The Tahoe Daily Tribune's Opinion Editor, Claire Fortier, in her column of March 3-5, concerning California's Proposition 22, indicated we should not limit marriage to heterosexual couples, stating that anyone should be entitled to marriage simply because marriage is a contract and any two people can make a contract.
She accused the church of using the government to do its dirty work, and asked when the church was going to understand the need for separation of church and state. She further accused those against such a union of being bigots. She then stated that history has fostered diverse cultures and interpretations of marriage, and therefore, Americans should not limit their interpretation of marriage.
Since a like measure may appear on the Nevada ballot, and the citizenry may be confronted with the same decision, I would like to offer a contrary opinion.
According to Webster's Dictionary, marriage is: the legal union of husband and wife; the ceremony, civil or religious, by which two people of opposite sex become husband and wife. The operative word here is opposite. It states nothing about two people of the same gender. In fact, the only reason marriage exists, is because God, in His Infinite wisdom, instituted the union of a man and a woman to be the facilitators through which He brings forth life. Since two people of the same sex cannot procreate, it is a logical deduction that God did not intend them to marry nor accrue to themselves any of the prerogatives thereof.
As for separation of church and state, that provision ensures this government, as stated in our Constitution, may neither establish nor abridge religion for this people. The church is operating perfectly within its framework to state the truth, whether anyone wants to hear the truth or not. Calling the church or anyone else who promotes the truth, a bigot, simply because one does not want to hear the truth, does not make that church or person, a bigot. Don't kill the messenger simply because you don't want to hear the message!
A bigot as stated in Webster's Dictionary, is: one obstinately and unreasonably wedded to a particular belief or creed. The operative word here is unreasonably. The church, while promoting the truth of God's natural and moral law, can hardly be called bigot because that implies God's Truth is unreasonable, therefore, fallible. God is not capable of fallibility.
The church uses the political system to further the truth, because this government exists to serve the people whom it represents. Does not the gay and lesbian culture use the government to promote its own agenda? Does that mean if the gays and lesbians use the government, it's clean work and that if the church uses the government to proclaim the truth, it's dirty work?
Our nation, founded on Judeo/Christian principals, is not concerned with what other governments or other cultures construe as marriage. That argument is tantamount to saying just because some other idiot jumps out of a plane, sans parachute, we should do the same! What are we, lemmings?
This is the same government asserted in the Constitution of the United States, by our forefathers, which assumes certain inalienable rights endowed by its Creator. When are we going to understand, that by acknowledging these rights, we also acknowledge His Dominion over us and our lives. Therefore, is it not logical that we are expected by this same Creator to acquiesce to both His Natural Laws and His Moral Laws, The Ten Commandments? These are not suggestions and we will be held accountable for not adhering to them, just as Sodom and Gomorrah were. Surely, we all know what happened to the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, who would not desist from their agenda which affected all but a handful of citizens of two whole towns! What's that old saying about history repeating itself?