By Rollin Grams, Bible and Mission.
Orthodox Christians are deeply concerned with laws passed in post-Christian, Western societies that are against nature. This raises the question of what constitutes good law and bad law. The law in America that recognised same-sex ‘marriage’ (Obergefell v. Hodges), is a good example of bad law. Christians are calling for the repeal of this law and Chief Justice John Roberts dissented from it.[1]
In Laelius’ speech in Cicero, On the Republic, he begins by saying:
True law is correct reason congruent with nature, spread among all persons, constant, everlasting.’
Here we have five criteria for true law: it is reasonable, accords with nature, is universal, is constant, and is everlasting (3.27).[2]
Any law establishing same-sex marriage fails each test. It is unreasonable in defying the meaning of ‘marriage’. Marriage does not define close relationships or sexual activity, nor is a small unit of mutually engaged persons. That which elevates marriage and family to something higher is where both are associated with laws of nature. Marriage has to do with procreation that produces a family. Same-sex ‘marriage’ only mimics this, perhaps by borrowing children in one way or another (surrogacy, adoption). It redefines ‘parents’ from being mother and father to being merely two adults.
Same-sex marriage is also contrary to nature. It defies God’s intent in creation. God created male and female, with the express command to be fruitful and multiply. Marriage between a man and a woman is natural and God’s intended purpose for two opposite genders becoming ‘one flesh’. Civil laws that are not grounded in natural law are temporary and functional, like speed limit signs on a road. One can hardly reduce marriage—the very basis of human flourishing—into something like a speed limit law. Cicero cautions civil laws that have no higher source than legislative or judicial pronouncements: ‘But truly the most foolish thing is to think that everything is just that has been approved in the institutions or laws of peoples’ (On the Laws 1.42). Also, ‘But we can divide good law from bad by no other standard than that of nature’ (On the Laws 1.44). He adds that both laws and what is considered honourable and disgraceful must be rooted in nature (1.45). Typical language to describe homosexuality in antiquity was that they lived ‘against nature’ (so also Paul in Romans 1.26-27). What a law claiming that homosexual marriage is permissible amounts to a merely civil law establishing a dishonourable practice as though it was grounded in nature when it is not.