Concerning Homosexual Marriage

In 2005, the Texas Legislature proposed an amendment to the Texas Constitution defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman. It also prohibited the state and any subdivision thereof from creating any legal status identical or similar to marriage. In doing so, the State of Texas has made a grave error concerning the nature of marriage and its relationship to the law and thereby arbitrarily violated US Constitution's fourteenth amendment: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." (Section 1, Amendment XIV, US Constitution)

Marriage is a religious institution. According to Jesus Christ, quoting Moses, and thereby according to Christianity and Judaism in concert, "But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." (Mark 10:6-9; Gen 1:27, 2:24, 5:2; NKJV) For this reason, marriage, according to the church and synagogue is between one man and one woman.

But what is marriage according to the State? It is hardly a religious commitment made before God between one man and one woman. It is no holy covenant in the eyes of the law; it is merely a legally binding contract that joins the rights and property of two individuals under the jurisdiction of the State - a civil union. In any case under the law, the State has no religious authority and therefore cannot grant a marriage in any form or fashion, nor does it have the authority to define what marriage is or is not. The entire conundrum of homosexual marriage in the United States has arisen because the States have meddled from their beginnings in the religious affair of marriage. We have created a false synonymity between religious marriage and legal, civil union. We have called a marriage what is no marriage after all. There is no legal basis to deny any two individuals this same legal status of junction simply based on the genders of the individuals in question. A State is not legally required to grant civil unions to any of its residents, but if it does grant civil unions to heterosexual couples, it must grant them also to homosexual couples, or else it denies persons within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. There should be no religious compunction against doing so.

All this having been said, a State also has no authority to require religious institutions to grant marriages, just as a church has no authority to require a State to legally recognize with a civil union any marriage they grant. The State may choose to recognize with an accompanying civil union any marriage ceremony performed by a religious institution, and a religious institution may choose to perform a marriage ceremony in concert with a recognized civil union; however, neither the Church nor the State has the authority to require one to recognize the acts of the other. Similarly, a State has no authority to require public school students to be taught that homosexuality is either correct or incorrect, good or evil, right or wrong, as this is a moral judgment, and the State has no moral authority. Therefore, the State has no business making moral judgments. The State can (and should) teach that homosexuality is different and that homosexuals should not be physically or legally treated differently according to their sexuality.

Why Did God Create Me This Way?

EDIT: A note about posts like these. I'm starting here with the assumption that there is a God and that the Bible is His inspired, infallible word. I am not arguing those points in this post, though I may at a later date, so if you cannot start with those two assumptions as I have, most of these arguments are not going to get very far with you. This post is written primarily to Christians or to people who can make those two assumptions with me.

If homosexuality were wrong, why would God create me a homosexual? If gender reassignment surgery were wrong, why would God create me transgendered?

These questions are as flawed as any other concerning why God would create us with a particular nature and using that nature as an excuse to ignore God's will. Why would God create infants with any genetic disorder at all? Does he want those infants to die or to live disabled? The answer to these questions is, God does not create us to be homosexuals or transgendered or anorexic or mentally retarded or to have any other genetic abnormality. God created this universe to be a paradise. There is no disease, no sickness, no abnormality in paradise. However, God created us with choice. God allows us to choose his will or our own. The problem of disorder exists in this world because of sin, and sin entered the world through men, not through God. The question we should be asking, rather, is if homosexual behavior were not wrong, why would God say it is?

Each of us has some predisposition toward sin; that is, each of us desires to see our own will because we believe that we know what is best for us. Each of us is tempted to choose our own path rather than God's path. However, because He is not limited by space and time like we are, God actually knows what is best. God prescribes morals for us because He is good and because He knows the path to happiness. God shows us the way because there is only one way. We learn to conform ourselves to God's will through prayer, reading of scripture, and inspiration by the Holy Spirit. When we pray, we are forging and maintaining a relationship with God. Though you may tell God the things you want when you pray to Him, you are not going to convince Him through any formula or words to give you something that will harm you. When you pray to God for the things that truly are good for you, will He not give them to you?

Matthew 7:7-11 (New King James Version)
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

If a good Father would not give you an evil gift when you ask Him for a good one, then He also will not give you an evil gift even if you should ask for it.

So, even though we may have some predisposition toward a certain behavior, this is no excuse for us if we should choose to behave as we are predisposed. Some of us may be predisposed killers, but does that justify murder? Some of us may be predisposed kleptomaniacs, but does that justify theft? Some of us may be predisposed pedophiles, but does that justify child abuse? Similarly, even though you may be predisposed homosexual or gender dysphoric, these do not justify homosexual behavior nor gender reassignment surgery.

All this having been said, though these things may be against God's law - because they are self-destructive behaviors - they are not harmful to others. They do not infringe on the rights of others like murder, theft, and child abuse do. In that respect, these things must not be prohibited by law. In the same way that God gives us free will to choose these behaviors or others despite our predispositions, so must the government also refrain from interfering in personal choice where those choices do not harm others.