- $33.4 million Cooperative Program budget proposed for 2011
- Florida Baptists baptize more than any SBC state; Burton wins evangelism awards
- SE Florida Evangelism Conference to offer inspiration and instruction
- BCF announces prayer conference, Army band
- CARING FOR GOD'S CREATION: Southern Baptists debate creation care
- CARING FOR GOD'S CREATION: Clouding the debate
- CARING FOR GOD'S CREATION: Pensacola churches minister to oil spill victims
- Florida Baptist Credit Union robbed over Labor Day weekend
- Report: Gainesville church plans to go ahead with Qur'an burning
- Afghan aid workers were ‘unwavering’, Mercer says
- Latest Stories...
RSS News Feed (What is it?)
By JAMES A. SMITH SR.
Florida Baptist Witness
 |
For Floridians facing the daunting challenge of collecting 400,000-plus additional petitions to put the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment on the November 2006 ballot, the final days of January are our own climactic moment. Will Florida Baptists and other concerned citizens do what is necessary to allow Florida to join 19 other states which have passed state constitutional amendments to protect traditional marriage?
The likelihood of failure is looming large unless Christians get energized and God miraculously intervenes before the deadline for all 611,000 petitions arrives Feb. 1.
Dobson’s foreboding comments are part of his final argument – “The culture war will be over, and the world may soon become ‘as it was in the days of Noah’ (Matt. 24:37)” – opposing same-sex “marriage,” as excerpted from his book Marriage Under Fire by Citizen Link, the action arm of Dobson’s Focus on the Family.
“As of this time, however, large segments of the church still appear to be unaware of the danger; its leaders are surprisingly silent about our peril,” Dobson continues, sounding as if he is writing about Christians in Florida.
“…This reticence on behalf of Christians is deeply troubling,” Dobson writes, noting that marriage “serves as a metaphor for the relationship between Christ and His church. Tampering with His plan for the family is immoral and wrong. To violate the Lord’s expressed will for humankind, especially in regard to behavior that He has prohibited, is to court disaster.”
The following are the other ten reasons Dobson argues opposing “gay marriage”:
1. The legalization of homosexual marriage will quickly destroy the traditional family.
Noting evidence from Scandinavian countries where the existence of homosexual “marriage” destroys real marriage, Dobson cites three reasons “gay marriage” will undermine the family:
“First, when the State sanctions homosexual relationships and gives them its blessing, the younger generation becomes confused about sexual identity and quickly loses its understanding of lifelong commitments, emotional bonding, sexual purity, the role of children in a family, and from a spiritual perspective, the ‘sanctity’ of marriage. …
“Second, the introduction of legalized gay ‘marriages’ will lead inexorably to polygamy and other alternatives to one man/one woman unions. …
“The third reason ‘marriage’ between homosexuals will destroy traditional marriage is that this is the ultimate goal of activists, and they will not stop until they achieve it. … We must all become soberly aware of a deeply disturbing reality: The homosexual agenda is not marriage for gays. It is marriage for no one. And despite what you read or see in the media, it is definitely not monogamous.”
2. Children will suffer most.
“The implications for children in a world of decaying families are profound. … More than a thousand studies have concluded that kids do best when they are raised by loving and committed mothers and fathers.”
3. Public schools in every state will embrace homosexuality.
“With the legalization of homosexual ‘marriage,’ every public school in the nation will be required to teach this perversion as the moral equivalent of traditional marriage between a man and a woman.”
4. Adoption laws will be instantly obsolete.
“From the moment that homosexual ‘marriage’ becomes legal, courts will not be able to favor a traditional couple of one man and one woman in matters of adoption.”
5. Foster-care programs will be impacted dramatically.
“Foster-care parents will be required to undergo ‘sensitivity training’ to rid themselves of bias in favor of heterosexuality, and will have to affirm homosexuality in children and teens. Moral training, at least as it applies to sexuality, will be forbidden.”
6. The health care system will stagger and perhaps collapse.
“This could be the straw that breaks the back of the insurance industry in Western nations, as millions of new dependents become eligible for coverage.”
7. Social Security will be severely stressed.
“Again, with millions of new eligible dependents, what will happen to the Social Security system that is already facing bankruptcy? If it does collapse, what will that mean for elderly people who must rely totally on that meager support? Who is thinking through these draconian possibilities as we careen toward ‘a brave new world’?”
8. Religious freedom will almost certainly be jeopardized.
“Canada is leading the way on this revolutionary path. I could cite dozens of examples indicating that religious freedom in that country is dying. Indeed, on April 28, 2004, the Parliament passed bill C 250, which effectively criminalized speech or writings that criticize homosexuality. Anything deemed to be ‘homophobic’ can be punished by six months in prison or by other severe penalties.”
9. Other nations are watching our march toward homosexual ‘marriage’ and will follow our lead.
“Marriage among homosexuals will spread throughout the world, just as pornography did after the Nixon Commission declared obscene material ‘beneficial’ to mankind.”
10. The Gospel of Jesus Christ will be severely curtailed.
“The family has been God’s primary vehicle for evangelism since the beginning. Its most important assignment has been the propagation of the human race and the handing down of the faith to our children.”
The foregoing are among the many reasons Christians in Florida – including Florida Baptists who are largely responsible for getting a marriage amendment off the ground in the Sunshine State – should do everything they can to ensure the marriage amendment qualifies for the November 2006 ballot.
In the final days of the petition effort, Florida Baptists cannot be AWOL from this “climactic moment in the battle to preserve the family.”
You must be login before you can leave a comment. Click here to Register if you are a new user.