Concessions As Root Cause of Same Sex Marriage

The fundamental argument for the distinct roles for man and woman is creation order.  You see it in 1 Corinthians 11:8-9,

For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man.  Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.

and 1 Timothy 2:13,

For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

Male and female created God them (Genesis 1:27).

God designed men and women different and with distinct roles.   The distinct roles are related to reproduction by Jesus (Luke 20:34-36) and by the Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 2:15).  The fundamental issue of the fundamental argument is that alteration of God's arrangement is rebellion against God's design.  God created the sexes and their roles and changing them is a strike at God as Creator.  It's a unique offense against Him, which is sometimes called an abomination.  That's also why homosexual behavior is the prime example of man's rebellion against God (Romans 1:26-27).   Ungrateful men are not thankful for their gender and role, so they rebel against it.

I want to keep this simple.

The trajectory toward same sex marriage didn't go from happy, fulfilled heterosexual marriages straight  (no pun intended) to Adam and Steve.  Concessions were made that form the path to the kind of cultural acceptance where we abide today in the United States.  The concessions were an end in themselves, but they also moved everything along toward even more abominable ends.  God has been offended in a personal way long before a supreme acceptance of same sex marriage.

There have been moves retreating from God toward Sodom.  If we really cared about God in this, then we wouldn't be concerned just about the definition of marriage but each of the steps of regression away from Him.   In other words, we can be "against" same sex marriage and not really be against it, because we're not against what got us there in the first place.  And there are steps that got us there. Various concessions have been made.  You don't get to be against quick sand, but for lots of deep, wet sand.

One step at a time, America's churches have grown accustomed to ideas in contradiction to God's word and the historical practice of scripture.  Many churches see some of these as a bonus for the church, actually quite helpful, a move forward.  Many, many mock those who stand against the concessions in support of biblical obedience.  I've noticed the mockery being the most effective argument for them.

I'm prepared for rejection of what I'm going to write here with full conviction that it is 100% true.  Again, we didn't just get to this place.  We took steps.   If we're going to change, really change, then we've got to be willing to be honest and stop playing around.  You should consider what I'm going to write.  That what I write here will be discounted or scorned is one of the reasons we're in the place we're in.

When Paul repented of his former lifestyle, he had to count it as dung (Philippians 3).  No halfway measures would do.  He couldn't straddle his past life with his new one in Christ.  The willingness to call what you've believed before, or how you've compromised, or how you were wrong, "dung," is in the course of success.  In 2 Corinthian 7:10, Paul called this a great "clearing of yourselves," an act that comes with contrition about where you've been wrong.  I ask you to consider that option instead of knee-jerk defense of yourself.

Before I start listing the particular concessions that led to same sex marriage, I think it would be good for you to look at the period between about 1880 and 1920 in this country, and how that major cultural moves in violation of God's Word during that period have gotten us to where we're at today.

The Concessions

The Woman's Vote

A vote is authority.  The history of New Testament churches doesn't have women making the decisions of a church.  If you read the federalist and anti-federalist papers, no one even breathed a hint of a woman's vote.   You'll be hard pressed to find it in any literature in early American history.  In the Bible, women are forbidden from usurping authority over a man.  Now women have the power of the vote in the congregational government of churches across the United States.  Women's suffrage was ratified in 1920 shortly after men got back from World War 1.  The woman's vote in churches is a concession of churches that changed the role of women.  There is no scriptural basis for women voting in the business of a church and there is plenty in the Bible against it.

Father's Lose the Authority with their Daughters

Part of the marriage ceremony is the dad giving away his daughter.  That is mocked in our culture today, and with the humanly devised dating method for obtaining a spouse (like the Gentiles, which know not God), the authority of the father has been usurped in contradiction to scripture (1 Corinthians 7:36-38).  In many, if not most cases in churches, that part of the wedding proceedings really is a joke.  Long ago the daughter gave her hand away and dad came along afterwards to rubber stamp it, or be in big trouble.

Women's Pants

Almost every old commentary on Deuteronomy says the same thing about Deuteronomy 22:5 that we believe about it.  Christians have believed through history that this forbids women from wearing the man's garment and vice-verse.  I title it designed gender dress distinctions.  At least one article of clothing must be designated as the distinguishing item.  The ones still understood as the designed gender dress distinctions are pants on men and skirts or dresses on women.  We continue knowing that from looking at the symbols on the bathroom doors.

Some behavior in Deuteronomy 22:5 is an abomination.  Something there is an abomination to God.  For centuries we knew what that would be.  When it started changing, that's how people argued against it.  The abomination began to become accepted until it became even a preference in churches.  Public appearance is one way people learn sexuality.  Rise in homosexuality has coincided completely parallel with the rise in women wearing pants.  As skirts and dresses on women have receded, homosexuality has risen.

Churches and their leaders are now to the place where we can't even know what Deuteronomy 22:5 is talking about, and so it can't matter.  This is how a lot of cultural teachings have gone, but this was an early one.  An abomination to God is worth being very careful and very serious about.  We should consider what Christians believed was an abomination to God in dress, namely women wearing pants.  How could women wearing the male garment and homosexuality both be an abomination?  They both attack God's design in creation.

Women as Breadwinners

While the children are at home being raised, many women are in the workplace and often as breadwinners.  This occurs in most Christian homes.  Older people talk about World War 2 being a part of this one, with Rosie the Riveter taking her place on the assembly line.  I'm talking about a woman not being a keeper at home, a role laid out for her in Titus 2.  Several years ago, Maureen Dowd, Pulitzer Prize New York Times columnist, complained in her book, "Are Men Necessary?"   The answer is becoming more and more, "No."

Churches have aided this concession by running daycare.  I know that daycare is a bigger money maker than school (schools are money losers generally).  Parents pay more for daycare for young children than for school.  Certain evangelical and fundamentalist churches don't have schools, but they do have daycare.  Sometimes the argument is made, "They're going to send their kids somewhere!  Why not here?!?!"  It's pragmatism and supports families in the wrong decision.  Churches should take a stand on this.  Don't offer daycare.  Don't encourage women to remain outside of the home when their children should be there.

Let's be honest.  Men are afraid of women today.  I'm not talking about 'afraid of getting into a fist fight with a woman.'  As a matter of fact, unfortunately, that is how men think they can prove they are men, by beating up women.  No, men are afraid of losing the good favor of women, that women will sulk and show disinterest, or that women will call men a name related to chauvinism and sort of faux ruin their reputation.  "I'm not a Chauvinist!  I love women's power!"  As a result, men have lost their role, which not only explains the growth of homosexual power, but also the wandering, aimless boys and their exponentially expanding ritalin prescriptions.  Women have men more under their thumbs or pinkies than every before.

There have been more than just four concessions, but these are four primary ones that have been supported by churches.  Today a large number of professing evangelical churches have even moved to an egalitarian belief about marriage in replacement of the biblical, historical complementarian position.  Certain jobs that were never "women's jobs" are now being dominated by women.  For a long time, you've been able to be an officer in the military of this country, and now a combat officer.  Changes are occurring everywhere, but judgment must begin in the house of God.