How's It Working for You Now?

The Supreme Court has just found that homosexuals have a constitutional right to marriage. Whether you think queers can or should marry is now irrelevant: you will be paying Social Security benefits to the beneficiaries of queer marriages. Congratulations!

Frankly, I don’t care who you live with or under what circumstances. If you want to have a hands-off relationship with a roommate of the opposite sex, or you want to have a hands-on relationship with one or more members of the opposite or the same sex, or with a non-human, I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me. It’s none of my business.

The Bible tells us what kinds of relationships God approves of and what he doesn’t, and if you want me to tell you what the Bible says, I’m happy to tell you. If you invite me to visit you in your home or place of business, I’ll consider it on a case-by-case basis. Same for if I want to invite you.

But I have no right to dictate the terms for your household, and I would appreciate you extending me the same courtesy. Except now, of course, courtesy of the Social Security system, if you were queer, you couldn’t extend me the courtesy of not caring what you do if you wanted to. Uncle Sam taxes, and Uncle Sam distributes, and whether I like someone’s arrangement or not, I pay for it.

Thanks heaps, conservative Christians. I would like to get the state out of the marriage business altogether. No state married Abram and Sarai, or Isaac and Rebekah, or Jacob and Leah and Rachel, or David and his dozen or so wives, so I would assume that marriage precedes the state and therefore the state has nothing to say about marriage.

But you put Romans 13 over even marriage, and here you are now, subsidizing queer marriage. How my view of things could have worse results than this I can’t imagine.

“Yes,” you say, “but if we can just get the right people in positions of power, we’ll fix this mess.” To which I say, you’ve been trying hard for thirty-five years to get the right people in power. How’s it working for you?

Now that queer marriage is the official policy of the United States government, are you still going to fly Uncle Sam’s flag in your sanctuary? I suppose that by some sort of postmodern feat of transubstantiation (and 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 Trinitarian theology) you can say that that flag really represents Christian family values, but anyone who thinks 2 + 2 = 4 is going to reply that what it officially stands for now is queer marriage.

If Uncle Sam is God, serve him and pledge allegiance to his flag. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.