Second of 7 Prayers for Marriage: We Fight for the Common Good
‘You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.’ – (IS 58: 11b)
Marriage and democracy share a particular golden thread: both are designed for the common good. That means people should benefit, not suffer, from its impact.
One sees this clearly in a good marriage. A man and woman, united in body and spirit, regenerate life in the form of children. Yet procreation is only the beginning. The wholeness of two complementary beings, committed for life, provides a stabilizing influence for all who intersect with them.
I recall the generous love that both Annette’s parents and my own released to the neighborhood and greater community: they embodied the truth that marriage is a common good. A whole marriage is a gift that keeps on giving. It bears fruit continuously and offers that fruit instinctively. God designed marriage that way.
Redefining marriage to include same-gender friendships tampers with marriage. Obviously, such friendships cannot be inclined to new life. But beyond that, tinkering with the definition of the most fruitful and stabilizing relationship that civilization has ever known weakens it.
‘Gay marriage’ mutates the DNA of marriage. It insists that gender wholeness is no longer male and female: in marriage, in parenting, in social influence. ‘Gay marriage’ means that subsequent generations will be born into a world where the culture has ascribed equal value to sexualized same-sex friendship as to whole heterosexual union.
Marriage is for the common good. Redefining marriage isn’t. To say that an apple must take on the characteristics of an orange mean that it loses its ‘appleness’; it loses its savor as an apple. I don’t want to mess with apple. And our government, if it is really looking out for the common good, should not mess with it either.
Instead of redefining marriage, we need to reclaim marriage from its many robbers. Divorce, addiction, infidelity, and abuse are our real enemies. Let’s fight right. Let’s contend for marriage by refusing its redefinition and agreeing with the God who made marriage a common good. He desires generous love to flow from one man committed to one woman for the sake of all who encounter them.
‘Father, we thank You for designing marriage as a gift for all. Bring to mind those unions that most impacted us for the good: those men and women who submitted to each other out of reverence for You. Thank You for the generous love we received from them. We have benefitted from this common good! We contend in this hour for the proper definition of marriage and the common good it upholds.
As the Supreme Court hears the case for Proposition 8 on March 26th, we ask that CA and the majority of states in the USA would be allowed to define marriage as they have already chosen: one man committed to one woman.
We pray especially this week for Chuck Cooper, the attorney who will defend marriage (via Prop. 8) before the Supreme Court. We pray for wisdom, protection and divine wisdom as he prepares to speak truth before the High Court. We ask God for Your blessing upon him, his family, and his service on behalf of the just and worthy cause of protecting marriage.’
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