Homosexual Marriage

"Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable."-Leviticus 18.22

In the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus, God lists a series of sexual behaviors that are forbidden to his people. Staying away from these behaviors makes his people different from the Egyptians whom they left and the Canaanites they are about to conquer, and identifies them as God's people.

Even today our society recognizes some of these things as just wrong. Other practices, with the passage of time, have become accepted, if not normalized. In chapter 18, God says not to have sex with any close [probably blood] relative, nor with step-parents or siblings, grandchildren, in-laws, nor with a woman and any of her close relatives. Don't have sex with your wife during her period, with your neighbor's wife ever, with people of the same sex as you, with animals, or with dead bodies.

Pagan people practiced these things and much worse. By being different, God's people showed their unique relationship with God (Lev 20.24) and avoided the destruction experienced by the pagan nations around them. Instead of "showing" their relationships with God by wearing Torah scrolls around their necks or putting Ark symbols on the backs of their chariots, they showed their allegiance to God by living a certain way.

California has decided to allow homosexuals to marry by changing the definition of marriage. Groups trying to defend the traditional definition of marriage are vowing to stop it. As Christians in America, we enjoy the civil rights of voting, expressing disagreement, and settling societal issues in court. We have the right to vote against laws that we believe are contrary to God's will. The church has not really fully exercised this right. It has aligned itself with particular political parties, but it did not protest Jim Crow laws, and its protest against the war in Iraq was dull, to say the least. Don't get me started on housing costs, welfare, healthcare, or environmental issues.

Homosexual behavior is outside the will of God, as are several other means of sexual expression (sex before marriage, divorce, etc.). God has His reasons for putting certain things out of bounds. Many of those reasons are obvious.
Even if our whole country decides to legitimize homosexual "marriage", it still does not make it right for God's people. We are still required to preach and teach that God's definition of marriage is one man and one woman for life. We could be protested against, sued, and maybe even killed; but we are still called to faithfulness in the face of any persecution (Matthew 10.22).

As long as we conduct ourselves in a God-honoring way, we can protest, vote for or against, write letters, call our congresspeople, or simply speak up. Each of these things is our right as American citizens. More importantly, however, let's remember that we, too, have our sins. Without the grace of God, none of us would be God's people. If we do remember, then we can share with or at least show God's grace to those who believe differently.