A few weeks ago my wife and I finished sending out our Christmas newsletter and family picture. The picture was taken last summer on a beautiful Martha's Vineyard beach. Minutes after capturing this family moment a short distance from us a photographer began taking pictures of two women dressed in white gowns. A same-sex wedding had just taken place. Watching attentively to what was occurring on the beach my eight-year old granddaughter asked her mother why these two women were kissing one another. I was very interested in my daughter-in-law's reply. She said, "Honey, these women love each other a lot. Their friendship and love are wonderful gifts from God. However, God wants only a man and a woman to be married. Their marriage and outward affection are not His will. God doesn't condone what they are doing." I thought to myself, "Well said."
I pastor a church on a resort island off the coast of Cape Cod. Each summer I receive a couple of phone calls asking me if I would perform a same-sex wedding. I respectfully decline. I will never be comfortable being asked to marry two persons of the same gender. I am even more uncomfortable having my grandchildren exposed to a lesbian wedding. The thought that my granddaughter will grow up with an image in her mind of two women amorously kissing and embracing on a sandy beach makes me angry.
In less than thirty years, homosexuality has evolved from being something that was understood to be sinful, to something that is being declared as the moral equivalent of heterosexuality. In recent years I have been surprised and heartbroken with how many friends and contemporaries in ministry have capitulated to the "spirit of this age" and are now supporting homosexuality and same-sex marriage. I wonder if they have given much thought to the impact the acceptance of homosexual expression has upon our nation's children.
For example, the growing acceptance of homosexuality and same-sex marriage will compound sexual confusion and experimentation by young people. This week Archie Comics released the first-ever issue featuring a same-sex wedding. Riverdale High will never be the same. The clear message of same-sex marriage is that all sexual choices are equally acceptable and desirable. A child who grows up in a home with traditional values will face a world where all sexual options are equal and encouraged. They will be cheered on by their peers and the media to accept same-sex marriage, a choice they never would have considered before.
And what about the chaos that is now pulsating through our public schools? Schools today have non-discrimination policies that include "sexual orientation." In states where same-sex marriage is legal gay activists are working hard to have administrations change the content of the curriculum. As of January 1 California public schools must teach students about the specific contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender Americans. Children will be taught to see homosexuality, bisexuality, cross-dressing, sex-change operations, and homosexual marriages as good and natural, and a possible life-style choice for them.
In Massachusetts where I live, married homosexual teachers wear their wedding rings. At school social functions the teacher will introduce his/her homosexual spouse to you. Little Anna will learn in first grade that "Mrs." Smith is married to another "Mrs." Smith and when she grows up she has the right to choose the partner of her choice. It is wrong for a school child to criticize homosexuality. Educators, in this state, work hard to protect their schools from "mean thinking" conservative people. And what about sex education? In some public schools students are taught that remaining abstinent until heterosexual or homosexual marriage is a good thing. It is also communicated that since pregnancy is not a danger for homosexuals then sex can be a wonderful experience for young people, as long as they act "responsibly."
It's impossible to assess the sexual confusion that boys and girls are experiencing growing up in today's culture. Young girls are wondering if they are lesbians for no reason other than they find their pretty friends attractive. Many children will carry their confusion into their adult years. Generations will be severely damaged by the sexual chaos we see all around us. Millions of people will be emotionally and sexually harmed by the eradication of biblical standards established by the Creator. "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. (Gen. 2:24)." The accumulated wisdom and good sense of over 2,000 years has concluded that the best marital and parental blueprint is composed of one man and one woman. Arrogantly discounting such time-tested wisdom and using children as guinea pigs is devastating to our culture as well as individual lives.
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