There are two main time-tracks understood in the world. One derives from a Creator, the other from naturalistic process. This distinction is necessary, because on the one hand, a Creator has built meaning and purpose into His creation, whereas any meaning or purpose in, say, an evolutionary track, must be invented ultimately by any sapience wot comes along. The created sapience owes fealty to the Creator, and obedience, and even love; one need show no sense of gratitude or appreciation, or affection for the impersonal forces driving the evolutionary track.
It is significant that Charles Darwin, he who popularised TENS (the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection) was a lapsed Unitarian/Anglican. (A note: Bishop Usher's 6000-year age of the earth need not apply. The issue is a non-starter, Biblically speaking.) It is important to understand the VAST difference between the two tracks. The Creation provides a framework for understanding cosmology, as well as our own place in the Universe. It establishes an order and purpose for humankind. It especially establishes family, the much touted foundation of society. The silly notion of male and female producing offspring as a family is showcased here. Adam and Eve. Other rhyming names need not.... The Creation Model sets up men and women as families, and defines marriage based upon the Creator's commands and covenants. "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." (Gen. 2:24)
From place names to ancient peoples, the Bible has been proven time and again to be accurate. That is a fair reason to consider its other claims as being so, as well. So what's the point? Marriage is not some sociological accident in antiquity, but derives from a covenant-making God's instruction. With this model, there is coherence, and the growth of mankind through history. There is purpose for the Genesis-model family, beyond (but including) the satisfying of sexual desire. The very structure of society grows from this beginning, and without it, there is no coherent society. Indeed, we are told by Paul:
"For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named..." (Eph. 3) The world has it backwards. We did not name God "Father" because we wanted a "sky Daddy" to love us. Our families, rather, are named from His Fatherhood.
This is why Marriage=Man+Woman is important, and should be inviolate. Certainly, same-sex couples can adopt, or have surrogates, or in vitro fertilization, and may be loving parents, but it is not according to Hoyle, and is not the foundation provided in the Creation model. The sterile man and wife we-want-it-all marriages are as faulty. (This is no Quiverfull screed...but fruitfulness IS the norm, not the exception in the Biblical model.)
The problem now is that Government in its mercy has taken over the role of arbiter of What Is Correct. Much as I dislike using the term, from the beginning, marriage has been the purview of religion; it is covenant-based (which is why adultery was punished so severely: death ends a covenant; this includes killing the breaker of a covenant.) Now it is the stuff of bureaucrats and lawyers. Requiring a state license is as legitimate to the purpose of marriage as collecting a tax on the communion elements every Sunday morning. With its oversight, the beneficent State grants privileges and allowances with the marriage license. Those not so entitled are jealous, and want the same benefits as man-and-wife, but they do not fit the model, the original pattern. What to do? Make everyone see it their way, and see how unFAIR it all is. Had marriage remained the realm of the church (now), this would be far less of a problem, but the bottom line is, if we change the definition, we can all pretend we are all equivalent, and it will be FAIR. 'When
I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose
it to mean — neither more nor less.'
The naturalist, TENS model offers no such coherence. Whether it is quanta bumping into one another, or whole societies, it is all the accident of Brownian motion writ large: no plan, no purpose, beyond what we Humpty Dumpty for ourselves, and then the definitions don't matter anyway (and no, I do
not think I am caricaturing the model). The anyone marrying anyone is not a matter of slippery slopes; it is a matter of it doesn't matter. We are the rule-makers, and we are the deities of dreams.
I wish that I could be more clear in my expression of this. I am still working it out, but despite the various sideroads branching off, there is either the covenant history track, or the accident of nature track. The choice of which model you follow determines your understanding of the Universe, meaning and purpose. Marriage is only one part of it, but if we get that part wrong, the future suffers, as will we.
