Same Sex Marriage: Vital Topic & Dangerous Distraction

In America Today the most basic and fundamental foundation of our Nation’s soul is in jeopardy. Worse yet, the current debates are more concerned with distraction than correction. I am talking about the American family.

As the Supreme Court heard arguments last week regarding Same Sex Marriage, powerful voices lined up on opposing sides of this understandably controversial question—and for good reason. There is a lot at stake. Equality, Justice, Fairness, Religious Freedom, Biblical Values, and fundamental understandings of this most basic institution of human relationships all hang in the balance. Yet, for all the theatrics and passionate perspectives, the debate is frighteningly dangerous for what it is not doing.  

The Same Sex Marriage debate is not really addressing the fundamental demise of the America family. Consider some of these realities.

• The national Divorce rate continues to increase
• Sexual intimacy is increasingly recreational rather than covenantal
• Fidelity in sexual relationships is often the exception, not the rule
• Increasing numbers of children are born into single-parent families
• Gender or Relational inequality within intimate household relationships promotes abuse, exploitation, and unjustifiable human indignity
• Domestic Violence and child abuse destroys lives, innocence, and security at alarming rates
• Household members live in states of virtual warfare amongst themselves within the walls of their homes
• Media portrayals and the misguided hero-worship of sexist, abusive, sarcastic, or unfaithful romantic partners creates a world of tacit acceptance of flagrant, dehumanizing behaviors or attitudes
• Families spend very little (if any) time together as a family or in shared activities such as meals, games, prayer, or recreation
• Addiction to drugs, alcohol, pornography, casino gambling, state lotteries, and materialism divert precious financial resources away from family needs and create hostile, contentious, and unsustainable relationships within the family
• Individuals (particularly women and children) are subjected to degrading and dehumanizing behaviors throughout the culture
• Preditory lending, explotitiave credit, and excessive economic injustice in the market economy divert vital resources away from most American families
• Media portrayals of  people create dangerously deceptive and destructive images that erode self-confidence and undermine one's genuineness in the world
• Unaffordable (or unobtainable) health care creates an unbearable financial strain on families

These are some of the real issues destroying families in the United States today. They are realities that affect same-sex families as well as heterosexual families. They cut across gender, racial, economic, geographic, religious, or educational lines. They affect all segments of modern society and universally threaten to undermine the most vital component of human life.

In time, the Supreme Court will rule. Some will like the outcome, some will not. Regardless of how anyone feels about Same Sex Marriage, amid the passionate posturing and prophetic proclamations that will permeate the debate, let us not forget the central reality. A broken household carries its own destruction regardless of who makes up the partnership at the head of that household. No matter how Marriage is ultimately defined, no definition will make any difference until we work together to strengthen the covenantal relationships that anchor the American household. 

It is Not About the Guns

Your political and religious belief system is rooted in fundamental moral drivers that direct all of your most passionate expressions of right and wrong. One of the most powerful drivers in humanity is the one that compels us toward care and averts us from harm. With the possible exception of mentally ill individuals, every person is motivated by these two opposing factors.

When innocent children and their teachers are senselessly slaughtered, and the media exploit the carnage in a massive news feeding frenzy, our moral sensitivities toward care and averting harm are absolutely affected. Since we are inescapably human, this violation of our shared moral foundation is nearly absolute. It triggers an emotional, visceral, and moral response. What differs, however, is the way we individually interpret care and harm—particularly when it comes to violence and firearms.

Some have a moral affinity toward the gun. It is a necessary means of protection from harm and an essential assurance that care will be provided. Any threat against the individual, the family, the community, or even the nation can be duly defended by the possession and responsible use of the firearm. Without it, one cannot ensure proper care for what is important and one cannot fend off potential harm.

Others have a moral aversion to the gun. It is a weapon of death and violence that threatens care and only causes harm. It was created strictly to kill and has little or no redemptive value. The world would be safer without it and its deadly consequences and as long as it is allowed to exist, the world will be a more harm-filled, less caring place.

These two powerful moral interpretations quickly (and predictably) rise to the surface any time there is an unexplainable shooting catastrophe such as last week’s Sandy Hook School disaster. The debate is powerful and polarizing.

Some people feel a strong moral outrage to take up guns, arm teachers, place armed guards at the doors of the schools and use the weapon that promotes care and averts further harm to prevent future carnage.

Some people feel a strong moral outrage to call for stricter gun control, greatly restricting who can own a weapon, limiting the firepower and ammunition capacity, and reducing the deadly potential of those weapons that inhibit care and promote harm so as to prevent future carnage.

The danger is, most people dig their heels in on one side or the other of this debate, absolutely convinced of their own moral superiority; and essentially they are right! Each moral argument is superior given the visceral and basic moral assumptions that are driving the belief system. The problem is, rather than understanding our shared moral foundations, both sides are demonizing and ostracizing the other as being immoral.

Rather than arguing who is right and who is wrong (because we all know that “we” are right and “they” are wrong and that is not going to change) it is time that we start looking at what is really threatened here. Our sense of safety has been threatened. As a culture, we were not able to provide care to those slaughtered in Sandy Hook Elementary. Vicious harm was inflicted and the only thing we were able to to is watch the incessant news coverage and wring our hands in shocked disbelief while our moral outrage bubbled up from inside.

Our common ground is our most basic moral foundations—not the guns that were used or how society should view them. If we are truly going to find healing after this tragedy and seek authentic means of eliminating the potential for future carnage, a debate on gun control will not help. It is time we have the real conversation—our shared humanity.  

This is Not My Favorite Time of the Year

            If I may be painfully confessional and overly personal, there is a little truth that I would like to admit publicly. This is not my favorite time of the year.

            Generally, the aftermath of the Thanksgiving holiday leaves me exhausted and wondering if I should start my diet now considering all the turkey and sides that I consumed over the previous weekend.

           This time of the year I also prayer contending with the delicate tension between the strictly secular observances that mark the month of December and the vital Christian celebration of Christ’s birth. As much as I love the trimmings and trappings—not to mention the giving—associated with Christmas, I find much of the commercialism of the season hard to balance against the humble beginnings of Bethlehem some two thousand years ago.

           Part of my struggle comes from the fact that as the church prepares for Christmas and what is one of the most sacred observances of the year, the harried pace of Christmas shopping, card-sending, social gatherings, office parties, and a powerful need to hold onto long-standing traditions crowds out the message of the Manger. By the time Christmas Eve arrives, so many of us are exhausted from the rush, tired of hearing Christmas music, and worried about making January’s bills.

Although well-intended and passionately expressed, Christians who argue for the right to say “merry Christmas” instead of “happy holidays” or defend the necessity of having manger displays on the courthouse lawn do not help my discouragement this time of the year. As I see it, such passionate cries only cheapen the faith to mere slogans and plastic figurines. After all, Christ was not born to be a public display or a holiday.

Christmas is, in fact, very much a very secular and non-religious holiday. In spite of a whole host of religious threads woven throughout history, much of the traditional observance is a rich blend of sacred and secular, pagan and Christian, Bible and custom. In addition, Christmas traditions are observed by people who have little or no allegiance to Jesus Christ simply because it has become a powerful—and unifying—cultural norm.

            I am not against Christmas. Santa Claus is as much a part of my family as in most. Soon the tree will be up in my home and I have already started my shopping, sending cards, and wishing people the very best of holiday cheer. I cherish the traditions and get no greater pleasure than blessing people with special gifts. Christmas truly is a unique and powerful time of the year. Part of me really loves Christmas.

        Yet, in this weird time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I find my heart longing for something more. Within many Christian traditions, the answer is Advent—a time of preparation and anticipation. Most importantly, it is a time of prayer and blessing.

          As we enter this season, let us all be as intentional about prayer, preparation for the Biblical Christmas as we are about the traditional celebrations of the season.