The movement toward same-sex “marriage” has every appearance of being an irresistible force, with recent elections indicating the inexorability of its spread across the Western world. Those who stand against it will be bowled over by it. The outcome is all but inevitable.

So say its proponents, at any rate. Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson, and Robert George beg to differ. Two years ago the three released an influential paper arguing that there is a solid and permanent reality to marriage that stands despite any social or political force that may challenge it. Although marriages differ widely in form and custom, and especially in each couple’s experience, there is nevertheless a stable and enduring core meaning to marriage itself that will endure any assault.

Their 2010 paper having been widely discussed and widely criticized, they have now extended it to book length in What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, available for pre-order now, and scheduled for release tomorrow as an ebook (Kindle, Nook, iBooks), about two weeks from now as a paperback. The three authors are, as was to be expected, very much holding their ground, as is the marriage defense movement they are helping to lead.

Gay “marriage” versus man-woman marriage—it is as close as a social issue ccould come to “irresistible force meets immovable object.” No wonder there’s so much energy being released around it. (more…)

We are within a few weeks of the release of What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense, an expanded version of Sherif Girgis, Robert George, and Ryan Anderson’s seminal paper on the same topic. I’ve read an advance copy of the book, and I will have a review forthcoming. For now, in the briefest possible terms, I would describe it as a work of philosophical reasoning in favor of conjugal (man-woman) marriage.

I could further describe it as charitable, clear, and persuasive, but those descriptions are beside the point for my current topic; for it seems that whether it’s well-reasoned or not, it carries the kind of toxicity with which Christians ought to quit poisoning our witness. Or that’s what I’m being told, at any rate. A commenter on my Thinking Christian blog wrote yesterday,

Perhaps it is time for the Christian church to re-evaluate our opposition to SSM. It doesn’t matter what reasons we give and how good they are, we are coming across as if we hate gays….

This commenter, “bigbird,” went on to say that since the battle is already lost, we might as well accept things as they are; and if we do, then eventually gays might realize we don’t hate them after all.

I’m encountering this plea more and more often these days. “Elections in four states last week are further proof that there’s no hope for the defense of marriage. Let’s let it go. Let’s  learn to love again. Anything else is just pushing the hate button.”

It seems so gracious and loving. If I were a gay man, though, I would be appalled.

For this is the message it would be sending about me: “My response is predetermined. No matter how cogently or charitably the other side reasons, the only reaction I can possibly offer in return is that it’s hateful.” Who could hear that, and not stand up and shout? “I am not programmed with your automatic answer! I am no dog salivating to the sound of a bell! I am a human being, and I can treat others as human beings, too.”

If anything qualifies as hate speech, it seems to me that bigbird’s recommendation would, for it assumes gays are by nature emotionally programmed and not fully rational. I do not mean it is in the same class of hate as, say, outright bullying or blaming hurricanes on homosexuals. Rather it is a more subtle form of contempt: it assumes gays are not grown up enough to engage rationally in reasoned discourse.

As a Christian I refuse to treat another human being that way.

Yet I am sadly confident that bigbird is at least partly right: there will be those who will receive What Is Marriage? as hate speech. Those who do so will reveal more about themselves than about the work they’re responding to.

I have hopes that they will be in the minority among SSM advocates. I have hopes that the majority will cast off rhetorical manipulations and automatically-expected responses, and treat the book as an invitation to reasoned discussion together as fellow human beings. Call me naive: I can dream, can’t I?

The President’s response to Hurricane Sandy was important to 4 in 10 voters, according to a Fox News report; and of that group, two-thirds voted for re-election. The storm took Mitt Romney virtually out of the news for days. Republican pundits have complained especially about the visual effect of New Jersey’s Republican governor working shoulder-to-shoulder with the President after the storm.

It’s quite possible that these factors turned the election. If so, how should we think about them?

The storm was unique in our history; it was undeniably an act of God.

Whether or not Barack Obama had manipulative political intentions for working with Gov. Christie, I wouldn’t presume to say, and for the question I’m raising now it doesn’t matter. Whether the timing of the governor’s praise for the President was politically expedient or not, the fact is that is that he was practicing high-integrity leadership in placing hurricane relief above politics. Or so it appears from here, at any rate.

If an act of God and a Republican doing essentially the right thing contributed materially to a Democratic President’s re-election, we who believe in God and are social conservatives should be slow to assume that God’s will was thwarted yesterday.

As if it ever could be.

Boston University scholar Stephen Prothero thinks evangelicals are putting politics ahead of God. It seems to me he’s mixed up some important categories, not only for evangelicals but for all believing Christians.

What Is Politics?
Politics, the art of working with people effectively to accomplish things together, has never been a pure sort of sport. It is an art involving imperfection. If it often seems like a necessary evil, nevertheless God ordained government (Romans 13), and our democratic form is the best devised so far. All of us who are citizens of democracies are inescapably involved in politics. So how do we navigate the imperfections without letting loose of our principles? Where perfect choices are not to be found, we can only seek to make good ones.

Politicians’ Character
For my money that begins with character. True leadership requires the ability to stay the course regardless of temptations to corruption. Every human is subject to that temptation; unfortunately politicians are so widely known for it that cynicism seems justified more often than not. Nevertheless there are distinctions among politicians: some have more clear and obvious track records than others of deceitfulness and manipulation. I can even lay claim (I think) to having met one or two of that rarest breed, the honest politician. I would of course choose a candidate who seems possibly honest over one who has proved she or he cannot be trusted. It is in any event a matter of choosing among imperfect options.

Politicians’ Religion
As for candidates’ religions—the topic of Dr. Prothero’s concern—we are not voting for pastoral leaders but for men and women who will be called on to accomplish public policy agendas. I don’t know why, then, it doesn’t make sense to choose those we think will be most effective in pursuing the best policies, regardless of their religion.

The Integrity of Voting For Less Than Perfection
Still some believers have expressed anxiety over an impossible hope for political purity. Right to life is the most salient issue for which it’s possible to define a “pure” position. Religious belief is another. No candidate could possibly appear perfect on everything that matters to a voter, but usually one is better than another.

God doesn’t demand that we stand on a principle of perfection when we work with people. If he did, then he would be requiring us to be ineffective in working with people. The world he’s placed us in doesn’t work that way. If we are to vote at all, we must vote for imperfect people.

There’s no violation of integrity there. Your vote and mine are not about enumerating all our principles. They’re about accomplishing what we each see as the best possible public policy.

The Rev. Dr. Phil Snider’s pro-gay rights performance before the Springfield, Missouri city council became an overnight sensation last month. More than 3 million people have viewed it. And no wonder: it’s brilliant theater.

I trust he won’t object to my describing it that way: it was he who acknowledged he was play-acting. He presented himself at first as a preacher speaking from the Bible in opposition to gay rights. He played that role for a minute or so until he pretended to stumble over the word “segregation.” Then in a superb surprise twist, he revealed that the lines he had been speaking had actually come from white preachers a half-century ago arguing against civil rights for African-Americans.

He played it well. The effect was dramatic. Shouts of “Bravo!” are echoing around the Internet, and understandably so. For supporters of gay rights, his play was just the thing to catch the conscience of conservatives.

Except for one thing: it was built upon emptiness and fiction.

I do not mean to take anything away from his dramatic effectiveness, but there’s something in the technique he employed that so takes the breath away, and so impresses the audience, that it becomes difficult to distinguish the performance from the argument.

And what was that argument? Apparently it was supposed to be something like this: “Racist white preachers used the Bible to support segregation, which was wrong; therefore conservative Christians who use the Bible today to oppose gay rights today are wrong. Future Christians will be as embarrassed over today’s opposition to gay rights as we are now over the racism in our past.”

But racist preachers (whoever they may have been) didn’t get their teachings from the Bible. To the extent they used the Bible to support racist conclusions, they were twisting it beyond recognition. (more…)