Obama comes out of the closet on gay "marriage"

President Obama deserves credit for his decision- misguided as I believe it to be- to drop his "evolving" position on same-sex "marriage" and come out in favor of it. If this is what he truly believes, he ought to be frank and honest with the American people in saying so- even if, as I believe, it's going to hurt him in November.

Whether Joe Biden blundered into forcing his hand or not, it's always good to see a politician level with the American people- and actually rather refreshing.

The qustion arises, though, as to how we who support marriage as God instituted it and- to speak in more civilly appropriated terms- for the reasons for which society has always espoused it should respond. I agree with the Manhattan Declaration folks that we should avoid getting into Facebook wars over this. The Left can be counted on to continue its intellectually dishonest presentation of gay "marriage" as a civil rights issue even though sexually monogamous relationships are rare even among "committed" male homosexual couples, with the inevitable result that same-sex "marriage" completely changes what society expects of "married" couples in this regard. At a time when marriage as an institution is on shaky ground, and monogamy in particular is increasingly rejected even as an ideal, there can be no reasonable question that the effect of re-defining marriage to include at least male homosexuals would go a substantial distance toward not only impacting heterosexual marriage adversely, but even destroying the institution outright.

The case has to be made firmly but with civility and tact. I think Mitt Romney is the guy to make it. And the remaining corners of the traditionalist coalition are going to have to give up their silly and long-outmoded arguments which try to somehow make sexual orientation rather than behavior the issue. The alternative is not only to play into the hands of the revisionists by making the absurd charge that disapproval of homosexual behavior- which certainly is chosen, even though orientation is not- is somehow a matter of choice.

The increasing acceptance of homosexual behavior and even of gay "marriage" is a direct result of the success of the sexual revisionists at fogging the distinction between orientation and behavior. To disapprove of a behavior cannot be "bigotry," and traditionalist's chances of making our case depends to a considerable extent on our ability to belatedly turn the debate into a more honest direction.

The stakes are a great deal higher than many realize; in Canada and England, believe it or not, publicly saying that homosexual behavior is a sin is a criminal offense, punishable by imprisonment. The First Amendment rights of free speech and freedom of religion are endangered by the ongoing confusion between orientation and behavior, and we cannot allow it to continue unchallenged.

Here are Bonhoeffer biographer Eric Metaxas's thoughts on how the World War II German Lutheran theologian and martyr might respond to this particular moment in history.

The Lutheran distinction between God's Kingdoms of the Right (the realm of the Gospel, NOT the Church) and His Kingdom of the Left (the domain of the Law, NOT the State) is often misunderstood. Luther insisted as strongly as Calvin that both are precisely God's Kingdoms, and that the distinction between the realm of the specifically Christian and that of the merely decent and ethical does not amount to the abandonment of the political arena to the devil- or to the secularist.

It is not a violation of the distinction between Church and State for people whose beliefs originate in religious conviction- people like the Abolitionists, for example, or the leaders of the Civil Rights movement or the movement against child labor or even the peace movement of the '60's- to seek to convince those who do not share their religious convictions that measures which arise from them are good public policy.

Meanwhile, here's a debate on the subject between Dennis Prager and Perez Hilto(WARNING: objectionable content!):



HT: Real Clear Politics