Thank you Pastor Johnson for your interesting insights into the debate now raging in Australia concerning same sex marriage.
You state that there are three problematic ideas relating to SSM.
BIBLICAL TEXTS.
I agree that modern hermeneutics seems to favor the concept that the anti-gay Biblical texts often refer to heterosexual males using gay sex to humiliate/dominate an enemy with sodomic rape. Just as rape of a female is often not performed for the pleasure of the perpetrator, but as a vicious power play, to humiliate the victim.
Furthermore, the Leviticus word "abomination " referring to gay sex, loses some of its derogatory potency, when we count the one hundred seventeen times the word "abomination " is used in the King James Version, and the disparate acts which are supposedly "abominable ".
ALL sin is an ABOMINATION, and ALL sin is punishable with death.
"Abomination " often refers to current benign practices such as birth control-- before condoms and interuterine devices were invented, coitus interruptus –
“pulling out " was the ONLY method to prevent pregnancy and the Bible calls this " an abomination”.
Heterosexual couples indulging in oral sex are also guilty of "an abomination " !
CHILDREN OF GAY COUPLES
Pastor Johnson, you are evidently not acquainted with many gay/lesbian couples if you refer to their children as "adopted. "
Huge numbers of gay men, desirous of having biological offspring are using surrogate mothers to procreate their own genetic kids – often at a cost of over one hundred thousand dollars per child. These men, having spent a fortune on the child pre-birth, want the very best for their children post birth, and most are excellent fathers. –
Unlike millions of heterosexual dads who abandon their kids, refusing to pay legal child support and leaving their ex spouses to raise the children in poverty!
Many lesbian couples are using in vitro fertilization ( test tube babies from donor sperm) to have biological children — at $20,000 per attempt and since not every attempt is successful maybe the cost per child is in reality $40,000-60,000. But the urge to have a biological child is strong and much energy is expended to raise the child well.
Not forgetting the many tens of thousands of Adventist gays and lesbians who over the past many decades were persuaded that heterosexual marriage would "cure " their homosexuality. Unsuspecting wives/ husbands who were heterosexual, were unwittingly marrying these gay individuals, with resulting offspring and a future divorce, when the "cure " did not work.
COMING OUT MINISTRIES a group of allegedly “ex gays” paraded around the planet at tithe payer expense, perpetuate the myth that gays can be "cured "
if only they can find the right heterosexual partner — resulting in more biological children of gay/lesbian Adventists.
So not all children of gay couples are "adopted ".
And children raised by TWO loving gay/lesbian parents are so much better off than the many children I have observed in my eighty one years, who of necessity were raised by heterosexual SINGLE parents!
YOUR THIRD CONCEPT
Should gays be allowed to marry?
The demographics are IMPLACABLE – one in twenty five births world wide, regardless of family status, ethnicity, religious affiliation of parents, results in a gay or lesbian child. So if you have several children, the statistical chance increases of having a gay/lesbian offspring.
These individuals have NO CHOICE in their sexuality.
So we have three options
Remain in a life long companionles lonely single state.
Marry an unwitting heterosexual in the forlorn hopes of a cure.
Find a loving mate of the same sex, for intimacy companionship, sharing, camaraderie, support, love, affection.
The prestigious long term FRAMINGHAM HEART STUDY found that married men had a FORTY SIX PER CENT lower death rate than men who had never married.
Why would we cruelly deprive our gay offspring of this blessed benefit, more particularly, when the proposed same sex marriage law, has ZERO religious component.
It is merely a CIVIL act with multiple civil benefits for the participants in taxes, estates, conjugal visitation in hospitals and a host of other beneficial bonuses!
Not to mention the bonding of love and affection and the joys of companionship.