Ok, so for those of who you who live under a rock or just don’t know about whats been going on down at the statehouse this last week, a Polk county judge ruled that Polk county’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and removed the ban. You can read up on this at the Des Moines Register’s article found here.

This topic really reminded me of a while ago when I did a series of blog posts on hot-button topics such as abortion, the war in Iraq and gay marriage. For compare and contrast purposes, you can revisit my previous blog on gay marriage here. I think I still maintain some of the sentiments I expressed in the earlier blog, but I also think I have adopted some different ways of looking at the issue. I’ll present my ideas, and hopefully it will spark some good conversation.

Ok, in my original blog about same-sex marriage I argued that the Church should be a support the gay-rights movement. I said this firstly to be controversial (whoopsadaisy) and secondly because I think the Church needs to do something to show the homosexual community that we don’t hate them and think of them as inferior to ourselves. But I really have to be honest. When I heard the news over the radio that a judge had lifted the ban on same-sex marriage, my stomach turned. There was something about it that was just depressing to me. I think as much as I want to be culturally relevant and want people to like the church and God, there are just some things that are irreconcilable to the Gospel. I think the reason I got knots in my stomach when I heard the news is that homosexuality is sin. There I said it. There really isn’t any way around it. I think I, and perhaps large sectors of the American Church have a problem with calling a spade a spade. We try and rationalize everything away, and in doing so, we just coexist with sin. And maybe thats why in many cases churches have been rendered so useless.

Heres what I think. I think marriage is a sacred thing and as such, should be under the control of the Church. I don’t think the government should define and control what marriage is and isn’t. That goes for heterosexual marriage and homosexual marriage. It shouldn’t give special privileges for marriage, no matter what type of sexual orientation the couples have. People have long bashed the church and screamed bloody murder because there has to be “separation of Church and State!”. Ok, firstly, they are taking that phrase completely out of context. Our founding fathers wrote that phrase because they had experiences where the church and state where the same governing body, and bad things happened, like mass executions because someone disagreed with the church and therefore the government. But nonetheless, people today use the phrase to suggest that Christianity or its practitioners should not be allowed to play a role in politics. Well if there must be such a strict separation of Church and State, shouldn’t there also be a separation of the homosexual agenda and the state? Shouldn’t there be a separation of of secular humanism and the state? Apparently the only other thing being proactively separated from the state besides Christianity is common sense.

As Christians we need to realize this one very important fact before we take to the streets to reverse the ruling on same-sex marriages. We in many ways created the monster that is the gay-rights movement. If we hadn’t completely shunned the homosexual community, they wouldn’t have felt as if they had no rights. There wouldn’t have been struggle and they wouldn’t feel the need to retaliate against the church. There has been some legislation attempts floating around that would make it a “hate crime” to say that homosexuality is a sin. Now I’d like to think there are enough sensible people in politics to see that this legislation is ridiculous, but I’m not going to bet the farm on it. I think Christians tend to make two faulty assumptions regarding the Church and politics. One is that we just need to completely abstain from politics, the other is that our nations political system is the only way to make positive change. Laws can’t change peoples hearts. But changing people’s hearts can change laws. We as followers of Christ should be active politically to champion justice. But we also should be out loving people with all we have, because when we do that Christ truly will be made complete among us.