Mostly video today, couple of internet links to ones about marriage from OFC and Fam Research Council.
Basically saying:
"marriage pays".
Married people have more years of life, more money, and more happiness.
Kids from 2 parent homes show abou 3-5% likelihood of committing homosex, Two Dads= 16-27% likely, Two Moms= 22-57%.
70% of prison inmates did not have father in the home
72% of adults consider fatherlessness America's biggest social problem
Not marrying is bad, promoting homosex is bad
...Therefore, because we are rational, intelligent beings, we should decide for ourselves, in our legacy of religious freedom, what we want to do about it, since it is, supposedly, our responsibility - if we don't like how our government is violating our rights - to: "...alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Allow me to offer what this looks like to me, from what I know of the Bible and history.....
Problem is, in ourselves, we are not rational beings that can think straight. We have already proven we are subject to the insanity of idolatrous thinking in the area of law. We have assumed that creatures (instead of the Creator) have the ethical authority to define good and evil in the area of crime and punishment, and we have the power to control the consequences of behavior (because we are so smart and so strong, I guess).
When we assign the attributes of the Creator to the Creature like that, we can be sure that we have become foolish, even though we are thinking we are wise. Next, we know from Rom 1, that we are going to find ourselves enslaved to our own desires and subservient (not-free) to other creatures. We will find ourselves worshipping and serving the Creature, because that is the only alternative if we are not going to serve and worship the Creator. Even though these rational, intelligent arguments about the blessings of marriage, and the curses of sexual perversion -- have been argued longer than a generation, we are still finding ourselves, as a society, more corrupted and in a smaller minority than ever.
I think it is because we are trying to rebuild a wall, through a method that is destroying the foundation of the building we are trying to reconstruct. We have to go back to the acceptance that God requires us to punish the crimes He defines with the punishments He defines. He requires us to punish the guilty, and defend the innocent. If we refuse to do that, the only possible alternative is to punish the innocent and reward the guilty. How much money, did you say Planned Parenthood makes in a year? How much of your tax money do they receive to punish the ultra-innocent and reward the ultra-guilty?
In Genesis 9:5,6, God is clear that He, henceforth, will require the life of man from every man's brother. This appears icky to do, just like gutting a large mammal (the smell makes you want to throw up) so that you can have meat to eat. In fact, they might be related, since the same covenant gave us the animals to eat. But in the same covenant God promises that He will never destroy the earth again with water. (Which, I believe, is a big part of what the Global Warming people threaten as the Polar Ice Caps melt?) Since He has granted us privilege and responsibility to punish crime, the world may not ever get as bad as it was before the Flood again.
In contrast to this, the arrogant Wicked has, "....spurned God, he has said to himself, "Thou will not require it." Ps 10:13
Unfortunately, the Church has been leaning towards this "not require" position for the last century. Ask the Church, now, what law they desire to be enforced to protect marriage, what penalties do they dare advocate for fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, and feticide. Is it fines? Is it imprisonment? How does rewarding the lawless State with more income help the situation? How does burdening the tax-payer with a $34-60,000 annual bill to incarcerate some offender help anyone "pay their debt to society"? How do these things propitiate the God Whose law has been violated?
You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. (Num 35:33)
How does this cleanse the defilement of the land, such that it will relent from "spewing us out" through death or exile?
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion. "Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.
(Lev 18:22-28)
Even though, God's law of liberty required, for fornication, a substantial commitment of wealth (dowry, 25 shekels of silver) into the hands of the girl's father, we have a better idea. Do nothing. It is too icky to think about enforcing a civil enforcement (backed by the Sword, every law is always backed by the Sword, is it not?) of a requirement to work hard for a happy home under the counsel and blessing of the extended family?
Under God's law, Ex 22:16 it wasn't so much like a fine, the wealth was committed to the girl's father, to be plowed back into the couple's household in the multi-generational mission to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and rule it in peace and freedom. I get this from Laban's failure in the Jacob story. His wives complained that their dad had "consumed" the value of their dowry (14 years of Jacob's work). This was high motivation for the offending male to do what he could to persuade the dad to trust him to be a good husband to his daughter. Otherwise he would lose outright, that substantial wealth. Whatever he didn't have in savings would have to be made up in his labor to the highest bidder he could persuade. If he was willing to humble himself to demonstrate love and care for this daughter) he had already chosen to "treat like his wife", he would get that wealth back, (perhaps gradually, perhaps inheritance) under the counsel and blessing of the wife's extended family.
If he took advantage of her against her will (rape), it was double restitution, yet still with an opportunity to regain his "50 shekels", if he would be willing to repent, and fulfill his obligation as husband and father. This stronger penalty doesn't call the payment "dowry", so there would be even less expectation that the father would be willing to pass on this sizable chunk of wealth. Winning Dad's approval would be harder, given the more vicious nature of the offense. God adds this motivation that "he may not divorce her all his days". That would mean, in that Biblical culture, that he would be prevented from ever having another wife, even if she committed some sin or crime that would be so destructive to the marriage covenant that would justify his separation from her.
Now if fathers taught this in all their families, and the magistrate enforced it enough to circulate a few stories in a lifetime, it would be pretty rare that it would have to be enforced upon any particular rude and undisciplined male. Who wouldn't want to work harder at seeking the blessing of a girl's father through demonstration of dililgence and good character and maybe negotiating an attainable dowry? I will leave it to your imagination to appreciate other positive ramifications of this that might help explain why men, down through the centuries, have exclaimed:
Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. (Psa 119:97)
Therefore I love your commandments above gold, above fine gold. Therefore I consider all your precepts to be right; I hate every false way. (Psa 119:127-128)
I assume the penalties God favors for Adultery and rape of betrothed women to be just as gracious, positive, and life-giving and the best-possible way of dealing with the realities of human relationships in this sinful world -- as the dowry laws. We blanch at the idea of executing an adulterer (or any of the other capital sex crimes), even though we can't think up a good reason why the Creator of life should have to explain, to our satisfaction, why He has the right to set conditions upon men to continue to be trusted with that gargantuan gift. Ask yourself if more (relatively) innocent human beings die early and unnecessarily because of our preferred laws about sexual activity -- than would die if society were willing to execute those guilty of God's capital sex crimes.
In the videos today, we learned that 70-some% of discouraged, struggling married couples reported their condition as "happy" within 5 years. I think this would be improved if the law was helping close the door to bad alternatives to your present spouse. A husband would not be having so much temptation to give up on loving a wife into a more helpful sweetheart, if he was sensible of the severity of the alternatives.
Now, you can do whatever political action you want, on trying to improve our current laws. Write your congressman, if you like. But no matter how good a law the civil magistrate might legislate, judge, and try to enforce -- if the Church of Jesus Christ stands up and says, "No, that is not right. You shouldn't do that." -- it is not going to survive as a practice in the culture. Even if the Church ignores the law and doesn't actively teach and support it, I don't think it is going to stick.
This is what it looks like to me, therefore, it seems like one of the most profitable things I can do is to study out things like this, so I know how to conduct myself, how to influence others, and how to make the case for justice in the culture, as far as it is my responsibility to influence family, friends, magistrates, voting ballots, and pastors. I've looked at the alternatives to a whole-Bible understanding of God's law, and it looks like Exodus-Deuteronomy contains the best and easiest source for our meditation. Some of this has been altered by God's revelation since John the Forerunner, but not as much as you might think.
Otherwise, we are left to the arbitrary, subjective opinions of the Dictator (president) (who may not be qualified, or he may not fear God, be a man of truth, or hate dishonest gain), committee (Congress/Judges), or Majority (who are almost never right, and it is physically impossible obtain a completely accurate statistic) -- In other words -- Sinful Men. Why would we think they have the knowledge, wisdom, love, and ethical authority to define crimes and punishments? Do they have the power to protect the individual from being judged by Christ, through time and eternity, according their works?
If you see something better, I would be glad to profit from your wisdom.
