Apologetics for the Masses #266

Topic

Same-sex "marriage" and homosexuality...

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General Comments

I appreciate all of the kind notes from folks regarding my return to the newsletter business last week...they are most appreciated!

Introduction

Had a friend send me a question about same-sex "marriage." Obviously a "hot" topic these days in the land of the free and the home of the not-so-brave politicians and judges. Below is the question and my response.

Challenge/Response/Strategy

Question
I need some help as to where to go in the Bible regarding gay marriage and homosexuality.  I have several discussions with a friend on this topic and am just at a loss.  This person keeps pointing to Deuteronomy for God allowing multiple wives, etc.  Help!  I know the entire Bible is not meant to be literal but it is so hard to understand what is inspired, spoken or law.  If you could point me to some references, I would be very grateful!

Sherry

My Response

Sherry,

First of all, ask your friend exactly where in Deuteronomy, or anywhere in the Bible for that matter, does it say that God "approved" of multiple wives. Did God "allow" multiple wives? Yes, He did. But He allows all sorts of sin to occur. There are only two places in Deuteronomy that I know of where it speaks of multiple wives. They are:

1) Deut 21:15-17, where God is giving instructions on a particular situation where a man has two wives, one loved and one unloved. Does Scripture anywhere say that God "approves" of this situation? No, it does not. It is simply a matter of God dealing with the situation as it is in order to insure justice for the child of the unloved woman. The lack of a rebuke about multiple wives does not mean God approves multiple wives. Does God "approve" of a man not loving his wife? I doubt it, yet nowhere does this verse have God rebuking a man for not loving his wife. I.e., the lack of rebuke is not to be interpreted as approval.

2) Deut 17:17, "And [the king] shall not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away..." is an explicit instruction against having multiple wives. An instruction that was obviously disobeyed, most notably by Solomon.

So, again, where does Deuteronomy have God "approving" multiple wives? As far as I know, it doesn't. God allowed a number of things to happen in the Old Testament that He did not like - such as divorce - yet He allowed them anyway. Why? Well, we know why, because Jesus tells us: Matthew 19:3-8, "Pharisees came up to Him and tested Him by asking, 'Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?' He answered, 'Have you not read that He Who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one?' So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let no man rend asunder.' [The Pharisees] said to Him, 'Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put [his wife] away?' He said to them, 'For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.'"

Jesus tells us that "from the beginning," and here He is referencing Genesis 2:24, it was one man and one woman becoming one flesh. That was before the Fall. After the Fall, man, and in particular the Israelites strayed from that norm because of the "hardness of their hearts." God did not approve it, but He allowed it and dealt with it as it was. However, Jesus is re-instituting the original norm. He is here to lift us back up to where we need to be - one man, one woman, one flesh, one marriage.

Your friend is not going to want to accept any of this because of the hardness of his or her heart. That is easy to see because of the contortions they are going through to try and justify homosexuality. They obviously don't want to look at the New Testament evidence that quite plainly shows that same-sex unions are contrary to God. For example: Romans 1:24-28, speaking of lustful man exchanging the truth about God for a lie which resulted in them engaging in "dishonorable passions" - "Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct." According to this one passage of the Bible, same-sex relations are "unnatural," "shameless," "dishonorable," "error," "base," and "improper." I don't know how much clearer it can be.

Furthermore, Jesus Himself, in the passage I referenced above (Matthew 19:3-8) mentions how, "from the beginning," it was, and still is, one man and one woman who gets married. He was very clear on that. Not two men; not two women. And should they respond, "Well, that was just the convention of the time and that's why Jesus didn't say anything about two men or two women," all you have to do is remind them that Jesus broke all sorts of conventions of the time, so that couldn't be the reason; furthermore, Jesus was and is God. Are you telling me God is bound by convention? Not at all.

Then there is 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God."

And 1 Timothy 1:9-10, "The law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, immoral persons, sodomites [aka homosexuals], kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine."

Finally, below is a short article I published not too long ago in our diocesan newspaper. It talks about just using common sense to look at a man and at a woman and see how nature designed them. Leave God out of it. How did nature design them? Nature designed man and woman to fit together - not two men, not two women. So, if nature designed it that way, then it is inherently contrary to nature - unnatural - for two men or two women to try join together. And, if there is a God Who created nature, then that which is contrary to nature, is contrary to the God of nature.

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Q: If two people are in love, and want to devote their entire lives to each other in the bonds of marriage, what does it matter if they are of the same sex, as long as they are faithful to one another?

A: Let me answer this question in two ways. First, by looking at the question from a purely natural viewpoint...the viewpoint of nature. One can, through simple observation and basic common sense, come to the undeniable conclusion that nature has designed a certain complementarity between male and female. Simply put, nature has designed men and women to have physical relations with one another. Nature did not design men to have physical relations with men nor women to have physical relations with women. So, from a completely natural viewpoint, homosexual relations are inherently unnatural. Which means same sex “marriage,” is inherently unnatural.

Second, we can look at this question from the viewpoint of nature’s God. If homosexual relations are inherently unnatural from the viewpoint of nature, then they must be inherently unnatural from the viewpoint of nature’s God. St. Paul tells us this is indeed so in Romans 1:26-28, “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”

Here in Romans, the Word of God tells us that homosexual relations are “unnatural.” And, we see in a few other places in Scripture, strong condemnation of homosexual relations (e.g., Lev 18:22; 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10), not to mention the whole story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. So, Scripture tells us that same sex marriage is not only unnatural, but it is ungodly.

The Church, continuing thousands of years of Judeo-Christian teaching, tells us that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,” (CCC #2357). If homosexual relations are inherently unnatural, ungodly, and intrinsically disordered, then to put a stamp of approval on such relations by allowing homosexual “marriage,” is not an act of love, or compassion, rather it is an act that is bereft of love and is actually hurtful to the individuals involved as well as society as a whole. It is hurtful to all involved because you would be putting the stamp of approval on a lie...there is not now, nor will there ever be, any such thing as same sex “marriage,” regardless of what laws men may pass to say otherwise.

God established marriage as the union of one man and one woman. To put the stamp of approval on something that God has, through nature and through His Word, told us in unnatural, is gravely disordered and can do nothing but lead to misery.

Now, please note, that everything the Church teaches, everything that Scripture speaks of in this regard, is focused on homosexual activity, it is not focused on homosexual inclinations. To have a homosexual inclination is not, in and of itself, a sin. To act on that inclination is a sin. Someone who has homosexual inclinations has a disordered sexuality, but that does not mean they are inherently more wicked or more sinful than anyone else. They are like the rest of us - all of us who have obstacles that we need to overcome in our daily struggle to discern God’s will for our lives and to follow that will.

The Church says that, “Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom...by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection,” (CCC #2359).

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Hope all of that helps...

Summary

This is a topic that will undoubtedly need to be revisited in the not-too-distant future as the prevailing law of the land on same-sex "marriage" is now contrary to God's law. If you have any questions about this topic, or have been confronted with arguments that you don't know how to respond to, let me know and we'll see if we can take a crack at them.

Have a great week!

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