society. There is no societal value or benefit to two gay or lesbian people getting "married". It may make them feel good, but it has no real societal benefit. The need for marriage - why it exists - is to provide a stable framework for raising children and transmitting knowledge, information, and property across generations. That's why it exists. It doesn't exist to make people feel good, or for tax benefits, or for insurance - all of those things are definitely secondary and if you eliminated ALL of them, there would STILL be a need for some formal, communal recognition of marriage to promote a stable society based on families. I think when people support things like gay marriage, what they are really saying is that they no longer understand what marriage is or why it exists, or why it is important to society. It's part of the selfishness and short sightedness of our society that cannot see beyond the gratifications of its own immediate needs.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
It's not just about the state authorizing anything. It's about recognizing and formalizing a situation that inevitably occurs in nature and giving it a framework that is best and most helpful and healthy to society. Most hetero couples will have children. Marriage and attendant family laws give us a cohesive, predictable structure for handling those relationships and the kinds of emotional, legal, and financial problems that arise. Without this kind of formal framework, we are reduced to re-inventing the wheel each time some cohabiting couple breaks up and needs to re-apportion property, assets, and decide how to rear the children. It is totally impractical to have a society in which the governing body does not recognize marriage in some manner - in fact, I don't think it has ever happened. Nor should it. This is one of the legitimate purposes of government. Otherwise, we would all be at each others' throats and in hopeless social disarray within one to two generations.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Happy people whose relationships are protected has incredibly high societal value. If two people build a life together, they deserve all the tool needed to access the benefits they have earned as employees and citizens. I see. Then people who are not able to bear young should not be allowed to marry then according to your premise. Many lesbian, gay and trans-gendered people have great skills and offer benefits to society and they should be allowed the human dignity to form a marriage with whom they chose. The APA did great research that shows people do not chose to be homosexual and are completely normal on all respects. The only difference being their gender preference. Those growing up imprinted with a preference for same gender sex deserve role models and mentors too. I see scapegoating and mean spirited bigotry when I see sentiment against a basic right like this being granted. It is selfish and myopic to oppress people and not allow them full expressions of themselves and their relationships, not the other way around.
Mike, you can rage on and on about the nonsense of gay marriage for days - it doesn't matter. In the scheme of any society, there is no purpose for gay marriage. The sole reason marriage exists at all is to provide a framework for raising children and transmitting property. That's it. That is ALL it's ever existed for. It has nothing to do with the happiness of individuals or tax benefits or insurance or anything else. The assumption, based on common sense and experience is that the vast majority of hetero couples will have children in the natural course of their relationship and so we recognize this and create a system that enhances and supports this. The same is not true for gay couples. Maybe there could be some kind of societal recognition of these relationships, but it is not nor will it ever be...marriage. THat's just reality. See while folks like you go on and on with your lovely bubble like theory of how life should be and how people should behave, reality comes in like a bear and bites us all in the ass. Reality is the declining demographics in virtually every western country that will eventually doom us to extinction because we are simply too foolish and silly to recognize what people have known for ages - that marriage is for raising children, not for self fulfillment. In our quest for self fulfillment and happiness we doom future generations to extinction. There is no future in gay marriage. It's a stupid and inherently meaningless concept.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
In other words, marriage was created to recognize a need and serve a function - just like most other legal conditions. There is no function inherent in the concept of "gay marriage" other than making people feel good about themselves and feeling "equal" to others even though their relationships do not serve the same FUNCTION. We need to go back and assess why we have certain traditions or institutions or legalities in our society and determine what function they served or serve. We seem to have gotten away from the idea of functionality and purpose in our rush to make everyone equal. In a more minor key, we can see the same kind of thinking in say...allowing females to become fire fighters but not requiring that they fulfill the same tests. We are no longer thinking in terms of function, but in terms of theory and social correctness. The problem is - that inherently doesn't work, and reality inevitably asserts itself again.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Raging? Whose raging, I thought I was discussing. ;-D Au contraire, it is folks like you trying to force people not to be as they are, not me. Demographics in developed countries change because people start reacting to their perceived future and quality of life. Homosexual people do not factor into how many children are born. You are either gay or lesbian or not. You can't be made homosexual, and homosexuals cannot be made into heterosexuals. Only those with a preconceived agenda constructs fiction around the notion that is possible. Baiters and haters want to make people they are bigoted against miserable. They want to change the unchangeable. The use of Homosexuals as a wedge issue is meant to spook the herds into accepting an agenda of beliefs and an ideological slant they otherwise might have too much good sense to pay attention to. The wedge issue makers feel the serendipity to this wedge issue is that it makes people miserable and makes some hate themselves. Much as studies during the worst of the Negroes in the Jim Crow era showed many Blacks preferred white skin to their own because of the self loathing bigotry imparted on them. I live in Oregon and watched the whole thing happen up in Portland, and the only pathetic and wanting people I saw were those pro-actively baiting and hating those they wished to strong arm into silence. Anyone who wishes to for a relationship and formalize it should. It allows the access to that they worked hard for, helps protect their rights and well being, and it isn't anyone else's business but their own.
IMO, the primary reason for the push for gay "marriage" were the tax cuts. There is a significant monetary benefit to being married if you have dual high incomes under that latest laws. Hence the push. Vague memories of gays laughing at the institution of marriage flicker in front of me, my how times have changed.
Pray you will never know, the hell where youth and laughter go - Siegfried Sassoon. Ypres, Autumn 1914.
BINGO! I can't speak for every guy whose been divorced, but I know that my marriage didn't go down the toilet because a couple of gals in Vermont decided to stop driving stick and partake in the hairy taco buffet. When it's easier to get out of a marriage than it is to get out of the Columbia Record and Tape Club, that's a problem that has doomed the entire "traditional" institution. But those hacks don't want to address that. It's a political non-starter because there are simply too many jobs in government AND the private sector that depend on that 50%+ divorce rate. And as far as homosexuals wanting in on the institution of "marriage," I don't just support it, I demand that it be foisted upon them! Let them deal with the divorce rate, the lawyers, the judges, the magistrates, the referees, the custody battles, the "child" support, community property, the ruined credit ratings...all of it. Trust me, I'm not doing them any favors. Misery shared is misery lessened as far as I'm concerned on this subject. My ex-wife, at the ripe old age of 34, entered into her not second, not third, but FOURTH "marriage." My father is on his 5th. I learned my lesson after my first and I'll be damned if I'll ever play that game again. "Marriage?!"....the homosexuals can have it. It's a joke, and an expensive one at that.
"Bomb De-Fusing For Dummies, Chapter 1, Wiring: Red Before Yellow Kills A Fellow."
"I love you...but...I CAN'T MARRY YOU....!" ;)
You're right - I shouldn't have used the word "raging" - it was a poor choice of words. I'm not quite sure what the right one would be in this context - maybe obsessing :) I think you are totally misunderstanding my point. I don't care if people are gay or not. I don't think there should be laws against being gay, nor am I personally in favor of discriminating against them in most situations. And yes...many of my best friends are gay (or have been). Marriage is about a function. That function is about having children and building the future and keeping society going. Marriage provides a stable framework for that and for the building and transmission of assets. The overwhelming majority of hetero couples will have children. Marriage serves them in the function of helping to raise and support those children. That is all marriage is for and all it ever was for. PERIOD. That's it. Other than that - why would anyone bother to get married? There is NO POINT in marriage for gays as they do not inherently produce children in the context of their own relationships. Gays are not the future of any society. They may enrich it, but they don't keep it going. That's just the reality. People defy reality at the risk of extinction.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Don't forget...I live in Massachusetts and that may yet become...possible. After all, who can stand in the way of a love as great as that which I have for myself? Who could deny me my own happiness? :) Nice pic, btw.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Well, I know you're much better looking than that, but it was the only one I could find with a redhead in it... ;) (And also one of the few where the lady wasn't admiring herself in her birthday suit, more or less... :P Between the one I "pic"-ed and ones that implied you prance around nekkid---among other, less mentionable activities---in front of a mirror, I think I made the least offensive choice :P)
Marriage is about relationships. If what you say it true, then there would be marriage for futile heterosexual couples of child bearing years only. Not only that, but many lesbian and gay people have children themselves by artificial means or from past relationships built on trying to appease a prejudicial society. Therefore, the line item - not pivotal - role of estate planning is an issue endemic and of concern to the entire human race, not just fertile, child bearing heterosexual couples. And as far as the point of anybody goes, everyone is part of the past, present and future of the human species and it's society. And whether a child is a consequence of the relationship between two people at the moment, a past one or is adopted, they are are equally important and deserve equal consideration in terms of who is who in any family.
hmmm....how did you know I was a redhead? Did you have that camera installed?
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Well, we're never going to see eye to eye on this. I just want you to know that my position isn't based on any hatred of gays, but just on my belief that marriage serves a function which is not primarily served by gay relationships. Apparently most gays agree with me, as when they have the option to marry or have a contractual relationship, the overwhelming majority choose not to. Therefore, it must not serve a purpose for most of them the way it does for heterosexuals.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Gay marriage is a right wing plot to gays having sex anymore.
Pray you will never know, the hell where youth and laughter go - Siegfried Sassoon. Ypres, Autumn 1914.
Gay marriage is a right wing plot to STOP gays having sex anymore.
Pray you will never know, the hell where youth and laughter go - Siegfried Sassoon. Ypres, Autumn 1914.
It would probably be very effective, lol.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Ya know, it actually does look something like me, except my nose is rather prosaically placed in the middle of my face....
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Bigotry has many levels to it. I note you are not exceptionally hateful or intolerant, that's about it. And of course yours' is a scientific study of this in terms of numbers and reasons, right? Not convincing an opinion in terms of statistics and reasons anyone does anything. Building a false premise on skewed thinking and statistics is an interesting game, but I do not find you convincing.
Well you don't have any stats either, Mike, so don't get on your high horse at me. 5000 years of history is on my side. What's on yours? As far as stats go, while I don't have any on hand, I have seen articles that have stated in those countries or areas that have created legal partnerships for gays (or far less frequently, actual marriage) that the number of gays who actually get married compared to the total population of gays is very very small. I can see that right here in Massachusetts. We have thousands upon thousands of gays, and I think very few percentage wise, have actually gotten married. I really doubt that most gays want to actually BE married. They want to be able to claim the "right" but very few are actually going to go through with it. For most gay people, it's actuallly pointless. It doesn't reflect any necessity for the overwhelming majority of them. And that was MY POINT in the first place.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
P.S. No, it's not about "relationships". It's about having children and bringing them up in a stable, legal framework. It's about transmitting knowledge and assets across generations. The relationships aspect is absolutely meaningless in terms of the societal need for legal marriage. Otherwise, most people could simply either live together, or have a handfasting, or have a church ceremony. It's when you have children that legal marriage becomes a need for an entire society.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
The question has never hinged on numbers but rights. You are focusing on statistics and demographics for the same reason many do the statistical route; your argument has little if any meat to it. People should be allowed to formalize their relationship as many prerogatives of health care, employment and other things dovetail into marriage. Legally too, Spouses are recognized as the prevailing authority for health care issues and other aspects of human relationships. A spouse cannot be denied access to their partner unconscious in a hospital, but a bigoted blood family can kick them from the scene regardless of the wishes of the patient or the patient's domestic partner. You are wrong head on the issue, and if out legal system was predicated on the protection of the majority's right to push around minorities of any kind, we wouldn't have the U.S. Constitution protecting minorities against the whims and caprice of larger groups. People should have the right to legally formalize their relationship, and this is something that have has and never should hinge on numbers. By virtue of your point of order, marriage should be abolished entirely based on well documented studies showing the decline in various ways of heterosexual marriage. Why is it that declining interest in marriage by heterosexuals would never prompt you to have a similar opinion regarding marriage being irrelevant for anybody in a two gender relationship, but the numbers you perceive regarding current participation and attitudes of homosexuals get this very opinionated stance by you? Answer: You tolerate Homosexuals, but you don't particularly like them. In spite of many of your friends being colored....errr, I mean gay. This particular caveat concerning those you know and one's relationship with them is also as old a game as lying with statistics.
To reiterate a point: Gay and lesbian people have kids too, and those kids deserve a right to not have their family in turmoil and to be jeopardized by a lack of legal protection that occurs due to bigotry.
#2. To: Red Jones (#0)
#3. To: mehitable (#2)
#4. To: Ferret Mike (#3)
Agree.
#5. To: Ferret Mike (#3)
#6. To: lodwick (#4)
#7. To: mehitable (#5)
"I have to disagree with you there. To me marriage is not just about a relationship between 2 people. It's the building block of an entire society. There is no societal value or benefit to two gay or lesbian people getting "married"."
"The need for marriage - why it exists - is to provide a stable framework for raising children and transmitting knowledge, information, and property across generations."
"I think when people support things like gay marriage, what they are really saying is that they no longer understand what marriage is or why it exists, or why it is important to society. It's part of the selfishness and short sightedness of our society that cannot see beyond the gratifications of its own immediate needs."
#8. To: Ferret Mike (#7)
#9. To: mehitable (#8)
#10. To: mehitable (#8)
"Mike, you can rage on and on about the nonsense of gay marriage for days - it doesn't matter."
"See while folks like you go on and on with your lovely bubble like theory of how life should be and how people should behave, reality comes in like a bear and bites us all in the ass. Reality is the declining demographics in virtually every western country that will eventually doom us to extinction because we are simply too foolish and silly to recognize what people have known for ages - that marriage is for raising children, not for self fulfillment. In our quest for self fulfillment and happiness we doom future generations to extinction."
#11. To: Red Jones (#0)
#12. To: mehitable (#2)
I don't believe in gay marriage either, but I think these preachers should also be preaching against no fault divorce and living together without getting married and having kids out of wedlock. To be fair, those things are more hurtful to the institution of marriage and society in general than gay marriage.
#13. To: mehitable (#9)
From: mehitable
To: mehitable 
#14. To: Ferret Mike (#10)
#15. To: Peetie Wheatstraw (#13)
#16. To: mehitable (#15)
Nice pic, btw.
#17. To: mehitable (#14)
"Marriage is about a function. That function is about having children and building the future and keeping society going. Marriage provides a stable framework for that and for the building and transmission of assets. The overwhelming majority of hetero couples will have children. Marriage serves them in the function of helping to raise and support those children. That is all marriage is for and all it ever was for. PERIOD. That's it. Other than that - why would anyone bother to get married?"
#18. To: Peetie Wheatstraw (#16)
#19. To: Ferret Mike (#17)
#20. To: mehitable (#19)
#21. To: mehitable (#19)
#22. To: swarthyguy (#20)
#23. To: Peetie Wheatstraw (#13)
#24. To: mehitable (#19)
"I just want you to know that my position isn't based on any hatred of gays, but just on my belief that marriage serves a function which is not primarily served by gay relationships."
" Apparently most gays agree with me, as when they have the option to marry or have a contractual relationship, the overwhelming majority choose not to. Therefore, it must not serve a purpose for most of them the way it does for heterosexuals. "
#25. To: Ferret Mike (#24)
#26. To: Ferret Mike (#24)
#27. To: mehitable (#25)
#28. To: mehitable (#26)
"It's about having children and bringing them up in a stable, legal framework."
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