An New Attack on Marriage
It would appear that someone is finally getting it. An editorial in the Mesa Tribune, dated December 3, 2002, states, “Society stands at a crossroads as regards marriage.” The reason for the profound reflection on earth’s oldest institution? “Marriage has been under assault, by means of easy divorce laws and increased cohabitation… The result: A social disaster manifested in emotional rootlessness, child poverty, educational underachievement and crime. If it was by way of experiment, this weakening of marriage and family life, it is time to write the experiment off as a tragic failure.”
The editorial was a reaction to the announcement by the American Law Institute. It has just proposed what the Tribune calls “the legal equivalent of abolishing it altogether.”
In a story on Newsday.com, dated December 4, by David Caruso, we find this: “American divorce and child custody laws need to be updated to extend rights to gay couples and unmarried parents, an influential judicial think tank says. The American Law Institute, an independent association of lawyers and judges that has wielded an extraordinary influence over American legal practices since its founding in 1923, spent 10 years evaluating family law before publishing its findings in May. Among its suggestions:
* A person's sexual orientation should not be considered by courts in custody matters.
* Homosexual couples in long-term relationships should have to make alimony or child-support payments if they split up.
* Unmarried heterosexual couples who break up after long relationships should fall under traditional divorce laws, especially if they own joint property or have children.
The report's principal author, Arizona State University law professor Ira Mark Ellman, said the goal was to close holes in family law that have left judges guessing as to how to deal with nontraditional families.”
Back to the Tribune article: “The organization has recommended that states treat all ‘domestic partnerships’ as they do marriage. ‘Domestic partners,’ the institute says, ‘are two persons of the same or opposite sex, not married to one another, who for a significant period of time share a primary residence and a life together as a couple.’”
We are primarily interested in what the Bible says. In Romans homosexual relationships are condemned without quarter, and are blamed on people refusing to have God in their knowledge. “For this cause God gave them up unto vile passions: for their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working unseemliness, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was due” (Rom. 1:26-27). “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9-10 – NKJV).
And what of those who live together without the benefit of marriage? ). “Neither fornicators, … will inherit the kingdom of God” The writer of Hebrew tells us: “Let marriage be had in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled: for fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Heb. 13:4).
There are prices to pay for living in these unconventional arrangements, none of which are taken seriously by those who enter into them – until it is too late. The most serious consequence is the loss of the soul. That lost soul is so much more difficult to reclaim because it not only is off the mark, but it is pointed in the wrong direction altogether.
There are other consequences that society is only now beginning to admit. The Tribune cites the American Heritage Foundation’s Heritage Center for Data Analysis’ report on ”how divorce and cohabitation affect children. The results were grim. One highlight: A child raised by a never-married mother is nine times more likely to live in poverty than a child born and reared in an intact-marriage household.”
Looking at that same website, statistics also show similar disadvantages to be the result often of being raise in a homosexual union.
We are living in a world where self gratification is the rule. We are sowing the wind, we will reap the tornado. To often the church is affected by loose attitudes in society. One of the reasons so many have divided over the issue of divorce and remarriage is that it is so common today in society.
We are to be a distinct people. “Wherefore Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, And touch no unclean thing; And I will receive you, And will be to you a Father, And ye shall be to me sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:17-18). “And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, and ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2). Jesus describes us as the salt of the world (Matt. 5:13), but if we lose our distinction, what benefit can we be to his cause.
The solution to many of the problems we confront as Christians in society today is a deeper devotion to God. That devotion will manifest itself in more care for and study of his word, as we make it the rule of our lives.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith Jehovah. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). God designed and made us. He knows what is best, not only for the individual and his happiness, but for society and its prosperity.
