Starting with Granite Tombstones....

It was logical, believe it or not, that my wife and I ended up talking about the church and marriage, I just can't at this point, remember how we got there. I can remember the gist of the conversation. Oh wait, now I remember. I won't bother you with the details but it had to do with Christian Patriarchy. Nevertheless after walking through a boring monologue on Calvinism (unnecessary too, believe me, with my wife's sensibilities) we got to the meat of the discussion and it went like this:

The conservative churches are greatly afraid of dealing with gay marriage in the pews. It's not that they think their various parishioners will suddenly start marrying same sex style, but that they believe militant homosexuals will show up and begin to disrupt their services by claiming marriage, claiming conservative doctrines and that the "Marriage Bed is not Defiled." From there will ensue a discussion about how they're not married, they will say they are, and about how the particular conservative denomination in question, does not think so. I won't go into all the arguments, but there will then be a discrimination lawsuit, and we're on.

This is how it will go. The gay couple will argue that it is the church that is arbitrarily defining marriage. The church will not see it that way, but will maintain that "well, we're the church, that's what religious freedom is all about, please go away." The gay couple will then go on to prove that the denomination in question does in fact, arbitrarily define marriage. They will do so by proving that (using scripture without distorting it) polygyny is an acceptable form of marriage, yet the denomination forbids it, favoring instead, monogamy only. They will even point to cases where evangelical denominations have overlooked polygyny in foreign countries because they entered into a culture that had polygynous marriages. In short, we will be shown to be both hypocritical, and arbitrary, using the power of the church to declare certain forms of marriage to be marriage.

If it is not that we base marriage forms entirely on scripture, but instead on the power of church leaders, councils and government to declare what is and is not marriage, then we will be shown to have discriminated. We will lose the resulting lawsuits. Right now we have the insulation of polygamy being against the law, but really, that's not going to last long. Particularly if I have my way about it.