"Defense of Marriage"

     Much  has been said by the "Religious Right"
about the "Defense of Marriage".  When they speak
of the "Defense of Marriage", what they are
really talking about is forbidding homosexuals to
marry.  Indeed, they have proposed the following
amendment to the Constitution:

     "Marriage in the United States shall consist
only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither
this Constitution, nor the constitution of any
State, shall be construed to require that
marriage or the legal incidents thereof be
conferred upon any union other than the union of
a man and a woman."

     George W. Bush said, in a statement made on
February 24, 2004, "the Defense of Marriage
requires a constitutional amendment....  Today I
call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to
send to the states for ratification, an amendment
to our Constitution defining and protecting
marriage as a union of man and woman as husband
and wife."

     Right-wing religious leader Jerry Falwell
stated, "I agree that the only way to put
marriage out of reach of fanatical judges and
militant lawmakers is to pass the Federal
Marriage Amendment that defines marriage as a
union between one man and one woman, period."

     Richard Land, president of the Southern
Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty
Commission, says, "The best legal minds in the
country have come to the conclusion that the only
way we can protect ourselves from having the
judiciary force same-sex 'marriage' upon an
unwilling nation is to have a constitutional
amendment that says specifically that nothing in
the U.S. Constitution or any of the state
constitutions shall be construed as requiring
that marriage be anything other than the union of
a man and a woman."

     Clearly, these people are serious about the
"Defense of Marriage."  In order to defend
marriage, they are prepared to amend the
Constitution, which is a most serious matter, not
to be taken lightly.  But what does "Defense of
Marriage" consist of?  Is it only about
homosexuals getting married, or would it include
divorce?  Surely the best way to defend marriage
is to end divorce.  And so, one would expect to
find that the Religious Right has a very low
incidence of divorce, right?  After all, the
Bible is quite clear on these matters:

     In Matthew 5:32, Jesus says, "but I say unto
you, that every one that putteth away his wife,
saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her
an adulteress: and whosoever shall marry her when
she is put away committeth adultery."

     In Exodus 20:14, we find, "Thou shalt not
commit adultery."

     In Leviticus 20:10, we find, "And the man
that committeth adultery with another man’s wife,
even he that committeth adultery with his
neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress
shall surely be put to death."

     And in Malachi 2:16 we find this statement,
"For I hate putting away, saith Jehovah, the God
of Israel."

     In the Bible we see that the only allowable
reason for divorce - "putteth away his wife" – is
fornication, which the Merriam-Webster dictionary
defines as, "consensual sexual intercourse
between two persons not married to each other."
We also see that God does not like divorce: "I
hate putting away", and that marrying a divorced
person constitutes adultery, for which "the
adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put
to death."

     So, if we find that Christians do get
divorced, it must mean one of two things:  that
one partner or the other has been having sex
outside the marriage (fornication), or that there
has been no sex outside the marriage, and that
Christians have been getting divorced without
justifiable cause.  Do Christians get divorced?

     The Barna Research Group has done studies of
this.  The Barna Group was founded by George
Barna, who describes himself as an evangelical
Christian.  The stated mission of the Barna Group
is "to partner with Christian ministries and
individuals to be a catalyst in moral and
spiritual transformation in the United States."
They conduct research and polls on topics of
interest to Christians.

     Barna Group research in 2004 found that,
"Among married born again Christians, 35% have
experienced a divorce. That figure is identical
to the outcome among married adults who are not
born again: 35%."  And those divorces generally
did not occur before they became born-again
Christians, but after:  “If we eliminate those
who became Christians after their divorce, the
divorce figure among born again adults drops to
34% - statistically identical to the figure among
non-Christians.”

     Of course, the divorce rate among Christians
(and non-Christians) varies by denomination.
Barna research carried out in 1999, 2001, and
2004 found the following divorce rates:


Pentecostals:         44%
Protestants:          39%
Jews:                 30%
Baptists:             29%
Presbyterians:        28%
Episcopalians:        28%
Methodists:           26%
Catholics:            25%
Mormons:              24%
Lutherans:            21%
Atheists, Agnostics   21%


     It's interesting to note that among the
groups with the lowest divorce rates are atheists
and agnostics.

     If we assume that all of these divorces are
justified, that is, due to fornication, then
there must be a lot of fornication going on
amongst religious people.  The Barna Group also
finds that "nearly one-quarter of the married
born agains (23%) get divorced two or more
times."  If the divorces were not due to
fornication, then remarrying constitutes
adultery, for which they "shall surely be put to
death."

     Clearly, those in favor of "protecting
marriage" can best do so by changing their own
behavior: stop getting divorced.

     Perhaps the most appropriate statement on
this subject comes from Jesus, in the Gospel of
Matthew, Chapter 7:

     3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in
thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam
that is in thine own eye? 4 Or how wilt thou say
to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of
thine eye; and lo, the beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of
thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to
cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

     In other words, clean up your own house
before you start worrying about homosexuals
getting married.