Gay marriage editorial

I truly feel for the lady featured in a recent Chronicle article.

Apparently the parents of her deceased partner removed personal items, took retirement funds, and moved the body. It is horrifying how people will sometimes treat fellow human beings, especially in a time of sorrow. This woman suffered the death of a loved one. No one should be treated this way. Gay marriage aside, this is a human issue.

What’s worse, it could have been easily prevented. There are legal ramifications to any relationship that involves things of material value. Contracts are necessary and desirable. People do this all the time to protect their interests and to prevent other parties from acting against their wishes. A lot of heartache could have been avoided.

But may we question what really happened here? Retirement plans and life insurance policies list beneficiaries and owners. No one can intervene without showing cause in court. Wills, auto titles, deeds, loans, and rental agreements all name the parties involved. So are there facts we don’t know about? It doesn’t seem to add up.

Ok, so what about gay marriage? Some of you are probably waiting to pounce with name calling and hysterical invective, but we can discuss and disagree without such histrionics, right? As I mentioned in a prior column, I am a conservative who sometimes leans libertarian. Now, libertarians do not believe that they must keep their mouths shut about moral issues. They believe that government must keep its mouth shut about moral issues.

First, I oppose a constitutional amendment to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. The purpose of the Constitution is to tell government what it can and cannot do. It defines and limits government. You know, if this basic concept was better understood, a lot of legal controversies would simply disappear.

A constitutional amendment about marriage wouldn’t be about defining the powers of government, it would impact the private relationships of The People. Therefore, those who want to amend the Constitution need to deal with their convictions in some other way.

Second, marriage is a religious institution. Government should leave marriage to the church. If you want to get married, find a church that will solemnize your relationship. For some reason, however, there is this misplaced desire to get gay marriage legalized, as if the legal and moral approval of society must be extracted to affirm love and commitment.

We need to be clear, civil marriage is an expression of law. There is no right to marriage. No one is suppressing anyone’s rights. Indeed, government is the only party that can suppress rights.

Marriage is a privilege granted by government. That’s why there’s a marriage license. You see, there are already lots of people who cannot marry due to age, genetic relationship, or even due to the fact that they are presently married. Their rights are not being violated either.

Indeed, government has made many laws that regulate marriage, to the point that it is barely recognizable as an expression of religion. Government has invaded all kinds of other religious activities as well, all of which violate the Constitution. What part of “Congress shall make no law…” don’t we understand?

Third, government should get out of marriage and religion. Churches should drop their tax-exempt status - - they are exchanging silence on politics for a payoff. And people should stop looking for approval for the way they lead their lives.

You might be a person interested in being legally acknowledged by society. You might suggest that all loving, committed relationships are noble. And certainly there is a certain satisfaction in rubbing the gay marriage issue in the nose of those homophobes who disagree with you.

I grant all of that, but inviting the further presence of government into our private relationships can only lead to oppression. We don’t need more government.

God's intent for our brain

A Facebook conversation I found interesting:

PJ - What was the original intent for our brain?

MSF - It was to create things in the physical realm out of the overflow of the spiritual things.

MSF - Our mind worships the Lord and brings glory to Him by becoming renewed via the spirit. Then we bring the things into earth that heaven has revealed through practical, physical creation. We do balance the knowledge of our brain through biblical study and the study of other things, but not knowledge that puffs up, we submit it to the spirit.

Me - The mind is informed by the spirit. The Spirit of God gives life to our spirits and gives us the ability to being our minds into conformance with God.

Rom 8:6-8 - "The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so."

1 Cor 1:14 "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."

Luke 24:45 - "Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures."

I can find no Scripture that speaks of creating reality. Sorry.

MSF - I agree with those verses, they are the support for what I'm getting at. I was trying to get at the fact that our brain controls the motor functions and other systems of our body. Our mind is made up by our soul (mind, will, and emotions). When they are submitted to the Lord through our spirit, to His spirit, then we begin to function in original intent. Does that make sense? I was making the case for our spirit to know and understand God, and that our brain or mind is not what we connect to Him with, as is so often tried. The verse that sparked that was the one you quoted from I Corinthians. I just read from chapter 1 and 2 and mistakenly cited chapter 2 as the source.

Me - I Gotcha. However, you did write that the brain "...was to create things in the physical realm..."

What did you mean by that?

MSF - The brain controls our motor functions, the physical body. God created the physical universe and gave us physical bodies to co-create in a physical world. The creator God created us to also create and glorify Him in that. So I think our brain was designed to make the physical manifestations on earth from the spiritual reality of God.

Me - Scripture reference?

MSF - I love your questions, Rich. They always challenge me to better articulate myself and really cite scripture. It always forces me to be sharpened in that simple way.

Genesis 2:15 "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."

God made Adam physically, in addition to the breathe of the spirit which brought him life, to do physical things with creation. God even delighted in how Adam would use his mind to be creative: "...He brought them (the animals) to the man to see what he would name them..." Gen 2:19

Ephesians 2:10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

In Exodus 31:1-11 we see that some of the first people who were filled with the Spirit were craftsmen and creative people.

Jesus said that he brought glory to the Father by completing every work that the Father set for Him to do.

Now, obviously the only fruit that means anything is eternal things, but we use our body to bring about these things "on earth as it is in Heaven". What's born in the spirit is brought into fruition into physical earth, though it is in the spiritual realm. My deduction is that taking that "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing..." (John 6:63) and yet we are flesh, I believe the flesh has a role to play as a middle man on this side of eternity. If we submit the body and soul to the Spirit, we can produce spiritual things in the earth.

Me - I'm trying to determine if you are talking about how we might use the intellect, sanctified by the Spirit, to build, create, and form things as skillful workmen (i.e., the fruit of our labors); or, if you are referring to what is popularly known as "name it and claim it," where our words have power to create things.

MSF - the first one.