LF: The Two Shall Become One Flesh

In the Gospel of St. Mark, the Lord Jesus teaches that “from the beginning of creation ‘God made them male and female.’” He then declares a great and beautiful truth inscribed in creation: “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 they are no longer two but one flesh” (Mark 10:6–8).

For centuries, Christians have proclaimed these words at weddings, for they express the gift of marriage long recognized by all humanity and acknowledged by men and women of faith: Marriage is the union of a man and a woman. This truth is being obscured, even denied, today. Because of that, the institution of marriage, which is essential to the well-being of society, is being undermined.

As Christians, it is our responsibility to bear witness to the truth about marriage as taught by both revelation and reason—by the Holy Scriptures and by the truths inscribed on the human heart. These age-old truths explain why Christians celebrate marriage—the coming-together of a man and woman in a binding union of mutual support—as one of the glories of the human race. Marriage is the primordial human institution, a reality that existed long before the establishment of what we now know as the state.

As the most venerable and reliable basis for domestic happiness, marriage is the foundation of a just and stable society. Yet in our times this institution has been gravely weakened by the sexual revolution and the damage it has done to marriage and the family: widespread divorce; the dramatic increase in out-of-wedlock births; the casual acceptance of premarital sex and cohabitation; and a contraceptive mentality which insists that sex has an arbitrary relation to procreation. In this environment, families fragment, the poor suffer, and children are especially vulnerable and at risk. The decline of marriage culture is evident throughout the world, and where it is evident, the common good is imperiled.

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply.” (Gen. 1:27–28) Subscribe to *Religious History and Issues*

Remind us which of the various historical cultures that normalized homosexual behavior survived doing so?

I guess you simply cannot understand what I said. I clearly separate the secular aspects of a State sanction civil union from the religious aspects of a church sanctioned marriage.

A church sanctioned marriage is first and foremost a State sanctioned civil union to which the church confers an additional element(s) or meaning SOLELY for the purpose of the members of that church. Whatever additional element or meaning a church may add for the benefit of its members has absolutely no impact of the secular civil union nature of the marriage.

Further the State has no standing in dictating or requiring anything of what the church may wish to add to the religious aspect of the ceremony (as long as it does not include illegal acts, e.g. - sacrificial virgins).

Let's take this one step further. If a church performs a marriage ceremony that is not recognized/sanctioned by the State that marriage has no legal standing in the State. However it may have tremendous standing for the members of that church. On the other hand, a legally performed State civil union type of marriage remains so even if the church refuses to recognize it. Depending on the specific there may be some legal ramifications for the church in certain acts of its denial or refusal to recognize the legalities of the secular State sanctioned union.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God. I hope this clarifies my position for you. I have been very consistent on it. If not then let's just move on.

No. I have posted on this before. Do some research. The truth is out there if you can handle it.

But FTR, yours is a totally BS request that has nothing to do with the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps you too wish to trash that document and have the U.S. become a theocracy? Or perhaps you believe that the U.S. should ban interracial marriages or ban marriages other than between white Christians?

I have - and Nature always has the last laugh over those who abominate it in the context of their Utopian state-establishing quest.

Read the OT, you'll find what you are looking for. You do understand the word polygamy, do you not?

I provided many on this forum. I am tired of carrying dolts that have nothing to meaningful add to the conversation. Do some research on my posts. You will be made to look very foolish. But if you don't want to believe me, just do a Google search. You will readily find historical examples of cultures that have accommodated homosexual behavior that have survived. There has always been an ebb and flow to human cultures.

But here's a brain buster for you. Name one historical culture that has banned gay sexuality that has survived. Ancient Greece? Or perhaps ancient Rome? Ancient Egypt?

Better than you evidently understand the word zygote. Human evolutionary/reproductive biology obviously isn't your forte.

Evidently that's why they're ancient, and not (until recently at least) contemporary.

That isn't an actual argument. Homosexuality received various treatment in all those cultures over time. The Romans were actually far worse than the Greeks for libertine behavior. The Greeks do not actually deserve their widespread reputation for buggery or even for pederasty which the "queer theorists" have attempted to impose. It is not a true historical view of ancient Greece which was very complex and not uniform between the various ~~Greek~~ Grecian city-states.

3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”

4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (1 Peter 1:23)

What about when homosexuals conspire to appropriate the reproductive resource$ of heterosexuals in order to finance their procreative abomination of nature?

How many generations of natural, reproductively viable, offspring have the homosexuals infesting the U.S. Figure Skating Association managed to produce?

In the beginning there was no Olympics either. Choose your reference point. I stand by my statement that historically marriage has not always been between on man and one woman, and certainly not too far removed from Adam and Eve.

I don't know. has anyone been counting. Homosexuals can breed as many in recent memory have publically demonstrated. I hope you are informed enough to know that the act of procreation no longer requires a sexual act between a man and a woman. Perhaps the U.S. should ban artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization?

You guys keep this up and you're going to receive a strongly worded email from the U.S. Figure Skating Assocation. : )

"According to my opinion, and the opinions of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion , active measures , or psychological warfare. What it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.

It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages.

The first stage being "demoralization".

It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of [their] enemy. In other words, Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least 3 generation of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism; American patriotism.

Most of the activity of the department [KGB] was to compile huge amount / volume of information, on individuals who were instrumental in creating public opinion. Publisher, editors, journalists, uh actors, educationalists, professors of political science. Members of parliament, representatives of business circles.

Most of these people were divided roughly into two groups: those who would tow the Soviet foreign policy, they would be promoted to positions of power through media and public manipulation; [and] those who refuse the Soviet influence in their own country would be character assassinated OR executed physically, come Revolution. "

--KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov

-- Soviet Subversion of the Free Press (Ideological subversion, Destabilization, CRISIS - and the KGB)

http://www.freer epublic.com/focus/news/2095202/posts

They have to appropriate resources from others in order to abominate nature and manufacture a zygote.

The act of procreation doesn't guarantee the sociobiological fitness of the culture in which the act takes place.

That's especially true in the context of a demoralized culture that has taken to worshiping its abominations and creations in defiant disregard of Natural history.

Uh, no. When I said Red, I meant redleghunter who apparently got this whole figure skating thing started by posting this pic from some crappy SNL comedy named Blades Of Something with Will Farrell:

The fagotry of Will Farrell highlights SNL's continuing influence upon perverting and demoralizing American culture.

SNL and Farrell illustrate the degree to which the process of "demoralization", described by KGB defector Bezmenov, has been a strategic success.

"They have to appropriate resources from others in order to abominate nature and manufacture a zygote."

Are you claiming that babies conceived via artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization are not human beings in God's eye? That they have no soul?

I find it odd that you claim that a State should be able to disregard the Constitution and legalize slavery, bigamy, bestiality and drug use. I particularly find it odd that you say that a State should be able to ban gay civil unions while at the same time allow abortion on demand, including late term abortion.

Yeah, I can get that way when people are willfully blind to the conflicts of logic and lack of intellectual honesty of their positions. You know the drill. If one advocates a position based on logic and law the ad hominem accusations flow like water from those that do not want to accept the validity of your argument.

I keep asking the question, under the U.S. Consitution what is the State's legal basis for denying gays the rights and privileges of a state sanctioned civil union that it affords straights? I have yet to get a rational answer other than потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

The normal explanation is that the state has an interest in promoting the stabilility and security of children in two-parent families.

Given the high divorce rates and rise of solo motherhood, it has become more irrelevant and this did open the door to arguments for marriage equality.

BTW, if, as the argument goes, two parents are good wouldn't 3, 4 or 5 in a committed, loving polygamist relationship be better. So even that old tired argument was more than logically suspect. Besides what state has ever used that argument in court as its compelling interest to ban gay unions?

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (1 Peter 1:23)

With notable exceptions it does. But according to your thesis the state has the right to pick and choose (1) whether or not the victim is a person to which the term murder applies, and, (2) what exceptions it will allow. There are many things that you and I believe the state should and shouldn't do. However we are not the definitive word on this, the State's court is.

Not my thesis at all. It is your misconcieved notion that same sex 'marriage' is a civil right. It is not.

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (1 Peter 1:23)

So what is denying a class of people the same, right, privilege, benefit, sanction, protection, etc. as the state readily provides others if not a civil rights issue? What the state sanctions for straights is first and foremost a civil union. It is a secular thing that has no allegiance to any religion.

In the natural world, paternity and blood relationship have more impact upon preventing infanticide than the abstract social concoction you're attempting to pull out of your polygyarse.

Tell us - what are the evolved mechanisms for altruism in your polygamous Utopia?

...a result of prior state-establishment's experience with bastard children and the mischief their existence perpetrated upon the cultures they were inflicted upon.

Don't blame ObamaCare if you live in a state that required commercial carriers to cover infertility treatments before 2012. Blame the state legislature. If you don't like it get the state law repealed or move to a different state.

To paraphrase Hitlery: "It takes a village to have a sexual relationship. And to raise a child."