On Same-Sex marriage: Changing values for one affects everyone

Why do evangelicals care about how society defines marriage? I often hear or read things like "Expanding the understanding of marriage to embrace homosexuals will have no effect on your marriage. It's just making the definition more inclusive." I beg to differ.

As one of my teachers put it, inclusiveness is simply the transitional form from one orthodoxy to another. It may sound cynical, but it does seem to reflect the reality of history. And it's logically inevitable. No one is simply "inclusive." Everyone is simultaneously "inclusive" and "exclusive." One can not include this without at the same time excluding all that is notthis.

An "inclusive" society can not embrace homosexuality as morally equivalent to heterosexuality without also excluding those who do not regard it as equivalent. Witness how many times people who do little more than quote or publish Bible verses are considered guilty of impermissible "hate speech" -- and how much harsher the treatment can be for those who enthusiastically advocate the historic church teaching.

The pro-Same-Sex marriage position is not simply a move to expand the definition of marriage. It is a move to completely change the root meaning of marriage. The traditional definition -- in quick summary form -- focuses on providing a stable environment for care and nurture, of children especially, but for families generally. The biological case is obvious.

The psychological case is subtle, but also clear. Children grow up best in an environment with strong, positive male and female role models acting in balance. For example, boys who do not grow up seeing a father work and sacrifice for the good of his family will tend to be self-focused themselves. That was the impulse behind Big Brothers and other mentoring projects: if a boy does not have a positive male role model in his own family, then the society should provide him one.

The pro-Same-Sex marriage definition changes the focus of marriage. It moves the focus from the care and nurture of children and families. Marriage becomes focused on defining, regularizing, and regulating the sexual conduct of adults. Children become a secondary issue. The main thing is the emotional and social fulfillment of the adults in question.

How far will this go? For example, if a lesbian couple wants to fulfill their desire to be parents, and especially if one deeply feels a need to be a mother, will they be entitled to costly fertility treatments so they can bear children? I've read reports of these kinds of claims being made on the public health care system. Having embraced their marriage life as a family just like any other, on what basis can society say no? But if we say yes, how do we pay for this care? The health care system is already strained to the breaking point: what further cuts will we make to free these funds?

I tend not to be a individualistic libertarian. When people say "these changes in values will have no effect on you and your values," I do not easily agree. We are all connected to one another by a subtle tapestry of relationships and influences, and should exercise great care before we pull too hard on one loose thread. As the saying goes, All humanity "is of one author, and is one volume; ... [T]he bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come..." No one is an island, separatate and unconnected; we are all part of the mainland, joined, united, connected to one another.

"In spite of that, keep going anyway": How Baseball is like life

"The game begins in the spring, when everything is new again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains comes, it stops, and leaves you to face the fall alone."

That's from the beginning of Bart Giamatti's famous essay "The Green Fields of the Mind" Baseball fans, he writes, "count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."

Baseball is such an odd game. Unlike, say, basketball, where teams seem to score almost every time they have the ball, baseball players see much less success. A .300 hitter is considered excellent -- yet that means he fails seven out of ten times.

The central focus of the game is the individual contest between pitcher and batter. And yet that context means nothing apart from the support of the rest of the team. A batter may defy the odds and reach base. Yet, that achievement means nothing if the batter behind him hits into a double play. Several times this season, one of the kids on our mites (ages 6 to 9 years) softball team has complained "It's not fair. Why do I have to go back to the dugout? He hit the ball to the fielder!"

Many people have said it: "Learning to deal with failure is one of the keys to succeeding in baseball." This is the time of year when that becomes most real. In most other sports, the last weeks are about playoffs, either getting set up for a good start, or making the final push to qualify. Not baseball. There are just four slots for the playoffs, and come September 1, there aren't many teams with a realistic shot at those four places.

Looking over the standings today, I found myself calculating what my team would have to do to avoid having the worst record in baseball. Not what they would have to do to win the playoffs -- or even just make the playoffs. Baseball has no Cinderella teams who start the playoffs in the eighth seed but overachieve to make it to the seventh game of the finals.

In that way, baseball is a lot like life. It's about doing your best day in and day out. Not because it's going to get you a shot at the championship. Not because it's going to get you a shot at glory. Just because it's the right thing to do. Just because there are people around you pulling for you, counting on you to lift them up.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9
And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right. 2 Thessalonians 3:13
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1

Most of us don't rise from obscurity to become successful heads of corporations or wealthy movie stars or powerful civic leaders. In spite of that, we just keep going anyway. We do our best day by day, just because it's the right thing to do.