Standing for Marriage for The Good of All
A good friend, leader in ministry, and co-laborer in ministry, Andy Comiskey, Executive Director of Desert Stream Ministires has organized a call for prayer and fasting for the sanctity of marriage through the leadership of the Holy Spirit. I am embracing this call, and I am asking others to do so as well. Below you can read Andy Comiskey’s call and reasons behind the fast Please click on the hyper links for more information.
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Calling for 40 Days of Prayer and Fasting for Marriage • October 17 – November 25
Click here for more information
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8 Reasons to Resist ‘Gay Marriage’
1. ‘Gay marriage’ radically redefines the meaning of marriage.
Marriage is the most basic and arguably the most important building block of civilized society. For thousands of years, society has made marriage the one context in which sexual attraction between a man and woman matures into an enduring, exclusive unit that creates and protects children.
Marriage has always been defined by gender complementarity, or gender unity within difference, and by commitment, a pledge of permanence and fidelity. ‘Gay marriage’ radically alters that definition, and the values that underlie it. To say that the definition of an apple must include the attributes of an orange changes the meaning of an apple. It ceases to be what it was. Similarly, ‘gay marriage’ changes the meaning of marriage as it has always been understood by civilized society.
A wise man said that ‘the corruption of society begins by a failure to call things by their proper names.’ I refuse to ascribe marriage to homosexual unions based on the original and true meaning of marriage. That is why I use quotes to reference the misnomer of ‘gay marriage.’ I urge you to do the same.
2. ‘Gay Marriage’ devalues gender differences in human relating.
‘Gay marriage’ is founded on the premise that gender should no longer matter in sexual relationships. For example, licenses in states which have legalized ‘gay marriage’ have replaced the language of ‘Bride and Groom’ with ‘Partner 1 and Partner 2’.
‘Gay marriage’ removes the centerpiece of marriage: how one gender provokes and balances the opposite gender, creating (besides children) an emotional, spiritual, and sexual whole. Instead, ‘gay marriage’ redefines sexual wholeness as the freedom to desire and wed whomever one wants, regardless of gender. That undermines the inner logic of man for woman, and woman for man, and makes freedom from that logic optional for all.
3. ‘Gay Marriage’ devalues monogamy.
‘Gay marriage’ tweaks the meaning of fidelity. Gay men in particular tend toward tolerating multiple sexual partnerships in the context of a commitment to one partner. A marriage license will not change that tendency.
J. Michael Bailey, Chair of Psychology at Northwestern University and one of the foremost researchers in homosexuality, contends that “regardless of marital laws and policies, gay men will always have more sexual partners than straight people do. Those who are attached will be less monogamous.”
4. ‘Gay Marriage’ is founded on a false understanding of homosexuality.
California’s ‘gay marriage’ decision was founded on a 1948 Court decision (Perez vs. Sharp) to strike down a state ban on interracial marriages. That means today’s Court tends to equate ethnicity with homosexuality. Bad reasoning. Unlike ethnicity, homosexuality is neither genetically-based nor immutable.
Same-sex attraction is a three-fold cord of nature, nurture, and culture, all bound together by one’s moral decisions. The fact is: many choose to change their homosexuality, and find peace and purpose in heterosexual relationships. ‘Gay marriage’ advocates refuse that truth and insist that homosexuality is destiny, which is a false understanding.
5. ‘Gay Marriage’ makes its opponents racists.
Based on #4, those who oppose gay marriage will be seen as bigots. ‘Gay marriage’ validates as normal and good the problematic, complex condition of same-sex attraction; all who choose to view that attraction as a problem not a birthright will inevitably be accorded the same social shame and even legal consequences that racists incur.
6. ‘Gay Marriage’ encourages and increases homosexual behavior.
Over the last 50 years, homosexual behavior has increased due to media advocacy, our culture of divorce, porn, and promiscuity, and the greater economic and emotional independence of women from men. Validating ‘gay marriage’ will further encourage men and women to explore homosexual unions.
Social shame used to inhibit homosexual experimentation; ‘gay marriage’ casts off the last restraint, and increases homosexual behavior in our society. Between 1995 and 2005, lesbian unions in the USA increased 7 times, while male unions doubled.
7. ‘Gay Marriage’ opens the door to other types of ‘marriage.’
In changing the meaning of marriage to include infidelity and gender sameness, ‘gay marriage’ sets a precedent for other types of units, like incest and polygamy. Legal cases involving polygamy now invoke the same legal precedents of gay rights advocates. What seemed unthinkable 10 years ago is now ‘gay marriage’ law. We flinch until we become sensitized, then we flinch no more.
8. ‘Gay Marriage’ unleashes a global legal nightmare.
‘Gay marriage’ will clog the courts with myriad issues. Already, married gay couples are demanding marriage rights wherever they settle, regardless of the current laws of that state or nation. Not to mention the hundreds of cases in the USA alone concerning a host of bewildering issues, like gay divorce and ownership of artificially inseminated offspring.
The profound needs and fragility of soul at the core of same-sex unions will make for messy and consuming court battles—all within an already beleaguered system that has no precedents for the legal Medusa that ‘gay marriage’ has created.
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Pray & Fast with staffs and participants of Desert Stream Ministries and with First Stone Ministries
Saturday October 17 through Wednesday November 25, 2009
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We ask that each one joining us would ‘fast’ something of meaning for these forty days and pray instead.
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Please set aside 30 minutes a day for this effort.
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During the 40-days, we will employ the “Honoring Marriage for the Good of All” daily devotional guide, —available at www.desertstream.org.
Andy Comiskey will also post key battles we are targeting for prayer, and provide a daily podcast.
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For more information contact info@desertstream.org or visit our website at www.desertstream.org.
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Pray with understanding. We can all bow down and ask God to honor His image. And we can grow in our understanding as to why upholding His image in marriage matters for all.
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Restore the broken. Our prayers issue out of a commitment to making every effort possible to provide restoration for those who know they are broken.We can and must give practical helps to those seeking healing for their personal lives and marriages.
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Appeal to the good of reason. One man pledged to one woman helps ensure the well-being of the children they create, while providing a witness of gender order and stability to children in our culture who are not blessed with a Mom and Dad at home.
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Yield to the Lord. Having prayed, offered restoration, and appealed to reason, we surrender to God. We dare not fight this battle in our own mind and strength.We prayerfully join the One who created man and woman in His image, and who wills that all of creation benefit from that image.
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I would like to know if you have made this commitment, you can email me at: stephen@firststone.org
Unholy Week? Crucifying Christ Afresh through ‘Gay Marriage’
On the week that centers on Christ Crucified for millions around the globe, the USA has acted in a most unholy manner. Palm Sunday to Good Friday was marked by daily advances of ‘gay marriage’ forces in our land. Our Bridegroom King, whose very image is manifest in male and female, and who is returning for a Bride, spotless and true, is being crucified afresh.
Consider this: I read on Palm Sunday that Iowa’s unanimous Supreme Court decision to legalize ‘gay marriage’ deliberately excluded any ‘religious’ interference. According to the justice who wrote the Iowa decision, the Judeo-Christian structures on which our entire judicial system is built should no longer inform marriage. Left in the hands of secular servants, marriage mutates. We crucify Christ afresh.
On Monday, Rick Warren, arguably the most influential Christian leader in the USA, said on national TV that he never really supported a ban on ‘gay marriage’ in CA. (He clearly had and did.) He claims that he called all of his gay friends and apologized for any perceived support of the ban, underscoring that he has ‘never been and never will be an anti-gay marriage activist.’ Deceiving, confusing, political back-pedaling: Warren is rewriting history and has bought the lie that to support marriage is ‘ant-gay’. And he is backing off entirely from standing for marriage when it is most in peril. We crucify Christ afresh.
On Tuesday, Vermont became the first state in the union to allow same-sex marriage through legislative action instead of a court ruling. That empowers nine other legislatures that are considering marriage measures this year, including New York, New Jersey, Maine and New Hampshire. Activists in New England are unashamed to admit that they are choosing states where organized religious opposition is the weakest. We are now aware and without excuse: there is a systematic, targeted effort to establish a same-sex marriage stronghold in the Northeast. We crucify Christ afresh.
On Wednesday, I read of Obama’s appointment of a gay political activist and ‘Christian’ to his advisory board for ‘Faith-based Partnerships.’ The appointee, Harry Knox, was previously head of Religion and Faith for the biggest gay advocacy group in the nation (the Human Rights Campaign), and has been instrumental in reinterpreting scripture in a gay-affirming manner for churches throughout the USA. We crucify Christ afresh.
By Maundy Thursday, I was beat up. I needed my feet washed from the idolatrous ground of my nation; I was hungry for Jesus and I partook of Him heartily at the communion table that night.
As we gathered for Good Friday as a church, I looked around the body and saw Gideon’s army, a humble band of men and women whom the Crucified has rescued from the idolatry of this world: husbands and wives, singles, old and young, heterosexually and homosexually broken and yet being made new, ‘an army whose weaknesses are being turned to strength and who are becoming powerful in battle, able to route foreign armies.’ (Heb. 11: 34)
I felt hope. Isn’t that what Good Friday is all about? In the darkest hour, at the time when men extinguish the light, God prepares the most glorious expression of His light. N.T. Wright says: ‘The cross is not the world’s victory over Jesus, but Jesus’ victory over the world.’
Jesus death is the ground on which resurrection power is manifest. So is our surrender to His purposes. Let man’s efforts to crucify Christ afresh through ‘gay marriage’ have its perfect work. Raise from the dead a Gideon’s army, O God. Let a repentant, empowered people arise.
Let us arise out of fear or intimidation of the dark powers. Let us hold fast to Him as the One who makes a way for us to make Him known. We do so by upholding His image in humanity and by refusing all efforts, however winsome, to distort that image.
Marriage matters. It represents Christ on earth more clearly than any other relationship. While we have the light, let us live with integrity what it means to bear His image and insist on its clear representation in the land. We cannot afford to be unclear or uncommitted towards marriage in this perilous hour.
We do so in and through Him, His resurrection power rooted in our very weakness. May we emerge out of this dismal winter of ‘gay marriage’ advances and into the spring of upholding God’s design for all. Consider man for woman, woman for man-the awesome dance of masculine strength and feminine beauty. It’s worth fighting for.
Post by Andy Comiskey — Copyright © 2009 by Desert Stream Ministries
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Who is Andy Comiskey?
Click here to: Read Andy Comiskey’s Blog
‘Gay Marriage’ in The Heartland by Andy Comiskey
April 4, 2009
While we were sleeping, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously overturned the state’s ban on ‘gay marriage’ on grounds that it was unconstitutional. Most believers I spoke with in and around Iowa knew little if anything about the Court’s deliberation. Those who did seemed sleepy in their response. And uncertain. Even getting information about the case was difficult and yielded little. To most, ‘gay marriage’ seemed outside the realm of possibility in Iowa.
Time to wake up. Marriage has now been redefined in the heartland: the ruling represents the mainstreaming of ‘gay marriage’ in the USA. As one activist put it: “If Iowa with its common sensibility can do this, why can’t we do this in other states in the country?”
Just as halting ‘gay marriage’ in CA inhibited such action elsewhere, Iowa’s brash judicial action will quicken the resolve of activists to overturn ‘gay marriage’ bans in other states.
How did a state in the heartland become only the third in the nation to redefine marriage for its citizens? And the first in the Midwest?
The answer lies in the power of gay legal activists who target states that look like good prospects. Like Iowa. In spite of its 10-year-old ‘gay marriage’ ban and ‘common sensibility,’ Iowa has a liberal political history, including gay adoption. Iowa also makes it hard for citizens to overturn any Supreme Court decision with a constitutional amendment. State lawmakers must approve any proposed amendment twice over a two-year period before it gets to voters. That means that the earliest Iowans can vote to overturn ‘gay marriage’ would be 2012!
Enter Lambda Legal, a New York-based gay rights organization. Vying for a date with the state Supreme Court, these activists in 2005 filed a lawsuit on behalf of six gay couples who could not marry in Iowa due to its ‘gay marriage’ ban.
A lower court heard the case in 2007 and ruled that the ban was unconstitutional due to the judge’s belief that ‘homosexuality is unchangeable’, that ‘gay parents will not impact the development of their kids’ and that ‘homosexuals are politically powerless.’ All false, especially the last point: gays in Iowa have Lambda Legal, the most powerful reps I know.
The lower court’s ruling was ’stayed’ then appealed to the Supreme Court, which heard the case last January. I could tell by the hearings that the Court was more inclined toward Lambda Legal than the traditional voice. On Friday, the Court announced that it had unanimously redefined marriage. One decision by one court and the most basic institution of the state changes for all of its citizens.
Lambda Legal is currently servicing other states in passing ‘gay marriage’ provisions. In the Midwest, Minnesota and Wisconsin would be the most vulnerable to ‘gay marriage’ due to its liberal political traditions. Like Iowa, their Courts are primed for the likes of strategic activists like Lambda Legal.
What can we do?
1. Wake up! ‘Gay Marriage’ bans can be overturned. We need to be aware of what is going on in our states and take measures to ward off the strategies of groups like Lambda Legal.
2. We need Constitutional Amendments that define marriage for good. We can pray and fight for Iowans over the long haul as they begin the long push toward overturning the Court’s decision with one such amendment. The majority of Iowans and the rest of the US public are still not in favor of ‘gay marriage.’
3. Make the truth known about why marriage matters. Our focus is not ‘anti-gay’; it is pro-marriage. Tell the truth about how marriage best represents to kids; they need man and woman together in order to grow into wholeness. And how God can restore homosexuals to wholeness. If we don’t tell the truth in love, false justice built on false presuppositions advances.
4. Pray. This is in truth a holy war, based on love and reverence for God’s design and the Designer Himself. In a month, Desert Stream will release ‘Honor Marriage for the Good of All’ , a prayer-guide for churches who want to pray wisely for marriage in our land, while seeking God’s heart and strategy for broken people who need healing.
5. Seek true justice and compassion: in this Holy Week, let us pray that we might be please Jesus in surrender to His purposes, including His heart for marriage. Join Desert Stream this week as we pray and fast that neither New England nor other targeted states in the Midwest will fall to ‘gay marriage.’ Also, that the CA Supreme Court will uphold Prop. 8. (Its decision is not yet known.)
“All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke
“Since we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.” (2Cor. 5:11)
“And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber.” (Romans 13: 11)
USED WITH PERMISSION © 2009 DESERT STREAM MINISTRIES
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Who is Andy Comiskey?
This article is from Andy Comiskey’s blog.
