To the Readers' Forum:
A recent letter claiming same-sex marriage is "a right" and "laws cannot be passed according to the Bible, it's unconstitutional," reveals fundamental ignorance of American law and history. Sodomy itself was illegal almost everywhere until recent decades, so previous generations of Americans, lawmakers, and judges saw no constitutional problem. Our laws were actually based on Judeo-Christian law and morality, and the likeness of Moses the great lawgiver still appears on the Supreme Court building.
The Declaration of Independence emphasizes that our rights come from the Creator, not man or government. Washington stated "it is impossible to rightly govern without God and the Bible." Franklin called on the Constitutional Convention to pray for God's help. Each state had a state-recognized church in those days; the First Amendment simply guarantees freedom of religion and restricts the Federal Government from establishing a national church. Read our Founders' writings, learn our history! The First Amendment is being severely twisted by modern liberals.
Same-sex marriage is still not legal in 42 states, and 31 of them have banned it, so our arguments are hardly "stale." Intelligent people, whether secular or religious, should recognize the homosexual-rights movement is based on a huge modern hoax. Numerous studies of identical twins have been done, none of which show that people are "born gay." If they were, 100 percent of the identical twins of "gays" would also be gay! But in several large scientific studies, as few as about 5-10 percent were (for example the Bearman/Bruckner study, American Journal of Sociology, Mar. 2002).
One recent letter contained many false claims concerning the Bible. Dietary prohibitions (the "ceremonial law") were only given to ancient Israel for a time, and should never be confused with the unchanging moral standards God revealed for all people! Furthermore, Jesus did address homosexuality. He affirmed the moral standards of the Old Testament in all His teaching, and in fact went beyond it (e.g., concerning what constitutes adultery, in the Sermon on the Mount). The exception He made for divorce (Matthew 19:3-12) was in cases of "porneia," commonly translated "sexual immorality" by modern translators. This Greek word, in the usage of that time, included all sex outside of traditional, heterosexual marriage, including homosexuality. Jesus reiterated what God's creation and intention was from the beginning in Genesis. And Jesus' apostles gave unmistakable teaching on homosexuality: Romans 1:26-28, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 1 Timothy 1:10, 2 Peter 2:6-10, Jude 7.
Randall S. Braley, M.Div.
Jamestown