why i don’t support marriage

No, that’s click-bait. Local man is unable to can so we will all make do with this post, for now.

But it is a response to why I don’t support same sex marriage, as if one cares for your opinion.

Dear reader, you have heard the claim

since God is love, he must surely approve of any kind of human love, including SSM.?

Did you know that

This argument fails on two accounts.?

I am sure you did not know. We are told

Firstly, nobody approves of “all kinds” of love. If I’m married to woman A, I’m not allowed to also marry woman B; and if woman B is already married, I can’t marry her even if I’m single myself. And if she is actually an under-age girl, any attempt to woo her will rightly land me in prison!

which is a fallacious argument. We don’t marry all those we love. I love my father, but I am not about to marry him. And there are people who have gotten married without love. So it is possible to approve “all kinds” of love, without marrying the people loved.

In the second argument we are told

Secondly, when we talk about God’s love, we’re not talking about romantic love. It’s quite a serious category mistake to equate God’s holy, self-sacrificial love, driven by a desire to set us free from sin and death and bring us back into his Kingdom, with our fickle human love which depends so much on feelings and selfish desires!

This preceding argument is wrought with many problems. First among them, we don’t know which god is being referred to here. There is Cupid/Eros gods of love and desire. And as far as I can tell, it is desire for romantic love not some abstract love. The second problem with this argument is many theologians have told us we cannot know the mind nor the nature of god and therefore we are not in a position to comment on what god loves or does not. We have no idea of any other love other than that which we express in human language.

The pastor writes

it’s never OK to disagree with the Word of God. We may sometimes find we have misunderstood the Bible, and therefore have to change our belief based on this improved understanding – but we’re never at liberty to simply disregard what God has said!

which means, it is not the bible that is wrong for example in commanding that you shall not suffer a witch to live or that you can beat up your slave as long as they don’t die the same day, but that it is us who have misunderstood the word of god. If you are not stoning your wives for wearing mixed garments, you are disregarding the word of god and hell awaits you.

Now, to the ridiculous

It seems fairly obvious that before Adam sinned, slavery wasn’t a thing; and in eternity, slavery will no longer be a thing. So it’s perfectly logical for the church to oppose slavery: the Bible is clearly pointing that way itself.

which is saying nothing really. For fucks sake, how many days were there between Adam being created an idiot and him eating the apple? How many people were there to be enslaved? The bible was used by those pro and anti slavery to bolster their positions. There is no clear command in the bible that says, fuckers, thou shall keep no slaves.

The pastor continues

The same goes for gender discrimination. Even though it’s always been an aspect of sinful human society, and Paul gives guidelines for how that should play out in the Christian community, it’s fairly clear that originally, the only difference was biological.

and ffs, how is this any less problematic? In fact, the way women are disregarded in the bible is not just seen in Paul’s writing but throughout. Most women have no names. I’ll wait for who will tell me the name of Lot’s wife or Potiphar’s wife. I am waiting.

We are told, for those who may have been unaware, that while the bible makes allowances for patriarchy and slavery and while moving towards abolishing them, the same cannot be said for homosexuality. He says

The Bible makes cultural allowances for divorce and polygamy (again: allowing, not approving!), but the movement is clearly back towards the starting point: life-long monogamous heterosexual marriage.

If Paul is to be believed, the movement is towards celibacy, which must have been the original idea in the first creation stories where Adam was created alone. Or maybe he was to be intimate with goats and lions because shortly later, we find warnings to not sleep with goats.

If the pastor wants to have this

I think we can justifiably assume that when Jesus condemns “immoralities” in Mark 7:21 (the Greek word is plural), this would have included everything OT Law considered immoral, including homosexuality.

the question is, why stop at homosexuality or same sex marriage? Are there greater or lesser sins? And how are they weighted? I know the only sin the authors of the NT thought weighed many kilograms was sin against the spirit (Mark 3:28–29, Matthew 12:31–32, and Luke 12:10). In fact, if the pastor is treating homosexuality as a sin, then it is forgivable.

The pastor concludes with love the sinner, but condemn the sin. In his words

obviously homosexuals can be followers of Jesus. Rejecting SSM must never mean that we reject those who experience same-sex attraction. Everyone is welcome in the Kingdom of God, regardless of their flaws and weaknesses; after all, we’re all weak and sinful and in need of the forgiveness and restoration only Jesus provides.

which always leaves me asking why would women still be in church? And why would any gay person remain a member of a church who sees them as living in sin?

Well, anyone who wants to marry, by all means, marry. Anyone who doesn’t want to, should not. And anyone who is not sure, maybe should get married and if they don’t like it, leave it.