Wednesday, February 26, 2014

A turning to God in Ukraine

After disgraced Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych fled Kiev, leaving behind his palatial presidential palace and, allegedly, partially concealed evidence of money laundering, Oleksandr Turchynov was appointed interim president.

Turchynov is well known in the Ukraine. He is a successful novelist, has been head of one of the country's first independent news agencies, and is a Baptist pastor. Yulia Tymoshenko, released from prison after two years, announced her decision to run for president. Turchynov is said to be her right-hand man.

Ukraine is predominantly Orthodox and Catholic. It is only 2.4% Protestant, but the Baptist Church has grown in prominence since Soviet days, when evangelical churches were illegal.

According to the European Baptist Federation, the appointment of Turchynov as interim president is not only a good thing for believers in Ukraine, but an answer to fervent prayer.

"During all these days of protests and confrontation, the Christian community has been the light and the salt for both parties. The doctors, nurses, cooks, students and other Christian groups have been helping wherever there was a need," the federation said.

"The situation caused the churches and even denominations get united in prayers and fasting for the peace and God's intervention. People started crying out to God and the TV media spoke about the role of the church and quoted Scriptures. 

"What Ukraine needs is not just a change of people in authority but a change of the system and the relationship of the authorities to ordinary citizens. Ukraine needs love, mercy and forgiveness. Ukraine needs Christ."

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Rewriting the law from AD 1285

Colin Hart, campaign director of Coalition for Marriage, wrote the following letter yesterday to supporters of traditional marriage:

"The Government now realises that same-sex marriage will require a massive rewrite of legislation dating back to 1285 AD – including airbrushing out the terms 'husband' and 'wife' from many of our laws. Crucial safeguards will also have to be introduced to safeguard the Monarchy.

"The Government are rushing to introduce all these changes through ministerial orders.

"The proposals include changing the law:

   • To prevent a man from becoming Queen in the event a King 'marries' another man
 

   • To prevent a man from becoming the Princess of Wales in the event that the heir to the throne enters a same-sex marriage

   • To stop the 'husband' of a male Peer being referred to as Duchess, Lady or Countess

   • To replace the terms 'husband' and 'wife' with 'partner' or 'spouse' in a huge raft of English law.
  
"Redefining marriage means rewriting our language as well as our laws. All this just goes to show that marriage should never have been redefined.

"C4M said all along that thousands of laws would need to be changed. These, and other far-reaching consequences, flow from redefining marriage.

"MPs are expected to agree the draft orders tomorrow with the House of Lords considering them on Thursday. No doubt there will need to be further changes to clear up the legislative mess created by the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act.

"Parliament may have changed the law, but it is vitally important that we continue to assert the truth that marriage is between one man and one woman.

"Yours sincerely,"

Monday, February 24, 2014

The cost of suffering for Christ

A seven-year-old boy, Anugrag Gemethi, went to Sunday school one day in Rajasthan, India, and didn't come home. His body was later found floating in a pond. He was gagged, his neck was cut, he had burns to various parts of his body and his toes were broken. A post mortem showed he had finally died of drowning.

His father Harish said he and his family had been threatened countless times by Hindu extremists since he became a Christian 10 years ago. He had given the names of those who had threatened his family to police, but they did not appear to take any notice.

  Eliya Meshack, a youth worker and a father of two, was killed by machete while leading an overnight prayer meeting in Mwanza province, Tanzania. He died on the spot. Two other Christians were seriously injured. Eliya's wife said they had been receiving threats for six months. They had reported them to the police, but no action was taken
 
  Teenager Shaloom Naeem, who lost his entire family in the Peshawar bombing in Pakistan, is encouraging fellow Christians to continue to attend church. He went to church with his father, mother and sister on the morning of the bombing and returned with no one. "Although my entire family is dead," he said, "I am not afraid to go to the church. We should thank God for His great love."

Shaloom's father wanted him to become a university professor. He hopes to fulfil his father's dream.

  Six Christian girls were reportedly raped by Islamic extremists in Zanzibar. Dozens of pregnant Christian women are reported to have been refused medical care by Muslim healthcare professionals in Zanzibar. One baby died.

  North Korea forces women to undergo abortions and young mothers to drown their newborn babies, according to a recent United Nations report. 

People found in possession of a Bible were tied to stakes and machine gunned. Thousands of adults and children were forced to watch. Relatives of those executed were sent to prison camps. Around 70,000 Christians are estimated to be in prison camps, where they are brutally treated, tortured and worked to death.

In an unprecedented move, United Nations commission chairman Michael Kirby wrote to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un warning that he could be tried for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

 Are you being persecuted for Christ?

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Running out of fuel changed his life

Mark Rose learned to fly at 16. When he was 22, he was a pilot on a fleet of helicopters working on a pipeline in the Arctic.

He was completely unchurched, and an atheist. Until one day, when he ran out of fuel in a snowstorm. . . 

He had flown some hunters to a large river in the Arctic. On his way back, he found herds of caribou were covering his first and second choices for a landing site.

He was running low on fuel, so he radioed for a weather report at an airport at a place called Kotzebue. "Come on in, the weather's fine," the operator told him. He decided to take a chance on his fuel holding out. Then the weather changed. He ran into a snowstorm, and it was dark. He had to follow a ribbon of river below.

His options were running out. He had been flying on empty for 30 minutes. He had friends - fellow pilots - who had died in similar flying conditions. "I don 't want to die," he thought.

The engine started missing. He was waiting for silence, then having to crash at night. He did something he had never done before. He prayed. "If there's a God," he said, "I need Your help now."

He heard a voice speak to him. "Son, you said the right thing." Immediately, the snowstorm cleared. Below, he saw the lights of Kotzebue. "It might as well have been the lights of heaven," he said.

The trouble was he had to fly another 20 miles over Kotzebue Sound, a broad expanse of saltwater.

That was a challenge. Mark believes God added an hour's worth of fuel to his tanks to save his life. When he landed safely at Kotzebue, he was a believer in God. But he still wasn't a Christian.

He began to date a Christian girl, who challenged him to read the Bible. As he did, he fell in love with the God of the Bible, for His reasonableness, His forgiveness, His justice.

He had another brush with death in a helicopter that crashed. It completely flattened the seat he rode in.

Because of a mix-up over schedules, he missed a flight with some contractors. Shortly after it took off, it crashed, killing everyone on board.

On a flight to Fairbanks, he began to think about his life. "I'm not happy," he thought. "This whole thing is not working.

"Everything I read in the Bible is either a lie or it's true. It's all or nothing. If God can raise someone from the dead and forgive my sins, that's exactly what God has for me."


He gave his life to Christ then and there. When he landed at Fairbanks, he was a new creature. What the Bible calls "a new creature in Christ."

You can read the full story here.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Does biblical creation stand up?

America had the Big Debate two weeks ago.

Bill Nye, "the science guy," is an author, educator, television personality, inventor, executive director of the Planetary Society and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

Ken Ham is a Bible-believing Christian, author, president of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum.

The event, which was widely publicised, was witnessed by hundreds in a packed auditorium and thousands on the internet. The subject: creation versus evolution, of course.

I have been slow to locate the video, but I have done it. You can watch the debate for yourselves - free of charge - here.

Very interesting stuff.

Friday, February 14, 2014

Right to die gone mad

In Belgium, where deaths by euthanasia have increased by almost 500 per cent since euthanasia was legalised in 2002, it's said that 47 per cent of assisted deaths are not even reported. Yesterday the Belgian parliament decided by 86 votes to 44 to extend euthanasia to children of all ages.

There must be a "hopeless medical situation of constant and unbearable suffering that cannot be eased and which will cause death in the short term." The child must understand the meaning of euthanasia, must be determined in its decision, and the decision must be approved by the child's parents and doctors.

(When capital punishment was outlawed in Britain, it was promised that life would mean life. Except that it didn't happen. When abortion was legalised in 1967, abortion was for a few women in extreme circumstances. Except that we now have abortion on demand.)

Too young to drink, too young to drive, too young to marry, but old enough to decide to die?

Writes Cranmer: "Can six-year-old children really grasp the enormity of ending their lives? Is not a journey to the undiscovered country just an awfully big adventure, where one may soar through the sky with Peter Pan, frolick in the snow with Father Christmas or live happily ever after with My Little Pony?. . .

"One cannot pursue both equality and liberty, and our post-Christian relativist culture offers no agreed way of interpreting moral argument or mediating between rival premises. And so the shrill rights of the child must necessarily include the right to die because they have the right to live."

Friday, February 07, 2014

If it's worthwhile, stand up for it

"Marriage exists to unite a man and a woman as husband and wife to then be equipped to be mother and father to any children that that union produces. It's based on the anthropological truth that men and women are distinct and complementary. It's based on the biological fact that reproduction requires a man and a woman. It's based on the sociological reality that children deserve a mother and a father."

So Ryan T. Anderson, editor of Public Discourse and co-author of a book on marriage, told the Indiana House Judiciary Committee recently.

Good sense, I say.

Not that our American brethren have the corner on marriage pronouncements. I just thought the wording was particularly appropriate.

Here in the UK, February 7 to February 14 - including Valentine's Day - is Marriage Week. Tomorrow, February 8, large numbers of couples across the UK will reaffirm their wedding vows simultaneously at 5.15pm in an attempt to beat the world record for the number of couples - currently 1089 - renewing their vows at the same time.

Tom and Doreen Shaw, from Sheffield, are celebrating 50 years of marriage tomorrow, and say they can't wait to join with friends and family to reaffirm their vows on their golden wedding day. Says Doreen: "We started out with nothing, but our marriage wasn't built on what we had, rather on who we were. Marriage has made us better people, I hope."

Says Dave Percival, Big Promise project coordinator: "The thought of thousands of couples from Newquay to Orkney saying together: 'We will' is just fantastic. The occasion will be both serious and huge fun."

Marriage is one of the finest institutions ever devised. If you think so, why not say so? You'll find details on the Big Promise website.
10 1
 38What is marriage, why does marriage matter for public policy, and what are the consequences of redefining marriage? Adapted from testimony delivered on Monday, January 13, 2014 to the Indiana House Judiciary Committee.
[You can watch video of this testimony here.]
I will be speaking today from the perspective of political science and philosophy to answer the question “What Is Marriage?” I’ve co-authored a book and an article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy with a classmate of mine from Princeton, Sherif Girgis, and with a professor of ours, Robert George. Justice Samuel Alito cited our book twice in his dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court case involving the Defense of Marriage Act.
The title of that book is “What Is Marriage?” An answer to that question is something we didn’t hear today from people on the other side. It’s interesting that we’ve had a three-hour conversation about marriage without much by way of answering that question.
Everyone in this room is in favor of marriage equality. We all want the law to treat all marriages equally. But the only way we can know whether any state law is treating marriages equally is if we know what a marriage is. Every state law will draw lines between what is a marriage and what isn’t a marriage. If those lines are to be drawn on principle, if those lines are to reflect the truth, we have to know what sort of relationship is marital, as contrasted with other forms of consenting adult relationships.
So, in the time I have today, I’ll answer three questions: what is marriage, why does marriage matter for public policy, and what are the consequences of redefining marriage?
Marriage exists to unite a man and a woman as husband and wife to then be equipped to be mother and father to any children that that union produces. It’s based on the anthropological truth that men and women are distinct and complementary. It’s based on the biological fact that reproduction requires a man and a woman. It’s based on the sociological reality that children deserve a mother and a father.
Whenever a child is born, a mother will always be close by. That’s a fact of biology. The question for culture and the question for law is whether a father will be close by. And if so, for how long? Marriage is the institution that different cultures and societies across time and place developed to maximize the likelihood that that man would commit to that woman and then the two of them would take responsibility to raise that child.
Part of this is based on the reality that there’s no such thing as parenting in the abstract: there’s mothering, and there’s fathering. Men and women bring different gifts to the parenting enterprise. Rutgers sociologist Professor David Popenoe writes, “the burden of social science evidence supports the idea that gender-differentiated parenting is important for human development and the contribution of fathers to childrearing is unique and irreplaceable.” He then concludes:
We should disavow the notion that mommies can make good daddies, just as we should the popular notion that daddies can make good mommies. The two sexes are different to the core and each is necessary—culturally and biologically—for the optimal development of a human being.
This is why so many states continue to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, many doing so by amending their constitutions.
So why does marriage matter for public policy? Perhaps there is no better way to analyze this than by looking to our own president, President Barack Obama. Allow me to quote him:
We know the statistics: that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of school, and twenty times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.
There is a host of social science evidence. We go through the litany and cite the studies in our book, but President Obama sums it up pretty well. We’ve seen in the past fifty years, since the war on poverty began, that the family has collapsed. At one point in America, virtually every child was given the gift of a married mother and father. Today, 40 percent of all Americans, 50 percent of Hispanics, and 70 percent of African Americans are born to single moms—and the consequences for those children are quite serious.
The state’s interest in marriage is not that it cares about my love life, or your love life, or anyone’s love life just for the sake of romance. The state’s interest in marriage is ensuring that those kids have fathers who are involved in their lives.
But when this doesn't happen, social costs run high. As the marriage culture collapses, child poverty rises. Crime rises. Social mobility decreases. And welfare spending—which bankrupts so many states and the federal government—takes off.
If you care about social justice and limited government, if you care about freedom and the poor, then you have to care about marriage. All of these ends are better served by having the state define marriage correctly rather than the state trying to pick up the pieces of a broken marriage culture. The state can encourage men and women to commit to each other and take responsibility for their children while leaving other consenting adults free to live and to love as they choose, all without redefining the fundamental institution of marriage.
On that note, we’ve heard concerns about hospital visitation rights (which the federal government has already addressed) and with inheritance laws. Every individual has those concerns. I am not married. When I get sick, I need somebody to visit me in the hospital. When I die, I need someone to inherit my wealth. That situation is not unique to a same-sex couple. That is a situation that matters for all of us. So we need not redefine marriage to craft policy that will serve all citizens.
Lastly, I’ll close with three ways in which redefining marriage will undermine the institution of marriage. We hear this question: "how does redefining marriage hurt you or your marriage?" I’ll just mention three in the remaining time that I have.
First, it fundamentally reorients the institution of marriage away from the needs of children toward the desires of adults. It no longer makes marriage about ensuring the type of family life that is ideal for kids; it makes it more about adult romance. If one of the biggest social problems we face right now in the United States is absentee dads, how will we insist that fathers are essential when the law redefines marriage to make fathers optional?
Much of the testimony we have heard today was special interest pleading from big business claiming that defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman would make it hard for them to appeal to the elite college graduates from the East and the West coasts. We heard no discussion about the common good of the citizens of Indiana—the children who need fathers involved in their lives. Redefining marriage will make it much harder for the law to teach that those fathers are essential.
Second, if you redefine marriage, so as to say that the male-female aspect is irrational and arbitrary, what principle for policy and for law will retain the other three historic components of marriage? In the United States, it’s always been a monogamous union, a sexually exclusive union, and a permanent union. We’ve already seen new words created to challenge each and every one of those items.
"Throuple" is a three-person couple. New York Magazine reports about it. Here’s the question: if I were to sue and say that I demand marriage equality for my throuple, what principle would deny marriage equality to the throuple once you say that the male-female aspect of marriage is irrational and arbitrary? The way that we got to monogamy is that it’s one man and one woman who can unite in the type of action that can create new life and who can provide that new life with one mom and one dad. Once you say that the male-female aspect is irrational and arbitrary, you will have no principled reason to retain the number two.
Likewise, the term "wedlease" was introduced in the Washington Post in 2013. A wedlease is a play on the term wedlock. It’s for a temporary marriage. If marriage is primarily about adult romance, and romance can come, and it can go, why should the law presume it to be permanent? Why not issue expressly temporary marriage licenses?
And lastly, the term "monogamish." Monogamish was introduced in the New York Times in 2011. The term suggests we should retain the number two, but that spouses should be free to have sexually open relationships. That it should be two people getting married, but they should be free to have sex outside of that marriage, provided there’s no coercion or deceit.
Now, whatever you think about group marriage, whatever you think about temporary marriage, whatever you think about sexually open marriage, as far as adults living and loving how they choose, think about the social consequences if that’s the future direction in which marriage redefinition would go. For every additional sexual partner a man has and the shorter-lived those relationships are, the greater the chances that a man creates children with multiple women without commitment either to those women or to those kids. It increases the likelihood of creating fragmented families, and then big government will step in to pick up the pieces with a host of welfare programs that truly drain the economic prospects of all of our states.
Finally, I’ll mention liberty concerns, religious liberty concerns in particular. After Massachusetts, Illinois, and Washington, DC, either passed a civil union law or redefined marriage, Christian adoption agencies were forced to stop serving some of the neediest children in America: orphans. These agencies said they had no problem with same-sex couples adopting from other agencies, but that they wanted to place the children in their care with a married mom and dad. They had a religious liberty interest, and they had social science evidence that suggests that children do best with a married mom and dad. And yet in all three jurisdictions, they were told they could not do that.
We’ve also seen in different jurisdictions instances of photographers, bakers, florists, and innkeepers, people acting in the commercial sphere, saying we don’t want to be coerced. And that’s what redefining marriage would do. Redefining marriage would say that every institution has to treat two people of the same sex as if they’re married, even if those institutions don’t believe that they’re married. So the coercion works in the exact opposite direction of what we have heard.
Everyone right now is free to live and to love how they want. Two people of the same sex can work for a business that will give them marriage benefits, if the business chooses to. They can go to a liberal house of worship and have a marriage ceremony, if the house of worship chooses to. What is at stake with redefining marriage is whether the law would now coerce others into treating a same-sex relationship as if it’s a marriage, even when doing so violates the conscience and rights of those individuals and those institutions.
So, for all of these reasons, this state and all states have an interest in preserving the definition of marriage as the union—permanent and exclusive—of one man and one woman.
Ryan T. Anderson is the William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and the Editor of Public Discourse. He is co-author, with Sherif Girgis and Robert George, of the book What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, and is a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Notre Dame.
- See more at: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/01/11880/#sthash.FceQFwnj.dpuf
10 1
 38What is marriage, why does marriage matter for public policy, and what are the consequences of redefining marriage? Adapted from testimony delivered on Monday, January 13, 2014 to the Indiana House Judiciary Committee.
[You can watch video of this testimony here.]
I will be speaking today from the perspective of political science and philosophy to answer the question “What Is Marriage?” I’ve co-authored a book and an article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy with a classmate of mine from Princeton, Sherif Girgis, and with a professor of ours, Robert George. Justice Samuel Alito cited our book twice in his dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court case involving the Defense of Marriage Act.
The title of that book is “What Is Marriage?” An answer to that question is something we didn’t hear today from people on the other side. It’s interesting that we’ve had a three-hour conversation about marriage without much by way of answering that question.
Everyone in this room is in favor of marriage equality. We all want the law to treat all marriages equally. But the only way we can know whether any state law is treating marriages equally is if we know what a marriage is. Every state law will draw lines between what is a marriage and what isn’t a marriage. If those lines are to be drawn on principle, if those lines are to reflect the truth, we have to know what sort of relationship is marital, as contrasted with other forms of consenting adult relationships.
So, in the time I have today, I’ll answer three questions: what is marriage, why does marriage matter for public policy, and what are the consequences of redefining marriage?
Marriage exists to unite a man and a woman as husband and wife to then be equipped to be mother and father to any children that that union produces. It’s based on the anthropological truth that men and women are distinct and complementary. It’s based on the biological fact that reproduction requires a man and a woman. It’s based on the sociological reality that children deserve a mother and a father.
Whenever a child is born, a mother will always be close by. That’s a fact of biology. The question for culture and the question for law is whether a father will be close by. And if so, for how long? Marriage is the institution that different cultures and societies across time and place developed to maximize the likelihood that that man would commit to that woman and then the two of them would take responsibility to raise that child.
Part of this is based on the reality that there’s no such thing as parenting in the abstract: there’s mothering, and there’s fathering. Men and women bring different gifts to the parenting enterprise. Rutgers sociologist Professor David Popenoe writes, “the burden of social science evidence supports the idea that gender-differentiated parenting is important for human development and the contribution of fathers to childrearing is unique and irreplaceable.” He then concludes:
We should disavow the notion that mommies can make good daddies, just as we should the popular notion that daddies can make good mommies. The two sexes are different to the core and each is necessary—culturally and biologically—for the optimal development of a human being.
This is why so many states continue to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, many doing so by amending their constitutions.
So why does marriage matter for public policy? Perhaps there is no better way to analyze this than by looking to our own president, President Barack Obama. Allow me to quote him:
We know the statistics: that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of school, and twenty times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.
There is a host of social science evidence. We go through the litany and cite the studies in our book, but President Obama sums it up pretty well. We’ve seen in the past fifty years, since the war on poverty began, that the family has collapsed. At one point in America, virtually every child was given the gift of a married mother and father. Today, 40 percent of all Americans, 50 percent of Hispanics, and 70 percent of African Americans are born to single moms—and the consequences for those children are quite serious.
The state’s interest in marriage is not that it cares about my love life, or your love life, or anyone’s love life just for the sake of romance. The state’s interest in marriage is ensuring that those kids have fathers who are involved in their lives.
But when this doesn't happen, social costs run high. As the marriage culture collapses, child poverty rises. Crime rises. Social mobility decreases. And welfare spending—which bankrupts so many states and the federal government—takes off.
If you care about social justice and limited government, if you care about freedom and the poor, then you have to care about marriage. All of these ends are better served by having the state define marriage correctly rather than the state trying to pick up the pieces of a broken marriage culture. The state can encourage men and women to commit to each other and take responsibility for their children while leaving other consenting adults free to live and to love as they choose, all without redefining the fundamental institution of marriage.
On that note, we’ve heard concerns about hospital visitation rights (which the federal government has already addressed) and with inheritance laws. Every individual has those concerns. I am not married. When I get sick, I need somebody to visit me in the hospital. When I die, I need someone to inherit my wealth. That situation is not unique to a same-sex couple. That is a situation that matters for all of us. So we need not redefine marriage to craft policy that will serve all citizens.
Lastly, I’ll close with three ways in which redefining marriage will undermine the institution of marriage. We hear this question: "how does redefining marriage hurt you or your marriage?" I’ll just mention three in the remaining time that I have.
First, it fundamentally reorients the institution of marriage away from the needs of children toward the desires of adults. It no longer makes marriage about ensuring the type of family life that is ideal for kids; it makes it more about adult romance. If one of the biggest social problems we face right now in the United States is absentee dads, how will we insist that fathers are essential when the law redefines marriage to make fathers optional?
Much of the testimony we have heard today was special interest pleading from big business claiming that defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman would make it hard for them to appeal to the elite college graduates from the East and the West coasts. We heard no discussion about the common good of the citizens of Indiana—the children who need fathers involved in their lives. Redefining marriage will make it much harder for the law to teach that those fathers are essential.
Second, if you redefine marriage, so as to say that the male-female aspect is irrational and arbitrary, what principle for policy and for law will retain the other three historic components of marriage? In the United States, it’s always been a monogamous union, a sexually exclusive union, and a permanent union. We’ve already seen new words created to challenge each and every one of those items.
"Throuple" is a three-person couple. New York Magazine reports about it. Here’s the question: if I were to sue and say that I demand marriage equality for my throuple, what principle would deny marriage equality to the throuple once you say that the male-female aspect of marriage is irrational and arbitrary? The way that we got to monogamy is that it’s one man and one woman who can unite in the type of action that can create new life and who can provide that new life with one mom and one dad. Once you say that the male-female aspect is irrational and arbitrary, you will have no principled reason to retain the number two.
Likewise, the term "wedlease" was introduced in the Washington Post in 2013. A wedlease is a play on the term wedlock. It’s for a temporary marriage. If marriage is primarily about adult romance, and romance can come, and it can go, why should the law presume it to be permanent? Why not issue expressly temporary marriage licenses?
And lastly, the term "monogamish." Monogamish was introduced in the New York Times in 2011. The term suggests we should retain the number two, but that spouses should be free to have sexually open relationships. That it should be two people getting married, but they should be free to have sex outside of that marriage, provided there’s no coercion or deceit.
Now, whatever you think about group marriage, whatever you think about temporary marriage, whatever you think about sexually open marriage, as far as adults living and loving how they choose, think about the social consequences if that’s the future direction in which marriage redefinition would go. For every additional sexual partner a man has and the shorter-lived those relationships are, the greater the chances that a man creates children with multiple women without commitment either to those women or to those kids. It increases the likelihood of creating fragmented families, and then big government will step in to pick up the pieces with a host of welfare programs that truly drain the economic prospects of all of our states.
Finally, I’ll mention liberty concerns, religious liberty concerns in particular. After Massachusetts, Illinois, and Washington, DC, either passed a civil union law or redefined marriage, Christian adoption agencies were forced to stop serving some of the neediest children in America: orphans. These agencies said they had no problem with same-sex couples adopting from other agencies, but that they wanted to place the children in their care with a married mom and dad. They had a religious liberty interest, and they had social science evidence that suggests that children do best with a married mom and dad. And yet in all three jurisdictions, they were told they could not do that.
We’ve also seen in different jurisdictions instances of photographers, bakers, florists, and innkeepers, people acting in the commercial sphere, saying we don’t want to be coerced. And that’s what redefining marriage would do. Redefining marriage would say that every institution has to treat two people of the same sex as if they’re married, even if those institutions don’t believe that they’re married. So the coercion works in the exact opposite direction of what we have heard.
Everyone right now is free to live and to love how they want. Two people of the same sex can work for a business that will give them marriage benefits, if the business chooses to. They can go to a liberal house of worship and have a marriage ceremony, if the house of worship chooses to. What is at stake with redefining marriage is whether the law would now coerce others into treating a same-sex relationship as if it’s a marriage, even when doing so violates the conscience and rights of those individuals and those institutions.
So, for all of these reasons, this state and all states have an interest in preserving the definition of marriage as the union—permanent and exclusive—of one man and one woman.
Ryan T. Anderson is the William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and the Editor of Public Discourse. He is co-author, with Sherif Girgis and Robert George, of the book What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, and is a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Notre Dame.
- See more at: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/01/11880/#sthash.FceQFwnj.dpuf

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Scotland agrees to same-sex marriage

Same-sex marriage has been approved in Scotland. The Scottish Parliament yesterday agreed to legalise same-sex marriage by 105 votes to 18 in a free vote.

Religious bodies will be able to "opt in" to perform same-sex weddings, but no religious community will be forced to hold such ceremonies. The first homosexual weddings could take place in the autumn.

The bill's supporters made repeated assurances that free speech was protected, but it was admitted that there was no specific opt-out for civil registrars.

The Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church in Scotland opposed the legislation.

Northern Ireland, whose Assembly is not considering legislation, will now be the only part of the UK that does not allow same-sex marriage.

Said Alex Neil, cabinet secretary for health and wellbeing in Scotland: "I am proud that the Scottish Parliament has taken this progressive and hugely important decision in favour of equal rights in our country. It is right that same-sex couples should be able to freely express their love and commitment to each other through getting married. Marriage is about love, and that has been at the heart of this issue."

Said the Rev David Robertson, Free Church of Scotland minister and director of the Solas Centre for Public Christianity: "Those of us who do not accept this redefinition of marriage and hold to the traditional view, which has been the building block of our society, mourn this day. Not just because it is certain that we will now be discriminated against when we do not bow down to the new state absolutist morality, but because we believe that ultimately this will be detrimental to the people of Scotland, especially the poor and marginalised."

Monday, February 03, 2014

Briton sentenced to death for blasphemy

Pakistan's blasphemy laws are a mockery.

Muhammad Asghar, a 69-year-old British citizen, has been sentenced to death for blasphemy by a federal sharia court in Pakistan after apparently writing letters claiming to be the prophet Mohammed. The case arises from a property dispute between Mr Asghar and a tenant. The tenant reported him to the police.

His family in Edinburgh say Mr Asghar was treated for paranoid schizophrenia in Edinburgh before he returned to Pakistan. He has already been in prison since 2010 and is said to have attempted suicide. They say an appeal may take up to five years to be heard by Pakistan's High Court because of a huge backlog of cases.

Lawyers have now filed an appeal against his conviction. They say they are concerned about Mr Asghar's mental condition and his physical safety while in prison. Grounds for the appeal include the court's failure to consider any evidence of his mental health problems, "despite repeated requests."

Sensible debate about blasphemy laws in Pakistan, we are told, is impossible. Court cases are obscured by lawyers afraid of repeating contentious statements in court and journalists fearful of reporting them. It is common knowledge that there is almost always a property dispute or a personal slight at the centre of things, but it is a brave judge - and one not much longer for this world - who finds a defendant not guilty.

Three years ago the governor of Punjab was shot dead for taking up the cause of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy. His killer was showered with rose petals as he arrived in court.

Meanwhile Muhammad Asghar languishes in prison, unaware of the final outcome of his case.

Evangelical Alliance Scotland have appealed to the governments of Scotland and the UK to intercede with Pakistan's government on the man's behalf.