One year before the League was formed Charles Sheldon wrote a book. "In His Steps" was written in 1896. The book inspired a popular personal motto in the 1990s, WWJD, "What Would Jesus Do."
If confronted with the question of whether to affirm homosexual partnerships in law I wonder, "What WOULD Jesus Do?" Social forces that wish to redefine familiar words like "family" and "marriage" often suggest that Jesus, and Christianity, support their vision for western man.
This belief is false. Jesus does not support the redefinition of words. Jesus, Christianity and the Bible are clear about family and marriage. This legal definition of something called "domestic partners" is not consistent with Christianity.
Is it truly compassionate and loving to affirm them, even in a secular society?
It is not either compassionate or loving to do so. If the state wanted to be truly compassionate and loving toward everyone involved in this matter then it would defeat this bill and go on to repeal the recently passed “sexual orientation” law. The government and media would uphold marriage and family, instead of allowing extreme ideas to dominate our conversation.
Successful societies define a family as a social unit that honors the place of a married mother and father as the centerpiece.
Just as we don’t put a bouquet of flowers on the counter and call it the dinner table’s centerpiece, civilizations don’t put a ‘domestic partnership’ in a law about families and call the partnership a family. The flowers on the counter may be pretty and smell pleasant. These pleasing qualities don’t, however, make them the centerpiece.
Some people are arguing that their partnerships are decent and honorable. They suggest that their partnership should qualify them for the same rights that society has created to honor marriage and family.
While these relationships may be pretty and certainly seem to emit a sweet aroma they do not constitute a family, and they – by definition under this law -- have nothing to do with marriage.
Betsy Smith, the leader of Maine’s most radical homosexual group, told the Kennebec Journal that this law is designed by them to be same sex marriage-lite. She admitted regarding transgendered people achieving full legal rights under their definition of civilization, “The system to use is marriage.” She allowed that her group’s support for this law is a good substitute since, “That’s not going to happen right now in Maine.”
I propose a simple truth that once informed our thinking most powerfully. That idea is this: Sex outside of marriage is wrong. We should make this truth into a test and pose it as a question with respect to all our laws, practices, entertainment and policies. The question could be asked, “Does this law (program, practice, policy) encourage or discourage sex outside of marriage?” If the proposal doesn’t discourage the practice, then the bill should be defeated.
Maine’s legislature has the power to pass LD 375, and it probably will. It is likely that we will continue to hollow out America’s culture by attempting to redefine words. Setting religion aside, this is not what Jesus would do. Jesus knows that this is nonsense.
Abraham Lincoln once famously asked, “How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?” We could ask as we ponder this proposed law, “How many definitions of family are there if the state calls some of them a domestic partnership?”
While it may be many things, a domestic partnership is no more a family than a dog’s tail is a leg.
Inviting couples into the practical institution of marriage is not hate. It is, in fact, loving to acknowledge the truth about the word marriage. Marriage is about a man and woman falling in love and building a family. Society has an appropriate interest in providing extraordinary support for it. Society has a duty to discourage other arrangements.
