Why Christians Object To Participating In A Same-Sex Wedding (It Isn’t Bigotry)

Apr 22, 2017 by Jill

by Jared Dobbs, The Federalist:

One popular way to resolve the tension between same-sex marriage and religious freedom is to criticize the motivations of religious believers. Usually that criticism is based upon, at best, ignorance about what those believers actually believe or, at worse, a purposeful distortion of their convictions.

[…] For Christians, Same-Sex Marriage Is Impossible.

Because marriage is marked by complementarity and oriented toward creating children, Christians don’t think same-sex unions can constitute marriages. Treating same-sex unions as marriages thus communicates profound untruths that are unsettling to many Christians. If the man is absent from a marriage, it communicates that God’s love and faithfulness is not essential to human flourishing; if the woman is absent, then our need to honor and commit to Christ is seen as optional. Divorce being a covenant failure, same-sex marriage is a failure to grasp the covenant itself.

Marriage also reflects important truths about children and their upbringing. The Bible’s understanding of marriage reflects the truth that each child has one mother and one father, and it teaches that there is great value in each child knowing and being raised by those two people in one family unit. Same-sex marriage, on the other hand, tells the world that there is no inherent value in connecting children to their two biological parents. It says that any two people will do.

Thus, conscientious Christians who decline to affirm or participate in same-sex weddings are acting out of a conviction basic to their faith. To them, marriage is an essential means by which God communicates truths about himself, humanity, and the relationship between the two. Telling Christians, like Barronelle Stutzman, to affirm or participate in same-sex marriages effectively tells them to contradict what they believe to be foundational truths about the world.

Our nation’s commitment to religious freedom forbids the government from forcing people to violate their convictions. This is the guarantee of the First Amendment, and it should ensure that Barronelle and others like her have the freedom to live and work peacefully in accordance with their conscience.

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