The Dominoes of Gender, Marriage and Sex
The New Yorker magazine recently ran an article by Dan Piepenbring entitled, "Chick-Fil-A's Creepy Infiltration of New York City." The author is critical of Chick-fil-A for supporting "groups that oppose same-sex marriage." In other words, Chick-fil-A unashamedly affirms the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996.
It's been only 22 years since the majority of politicians in our country were willing to take a stand for the historic and time-honored institution of marriage. This, however, is no longer the case. The foundations are crumbling and the dominoes are falling. Subjective feelings are now given more priority than biblical facts.
Have you been swayed by the massive cultural shift? If you are not quite sure what you believe today, try taking what I will call the "traditional marriage test."
On a scale of 1 to 10, how strongly do you believe children should be taught that marriage was designed for a man and a woman? If you think the traditional view is creepy, you are at 1 or 2. On the other hand, if you embrace the traditional view, you are at 9 or 10.
And on a scale of 1 to 10, how strongly do you believe children should be taught to celebrate gay marriage, open marriage, and transgender ideology? The higher your score on this scale, the lower your score on the previous scale. These two scales combine to form the traditional marriage test.
What do you suppose tends to get people moving up or down the scale? Well, I think we would agree that an open mind to multiple options generally leads to a more progressive position on these matters.
For example, The New York Times Magazine ran a piece last year entitled, "Is an Open Marriage a Happier Marriage?" Susan Dominus wrote, "As I talked to couples over the last year, I often found myself reflecting back on my own marriage. I started to feel less baffled by the boldness they were showing in opening up their marriages, and more questioning of my own total aversion to the possibility."
Such mental transitions require curiosity and an openness to experimentation. And it often leads to the crossing of certain historic boundaries.
In case you wonder how America has suddenly become a nation where children are being encouraged to impersonate the opposite sex, I encourage you to read a published article I wrote a couple months ago: "The Sudden Phenomenon of Transgender Children - How Did We Get Here?"
So how did you do on the traditional marriage test? Anyone who is confused about God's design for gender, marriage, and sex will be reluctant to affirm boundaries in these critical areas of life.
Instead, you may find yourself thinking traditional marriage is creepy and an open marriage is worth exploring. It's simply the nature of the beast. Flirting with sin is a recipe for heartache and disaster, whether it involves just your mind, or both your mind and your body.
And once you have gone off the rails of God's design for gender, marriage, and sex, you might even feel driven to push your views upon little children. I wrote about this danger recently in another published article entitled, "Will America's Public Grade Schools Become Transgender Mills?"
I would venture to guess your grandparents didn't view traditional marriage as creepy. And yet I can understand why it might feel creepy to anyone who chooses to embrace alternative approaches to gender, marriage and sex.
Beliefs have consequences. Adam and Eve were offered a counterfeit approach in the Garden of Eden, and their sinful decision triggered an avalanche of harmful consequences. If Adam and Eve had obeyed God's command, they would not have have crossed the boundary line the Lord established. The first bite of forbidden fruit is always the most consequential. It charts a new course in the name of progress and change.
When God created man, the first thing the Lord did was to establish gender. "Male and female He created them." (Genesis 1:27) Marriage came next, and finally sex. You cannot have a biblical marriage without first having gender, and you cannot have biblical sexuality without first having both gender and marriage. The order is critical, which explains why God set it up this way.
Over the past 50 years in America, three dominoes have fallen in reverse order. The sexual revolution of the 1960s was aimed at the easiest target of the three. Back then, few Americans would have been duped by the counterfeit options of gay marriage and transgender ideology. Therefore, the first domino that needed to fall was sex, as millions of Americans abandoned God's plan for sexual purity.
The next domino to fall was marriage itself. The acceptance of gay marriage worked its way into man's heart as the natural progression of sin simply evolved. Our society had been groomed for decades by sexual sin and Satan to take this next bite. Hollywood and President Obama spent years aggressively promoting gay marriage before going in for the kill. In fact, the May 21, 2012, cover of Newsweek even dubbed Obama, "The First Gay President."
Think of it as a person who is high on drugs being offered to take a new drug. America was under the influence, and now harder drugs were needed in order to feed the addiction. The acceptance and celebration of gay marriage became the new drug of choice for those who were no longer satisfied to merely endorse sex outside of marriage. The second domino had fallen.
And finally, the gender revolution got under way a few years ago. This is the third domino, and this is exactly where we find our nation today. Sadly, man has a knack of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and replacing what is holy and honorable with something profane and perverse. Those who choose to take God at His Word have a much different definition of "creepy" than those who promote open minds and a progressive agenda in matters of gender, marriage and sex.
It's incredibly humbling when you stop and realize that each one of us is in desperate need of wisdom and grace from our Creator. If you like, you are free to retake the traditional marriage test. And just remember; it's an open book exam.
