Different sex couples will face a growing number of pastors whom refuse to sign state-issued marriage licenses – forcing couples to be married twice. Why? The gays are getting married.
For a long time now there has been a tiny movement – on both sides of the same-sex marriage aisle – trying to get the government out of the marriage business. Some same-sex marriage advocates have said government has no business deciding who can and cannot marry, and some same-sex marriage opponents have claimed marriage was created by God and is an institution controlled by the Church.
Now, two prominent Protestant theologians are trying to start a movement of like-minded anti-gay pastors who will refuse to perform weddings that require a state-issued marriage license, because, gay people are getting liecnsed by the state and marrying. They believe that participating in a wedding in which they are agents of the state sullies them by extension, in supporting same-sex marriage.
Pastors Christopher Seitz and Ephraim Radner hope to force different-sex couples to be married twice – once in a religious ceremony they will perform, and once in a civil ceremony, should the couple choose, to obtain a legal state-issued civil marriage license.
Calling it “a perilous time,” Pastors Seitz and Radner are claiming “marriage is being fundamentally redefined, and we are Âbeing tested yet again.” The “yet again” refers to divorce and co-Âhabitation which they claim “have weakened marriage.”
“If we fail to take clear action, we risk falsifying God’s Word,” the pastors believe. “To continue with church practices that intertwine government marriage with Christian marriage will implicate the Church in a false definition of marriage.”
They’ve written the “Marriage Pledge,” which is altogether different from when anti-gay activist groups like the National Organization For Marriage and the Family Leader laughably tried to use marriage pledges as anti-gay litmus tests in the 2012 presidential elections.
“We will no longer serve as agents of the state in marriage,” signatories vow. “We will no longer sign government-provided marriage certificates. We will ask couples to seek civil marriage separately from their church-related vows and blessings. We will preside only at those weddings that seek to establish a Christian marriage in accord with the principles Âarticulated and lived out from the beginning of the Church’s life.”
What would Jesus do?
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Image: Christ blessing a marriage. Photo via Flickr
Hat tip: The Daily Caller
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