The OP asked a specific question towards a specific portion of posters. You posting a counter question in post# 2 seems like an attempt at a hijack. The last sentence of the OP is the question at hand. If you have a different question you want to ask the TMs please open your own thread.
Here is part of what I wrote to the family. Feedback is very welcome, though I already hit Send.
I believe the heart of the issue lies in distinguishing two kinds of marriage. The first kind is religious or spiritual, following the rules of the Bible and the church. The second kind is secular, following the rules of government and obtaining benefits from the government.
In this country the two kinds of marriage have been conflated in people’s minds for a long time, even to the point of the government’s deputizing religious ministers to officiate a change in legal status. (“By the power vested in me by the State…”) But really the two kinds have always been separate.
Is it a Godly marriage when two people who don’t love each other marry for convenience or money? Or when people flit in and out marriages on a whim, like that time Britney Spears was married for 52 hours before changing her mind? No. But these kinds of marriages are legal; adults have always been allowed to get married even if they’re not doing so in a Godly fashion. The Church has not had a problem with this in the past. As of last Friday, it’s only the secular, legal institution which has been opened up to same-sex couples, and if the “Definition of Marriage” has changed, the change is strictly a legal one.
Just as the government has never been in the business of determining whether previously divorced people may marry, or people of different faiths or none, or women who haven’t received their fathers’ permission to marry, or any other Biblical or religious rule you can think of, the State is now getting out of the business of determining whether same-sex relationships are morally valid. If the government isn’t the Church, then I can’t see where it has any business forbidding same-sex couples from obtaining all the benefits of opposite-sex couples, provided they’re willing to accept the same responsibilities by being married.
That’s why people were celebrating so wildly at Nashville Pride. I don’t really care for that kind of wanton street-partying either, but I sure do understand why they’re celebrating. They now can have all kinds of benefits previously denied to them, like tax filing status, hospital visitation rights, rules about custody of children, automatic inheritance, decisions about end-of-life care … I believe there are literally over 1,000 enumerated benefits of marriage. People who were legally married in other states then moved to Tennessee now get to be legally married where they live – just as their neighbors have always taken for granted.
I’m glad I never had to tell you this before, but I had no intention of visiting Tennessee, except for dire emergency, while my marriage was invalid there. Dave and I can now visit Ohio as well, where his dad lives, without fear that the law there would treat us as strangers, when the full legal force of marriage was needed – in case of medical emergency, for example. Now, in Tennessee and Ohio, Dave can’t be denied the right to visit me in the hospital. If I were incapacitated he can’t be denied the right to make medical decisions for me. If we moved to Tennessee or Ohio, he now won’t be denied the automatic right to my property when I die. These are hugely important rights that opposite-sex married couples don’t even have to think about. If I were the street-partying type, I’d be partying like crazy. It’s really something to celebrate.
The change in the law says nothing about the definition of Traditional Marriage; that’s going to be up to each church and each individual’s conscience as it always has been.
We live in a secular society. I think nearly everyone would agree that the government has no business adjudging religious traditions or sacraments; the Supreme Court has not weighed in on whether your baptism is valid, and you wouldn’t want them to. That’s between you, your church, and God. The Supreme Court has made no change to the Godly kind of marriage – indeed they have no power to speak to that at all. Churches and individuals will continue to practice Godly marriage according to their own religious understanding, allowing some things and forbidding others. Some churches have opened up their definition of Godly marriage to include same-sex couples, like the UCC. Others are still figuring it out, like the Episcopalians. Still others will never allow same-sex marriage. That’s all as it should be. Churches will continue to practice religion, and the State will continue to practice government. I believe and hope this change in the marriage law will help people sort out where Church and State have been a little too entwined in the past. I believe this is a good thing.