“NOBODY CARES!”

It concerns what he considers to be one of the least important issues in his campaign, but I just had to write this post about it. For one thing, it is rather humorous. And secondly, it brings up a point that few Christians think about. David Brownlow, 2008 candidate for the U.S. Senate in Oregon, wrote:

"Gay" Marriage - A Call for the Separation of Marriage and State

We have spent way, waaaaay too much time worrying about this one. Marriage was intended to be a church issue - "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." That came from the Bible, not the Constitution, so why should we need a government license to engage in something GOD ordained from the beginning of time?

As usual, we waste a massive amount of effort fighting the symptom rather than trying to figure out what is causing the problem - which is that whatever we let the government license, the government will also regulate. Is it any wonder this has turned into a total circus? The proper solution is to get the government completely out of the marriage licensing business and let the churches handle it.

Scripture, common sense, as well as the anatomic realities, makes it undeniably clear that men were designed to procreate with women. (Well, duh!) However, if a particular church wants to break all the rules and make a mockery of the natural order of things, there is no need for us to get all shook up over it - just as long as we aren't forced to sanction or subsidize their behavior. The First Amendment applies equally - and particularly - to those who hold religious beliefs we may not agree with.

NO MARRIAGE LICENSE + NO TAX BREAKS + NO GOVERNMENT CONTROL = NOBODY CARES! Why does everything have to be done the hard way?

The “nobody cares!” part was what I thought was funny (and also the “well, duh!”). I never thought that I would see the word “anatomic” on a political campaign website. Speaking of anatomy, this guy isn’t afraid to step on anyone’s toes!

But the fact that most Christians have no idea what makes a marriage a real marriage is no laughing matter. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, “…for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband." (John 4:18). But there was no such thing as marriage licenses at that time! Such a thing was not even invented until less than 150 years ago! Some countries even today don’t have marriage licenses. What are they supposed to do, illegally immigrate to the U.S.?

So if, according to the Bible, it isn’t a piece of paper that makes a marriage different than just “living together”, then WHAT IS IT? To find out, click here. Then study the Bible for yourself to see if what we are saying is right.

For more on David Brownlow’s positions on the issues, check out my next post.

Franksgiving

Next Thursday is Franksgiving. What is Franksgiving?

The first Thanksgiving Day was actually declared by Massachusetts Governor William Bradford on July 30, 1623 (World Book). Since 1836, Thanksgiving Day had been celebrated on the last Thursday of the month. Before Abraham Lincoln’s declaration of 1863, different states and communities celebrated Thanksgiving on various days, but the tradition of celebrating it on the last Thursday of the November goes all the way back to George Washington. In 1939, FDR declared the second to last Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving Day. Why the change? He thought that it would be good for the economy to increase the number of Christmas shopping days (as if somehow you couldn’t Christmas shop before Thanksgiving). This commercialistic ploy was rejected by Americans, and in 1941 Congress established the fourth Thursday of the month to be the nationally recognized holiday.

But this is still a disgusting compromise, just as is combining Abraham Lincoln’s and George Washington’s birthdays. What if Congress changed the day that Christmas is to be celebrated? What if the President declared Independence Day to be the fifth of May to combine it with Cinco de Mayo celebrations? Would you go along with that? Just because the President, the Congress, or some bureaucratic government agency declares something to be so, that doesn’t mean that it’s true and doesn’t mean that you have recognize it to be true or go along with it. If the government starts issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples (actually they already have), then are those couples really married? If the Supreme Court or Congress declares blacks or the unborn to be nonpersons, does that mean that they are not human beings?

Though there are many older American Thanksgiving traditions which you could regard, one way you can show your opposition to manipulative government this year is by celebrating Thanksgiving Day on the 29th, not the 22nd. If you live in Canada, you can show your defiance of your corrupt government by celebrating Thanksgiving on the last Monday in October instead of the second Monday in October.

Be thankful that you still have the right to dissent in this way. We are losing this right piece by piece.