Practicum Part 2

I was going to do this as a comment on the last post to keep them together, but it kept expanding of it's own will, so I decided to make it a new entry.  Please read the first before this one so it makes sense.

I reread Daniel's story with Darius.  I also looked up some other opinions.  I don't have anything clear yet, but it seems less hazy than last night.  I noted in Daniel's story that he didn't make a public stance.  He simply continued doing what he was doing, regardless of the law.  Similarly, in the early Christian statue salute thing, they were being asked to actively go against what they believed.  In neither case were they concerned with what other people did.  I'm currently not being asked to directly contradict any belief.  It could come to that, but I'm not there yet.

Secondly, I don't feel a need to call out other misuse of marriage such as divorce, infidelity, or unmarried partnering.  It's just this one that sticks on me for some reason.  As I said before, it has nothing to do with politics, fear, or unreasonable condemnation of homosexuality.  So if must be rooted in my view of marriage, which I hold in high regard, higher than many others I know. 

Marriage for me is a deeply spiritual and personal giving of oneself to a relationship of three complimentary parts.  That is the male protective, aggressive, providential.  The female nuturing, generative, healing.  And God, the spirit, vitality, goodness.  It participates in some mystical way with the unity of the Father, Son, and Spirit.  It is not something that can be lightly entered into nor something that can be undone.  Truly, when I committed to my wife it was a permanent bond for me.  I didn't go looking for a wife.  It just happened.  Honestly, I took this so seriously, that I didn't give myself to anyone before her, and when I did, that was what made us married.  No ceremony, no law.  It was the giving of my soul and body to be bound to hers. 

Because of this, it hurts me when I see people throw that bond away, especially lightly.  So I guess the issue is that marriage as I understand it, is not possible in a same-sex couple.  It compounds the wrong.  Not only is there sexual confusion, now there's relational confusion.  But I don't feel a need to call others out about it.  So I shouldn't here either.

But I am clear that I cannot accept it as valid in the same way as my marriage.  can the two love each other and care for each other for a lifetime?  Sure.  Is there good in a committed same-sex relationship over a casual one?  Yes.  Can it be better than many hetero marriages?  Yes again!  But I firmly believe that the best highest way of things is not possible in this kind of relation and calling it a marriage just makes an inferior form seem equal to the greater. Kind of like when someone can't appreciate the difference in a fine tea and a cheap one.  Or tries to replace kids with pets.  Or more accurately, can't distinguish a truly saintly attitude from a selfishly motivated philanthropy.  Perhaps that is what bothers me most about it.  It's an attempt to steal a word from me, but then again, perhaps it is already stolen and I just haven't seen it.

So I have no clear answer on this.  And perhaps I won't find one categorical right answer.  Much like food sacrificed to idols in the New Testament.  James said Christians should stay away from it, but Paul said as Christians, we are free from those constraints of perception to live in reality, and the fact that someone said it was consecrated to a fiction didn't change the reality.