Just last night, as most of you know, the New York legislature voted to legalize gay marriage in the state of New York, becoming the 6th US State to do so. Now, afterwards, I was spending my evening as I often do, taking care of business on the computer, with my TweetDeck open as per usual. I couldn't help but notice the reaction coming from the people in my timeline. Most of the people tweeting (who are a very conservative bunch, mind you), were very happy the law had been passed. They were quite enthusiastic about it. It was really kind of a larger wake-up call for me. I was unaware that so many in my timeline who were conservative held that opinion.

    I have believed for a fairly long amount of time that Homosexuality was the issue that conservatives compromised on. I notice many people who claim to be conservatives but seem to only be conservative fiscally. I believe being a conservative is not just fiscal conservatism, but the whole package. I know several people who think that being conservative only means supporting less government spending, etc. on fiscal matters. I also know many people who think that homosexuality is an irrelevant issue at this point in time. That is to say, they think that there are bigger issues facing us right now than social issues, and that fiscal issues are what we should be paying attention to. I saw a lot of both in my timeline last night, and I couldn't help but keep asking myself the same question again and again in my head: "We claim to be conservatives. So why is THIS the issue everyone seems ready to compromise on? Why do we suddenly become liberal when it comes to THIS issue?"

     I have long thought of possible answers to that question. The issue of homosexuality in society and its place in marriage and the family seems to be one of the most difficult to debate issues of our time. No one wants to have the debate, because, like with so many other issues, if you take a particular stance you can be chastised as being "against allowing people to exercise their rights" or "anti-personal freedom" or a "hypocrite" for wanting more personal freedom and then being in favor of preventing a certain behavior be allowed. I would therefore like to state, first and foremost before I delve deep into the issue, that I am emphatically anti-homosexual marriage. I do not believe that it is moral or acceptable to allow homosexuals to marry, and I do not believe that homosexuals have a right to marriage.

     Now, assuming I didn't drive you off immediately after stating my general positions, let me say this: I do not hate homosexuals. As a Christian, I do not approve of the behavior, but I do not at all hate gays. I know several homosexuals, many of whom are incredibly intelligent, kind human beings. My belief that they engage in an immoral behavior does not translate into ANY ill will for them, or any dislike or rancor against them personally. I usually feel it necessary to clarify this in any article I write when I'm discussing a touchy issue, because many people forget that or assume otherwise and get their knickers in a twist about it. So once more, I do not hate gays. I do not bear them any ill will. I disapprove of their behavior, not of them personally. Now, bearing that in mind, let us delve into the heart of the issue.

     I hear often, those in favor of gay marriage shouting "You can't just outlaw gay marriage because it feels wrong to you. You're just trying to legislate your morality!" True enough, homosexuality is contrary to my moral values. But that is no reason to discard my arguments against it. I am a Christian, and i do believe homosexuality to be morally wrong, as it is said in the scriptures (1 Cor. 6:9-10, Lev. 18:22, directly condemning homosexuality and Deut. 23:17 condemning sodomy, used as a synonym for homosexuality in the Bible). It does run contrary to my sense of morality. But does this fact discount my arguments simply because it's my morality? Not at all! Permit me to sum up my answer to this question before elaborating:

     1) Morality determines where we are culturally.                                                                         

     2) Morality Necessarily Flows From Religion.

     3) Legislating Morality is not a bad thing, if done properly.

     4) We should not allow acts that are immoral and wrong.

     5) Homosexual marriage is immoral and wrong.

     6) Therefore, Homosexual marriage should not be allowed.

     Now, we have the argument in generic form. The argument I have presented is logically valid. That is to say, if the premises are true, the conclusion is true as well. It is a sound, logically valid argument. Now there is a difference between valid and true. My argument may be valid, but it the conclusion is only true if the premises are true as well. So let's elaborate, to ensure my argument is proper and sequitur. 

     1) Morality determines where we are culturally.

     There is no better way to find out where we are as a society than by looking at our sense of morality. This is why I find social issues to be just as important as fiscal ones, if not moreso because they show where we are morally as a society. We know from looking at periods in history that if society is acting immorally, bad things will follow. Whether it be the atrocity of the Supreme Court declaring a black man to be property in the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, or the equally atrocious decision of the Supreme Court, ruling that a baby in the womb was not legally a life and could be terminated at the preference of the mother in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Morality is critically important to society, and though many people try as they might to seperate the two, morality is also directly tied to fiscal politics. How can we examine the economy and the stock exchange without also examining the truthfulness of the statements made by those working in that field? How can we vote to elect a representative or senator without examining to some extent, the truthfulness of the statements he is making. We expect society to act morally. We expect our politicians to be honest with us (though not so much anymore perhaps), we expect the law to be followed, we expect the people working at the grocery stores to give us the proper amount of change and not short us, we expect the doctor to honestly tell us what we need to hear, and we expect those who break the law to be rightfully served justice for their crimes. It is only natural that morality determines everything about our society and the way we behave. Note that while certain progress has been made in the moral field, such as increased respect of rights for minority groups and women, there has also been a great moral failure in the world recently. What should not be allowed is looked on as commonplace. We regularly put before our eyes disgusting and decrepid materials on television or the internet, we now EXPECT our politicians to lie openly to our faces when they give speeches, we are losing our sense of right and wrong in many ways. It is now looked upon by many to be perfectly acceptable to commit adultery, and we have certain sites now GUARANTEEING a successful affair. We have public schools where it is perfectly commonplace for children to smoke marijuana and have sex in the stairwells! We are losing morality in every sense of the word, and it is no wonder that society is in turn spiraling downward. We're removing what is essential for society to work. As the great theologian C.S. Lewis once said:

     "In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in ourmidst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."

     Truly, it cannot be denied that society is influenced in every way by its sense of morality.

     2) Morality necessarily flows from religion.

     One of the many arguments I hear against my position on this issue, is that I'm just legislating my morality. That I am trying to force my moral positions on those who may not hold it. That I cannot expect others to bend over backwards and contour to my sense of morality. That it is not okay to legislate morality at all.

     I emphatically disagree. True enough, not all people may hold my moral views on homosexuality. Many people may think that it should not be okay to mix morality and legislation. The fact that many people hold this position, does not change the fact that they are in error.

     Let us state the obvious first: Morality is critical to society, as we have just discussed. It is also true, that morality necessarily flows from religion. Your worldview and sense of morality is totally and utterly dependant on your religious beliefs. Opponents of my arguments often state: "But you're biased! You can't legitimately say that your religion is against gay rights, so you are, and we all must take that view!" It is very true, that my religious beliefs are the central tenet against gay rights, because my morality comes from my religion, and my relgion says homosexuality is wrong, so you do the math. This also does not immediately discount my argument. A Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Scientologist and an Atheist all behave the way they do based off of their religion. What is acceptable to an atheist may not be acceptable to a Christian based off of religious preference. What we think is okay is based precisely off of whether or not we think God is okay with it (if he even exists) and whether or not there will be punishment for it eventually. An atheist doesn't consider homosexuality wrong (or if he does, he hasn't a logical leg to stand on) because in his view, there is no God to give orders for behavior and there is no punishment for anything, so we should do what feels good. A Christian believes it to be wrong because they do believe God has voiced his opposition to it and that there will be punishment in the long run.  Society's behavior is determined by its morality. Morality is determined ultimately by religious preference. The conclusion that necessarily follows from these premises is that Society's behavior is determined by its overall religious preference. The implication that necessarily follows from this conclusion is this: We must therefore determine, which religion is the correct one, if any of them are, so as to properly know who's morals we should be following, or which sense of morality is correct. It is no secret that I am of the belief that Christianity is the correct religion and the correct morality for the world follows naturally from the Bible.

     Now, I'm not going to get into apologetics here, because it would make for far too long an article, and I'm banking on the reader (you) not being bored out of their minds at this point, but the answer to that question is one that deserves furthur inspection and debate. I recommend anything by Ravi Zacharias, or the great book I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist, by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek, with Foreword byDavid Limbaugh, which I believe to be the best apologetic work I've ever read.

3) Legislating Morality is NOT a bad thing, if done properly.

   The biggest negative use of words I find against my argument is the term "legislating morality." Many arguments have been made against that term and its usage. I however, find it inevitable in the real world. It is impossible not to legislate morality. There is simply no way we can have a government apart from morality. The entire purpose of government is to do the moral thing and protect the individual's rights and punish those who try and violate them. The question is not "Will we legislate morality?" but "Whose morality will we legislate?" Every law that is passed is an expression of society's morality in one way or the other. We outlaw abortion because we believe it to be murder, which is immoral. We believe in lower taxes and legislation expressing that sentiment because we believe it to be immoral to "legally steal" from those who have worked hard for their income. There can be no denying that we legislate morality. What is critically important, is that we choose the proper sense of morality to legislate (which i believe to be Christianity). For another great read on the topic of legislating morality, read the book Legislating Morality, also by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek.

4) We Should Not Allow Acts That Are Immoral And Wrong.

     This one is just plain old common sense. Only an idiot (or perhaps a postmodernist, but then again, aren't they essentially the same thing?) would argue that we should allow immoral and wrong acts. Government exists to prevent the immoral and wrong taking of an individual's rights while punishing those who commit those immoral and wrong acts.

5) Homosexual Marriage is Immoral And Wrong.

     My biggest regret with this article is that I am unable, because of length restrictions, to properly explain why the Christian morality is the correct morality. For that, I strongly recommend you take the time to read the works I've cited in my previous paragraphs. The men who wrote those works can properly explain to you in much greater detail, why the Christian morality is the correct morality. But knowing that the Christian morality is the correct morality, it can be easily and logically inferred that because the Bible says it is immoral, it is. That much is easily clear, because the Bible is abundantly clear on homosexuality, and morality is derived from religion, as we saw clearly in the second premise. Again, I STRONGLY encourage you to read the two Geisler & Turek books, as they will make it clear that Christian morality is the only proper morality, in a much better way than I ever could. So in conclusion here, we see that since homosexuality is in conflict with morality, we cannot condone it by allowing gays to marry in society.

    A common mistake made by proponents of the measure is to argue that the state should not allow benefits to some and not to others, and that marriage should be left up to the churches. Let me be VERY clear of my feelings on the matter there: Call it what you want, whether it be marriage, or a legal partnership, or a "civil union," it does not change what is being done. I am no stranger to those attempting to redefine the legal definition of marriage, in an attempt to make it seem as though nothing is wrong. A marriage is this: Two people of opposite gender, engaging in a sacred pact with God and each other, agreeing to belong to each other until they die, and to share all they have with each other both materially and physically, etc. Calling it a "civil union," and attempting to imply that homosexuals are NOT violating that sacred covenant, which is false. And knowing that this premise is true, we know that homosexuals are violating this covenant, and being moral beings under the proper morality, knowing that proper morals are to be respected, we know that the behavior cannot be condoned, which necessarily leads to the conclusion of the argument:

6) Therefore, homosexual marriage should not be allowed.

Gathering together all the premises, we see that due to its immoral nature, we cannot allow homosexual marriage. Let us summarize the 5 premises we used to get to this conclusion:

1) Society is defined in every way by its sense of morality, so it is critical that we are using the right one.

2) Our sense of morality necessarily comes from our religious beliefs, so it is critical that we are following the right religious belief.

3) Legislating morality is inevitable, so it is critical that we are legislating the right, correct morality.

4) It is simple common sense that we should not allow immoral and wrong acts.

5) Homosexuality is immoral and wrong based on the condemnations of it in the Bible, which upon furthur examination is seen to be the correct source of morality, and calling it a civil union doesn't make the immoral action any more acceptable or any less wrong.

Therefore, we cannot allow homosexual marriage.

    I hope this article has been informative and interesting. I tried to keep to a logical argument, and above all I'd like to ensure you all leave knowing that there is nothing wrong with having a political argument rooted in religious conviction. Because there is no such thing as true seperation of church and state. Because the churches are the source of morality, and morality is the reason for government, so there is no way to keep them seperate. Morality (and therefore religion) will impact government in some way or another always, so do not be afraid of having religious conviction as the basis for a political argument. Just know how to defend your position with logic and zeal. Thanks for your time, and I hope you enjoyed it!