June Groom (not Gloom)
‘In California homosexuality is legal. When it becomes mandatory, I’m leaving.’ Bob Hope
I muttered to Annette how much I disliked ‘gay’ pride June, the month of rainbow marches and media glorification of every gender variant under heaven. This month began with a bang: ‘Fun House’, a new Broadway musical about a warbling lesbian cartoonist whose ‘gay’ father kills himself, swept the Tony Awards, while June 2015 will end with a Supreme Court decision sweeping away God’s definition of marriage.
I prophesied June gloom, the Southern California phenomenon in which offshore mist rolls in and shrouds the coast for a month. Annette countered my complaint: ‘Well, June is also the month we married. No-one can take that from us.’
True that. I considered the beauty and power of our 34-year-old vocation—Annette’s and my most basic call in life to unite as one and bear fruit that remains. Of course that means our four kids but it also applies to all who pass through our whole-enough marriage and partake of the goodness of man for woman, woman for man. God designed marriage to grace both parties so that the two can be fruitful in their self-giving for as many years as life allows.
Best decision I ever made. Best gift Annette and I give others is the integrity of our marriage, starting with our kids and rising up for many, like Ezekiel’s prophesy of healing waters filling the temple to overflowing (EZ 47). At Annette’s good prompt, I considered the truest meaning of June for me and hope emerged from the fog like a blazing sun.
Neither lyrical idolatry nor skewed justice can undermine the gracious authority of marriage. Yet both will try. In this battle for marriage, Jesus makes a way.
June 1981. Annette and I spent the first night of our honeymoon at the Beverly Hills Hotel then sped off the next day to more affordable fare. Or tried to. The annual gay pride parade encircled the city and blocked our exit on every side. We managed to squeak out though a small road that opened to the adventure of a lifetime. Beware of the broad way: ‘Narrow is the way that leads to life.’ (Matt. 7: 13, 14)
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