The Problem With Expanding The Definition Of Marriage Series

H2 O Marriage

Pastor Dan Little

Adfontes.djl@gmail.com

07-31-11

As you know, our New York lawmakers passed legislation on June 24th by which they expanded (as they put it) the definition of marriage to include same-sex marriage.

This legislation became law on Saturday July 23rd, 2011, and thousands of same-sex weddings were performed around the State for those who wanted to celebrate the new law by getting married. And there were many outward shows of celebration.

Today I want to tell you what is the most powerful thing we can do in the face this kind of moral and emotional darkness.

Before I do that I want to say that in expanding the definition of marriage to include same sex unions, our lawmakers have done something very different from what they think they have done. What they have done is very much like expanding the definition of water.

You start with H2 O

 expand it a little by adding an “S” after the small “2”

expand it a bit more by adding a small “4”after the “O”,

so your expanded definition looks like this: “H2 S O4”

They sort of look alike in written form.

They sound a bit similar when you say them out loud.

The two liquids look identical in a glass.

Here is the difference; drink H2 O you will suffer no harm; you may even be refreshed. But if you should somehow ingest H2 S O4 very bad things would happen to you, like (for example) you could die. My brother Gary spilled some on his hand when he was a young man in high school. That was probably 40 plus years ago and he still bears the scars from the chemical burn.

The problem is this, in expanding H2 O to “H2 – S - O4” , you don’t have water at all. What you have is a whole different substance called sulfuric acid.

After a fashion, that is what our lawmakers have done. They have expanded the definition of marriage and are offering something they think is sweet but will prove to be quite bitter. Time will tell if I am right.

They have given us the perfect Isaiah 5:20-21 storm which sets us up for the coming of “woe” as the Isaiah puts it, we would say misery. They have “…put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! ESV

Most of you are familiar with the moral implications of this new law. I want to think for a moment about a couple of the practical implications of this law and tell you why I think this new law will produce woe for both homosexual as well as heterosexual people. Let me give you just three reasons, but there are many more than these three.

1. For many in the homosexual community there is a very high level of promiscuity, a constant succession of partners that they kind of mill their way through. Will this new law suddenly draw them toward a monogamous life, as in “till death do them part?” In some cases maybe, but in the vast majority of cases they will soon crave the former drama of the latest and greatest encounter.

The homosexual drive is for wide, horizontal freedom with growth in the number and kind of encounters. What marriage provides is vertical freedom and growth, depth, height and foundational stability. It lacks the intense drama found in promiscuity. I don’t see this law working in the direction they want to go. I think divorce lawyers are going to make a fortune on same-sex marriage couples who find monogamy (or even an attempt at) too tame on the dark side of the drama scale. I doubt that many of them will marry.

2. Along that same line, it is very common for those who live the homosexual life style to maintain a relationship with two or three or more people in the same period of time, a same sex “ménage à trois” sort of thing. The day after New York passed their expanded meaning of marriage I heard a trio of homosexual ladies on Public Radio complaining that the new law was of no help for them unless all three of them could get married to each other. The new law did not allow for their “ménage à trois”. Many, once they have thought it through, are going to find that this law does not include their life style.

So once the initial blanch of marriages takes place, I expect to see the rush of weddings cut to a trickle.

3. Consider the potential woe that this will bring to millions of H2O marriages.

A) If the statistics for health problems in homosexual community remain about the same as now, then health insurance for married couples and families will be driven out of sight.