In any case, I don't really feel like being any more concise, so I'm pasting it here:
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I guess the answers to your questions would largely hinge on whether it is the vocation of any Christian--regardless of his station, be it teacher, politician, or garbageman--to "build Christendom." And that is why I can't get off this sticky widget: what Dickens is Christendom?!?!
Perhaps that whole debacle calls for its own post; I have a feeling it does and will be generating one once I collect my thoughts. For now, though, I'll give my quick takes, which I will try to keep relevant to Byrthnoth's post as well.
I agree with Byrthnoth: there is no purely civil libertarian argument against gay "marriage." For perhaps the best treatment of this issue, and one which examines it in the context of a much more widespread collapse of Western sexual ethics, read Christopher Oleson's piece "Phony Matrimony" in Touchstone magazine
I suppose the simplest argument against gay marriage when you're talking about building Christendom, regardless of how you define it, is that Christendom must be peopled! And, well...that demographic just ain't puttin' out. In all seriousness, though, I don't know if there's an argument to be made against civil unions for gays in our contemporary legal context. Natural law theory is dead. I mean, it shouldn't be. I'm sad that it is. But unless its corpus gets reanimated somehow, it's not much of a peg to hang anything on in the federal courts. Whether we (Christians) ought to try to find ways to "make them stop, Mommy!" is another question, the answer to which, I think must be "only through legal means." And if that can't be done, we accept what the magistrates say...unless they start telling us to engage in homosexual acts. See, that's a positive injunction to sin which we are bound to disobey.
I'm being cheeky and hyperbolic, but I'm also trying to illustrate a completely serious point. I mentioned this earlier in my comment on Brian's post on the Belgic Confession. Maybe we'd like to have more prohibitions in place, more specific curbs on man's sinfulness, in the civil government. There are means of bringing that about. James seems to think that the ballot measure isn't one of them. Maybe he's right. I haven't given it much thought. Regardless, absent a dramatic sea-change in government, however (like the US becoming a benevolent dictatorship overnight), we are bound to follow the laws. Likewise we are prohibited by God from engaging in vigilantism. It is not sinful to suffer the sinfulness of others (e.g., "Turn the other cheek"), unless it is your office, your vocation, to bind and to loose, to wield the keys whereby forgiveness is proclaimed or withheld. Unless you're a pastor of the Church, this isn't you. As Christian laymen we are constrained on a daily basis to tolerate the wickedness of the world and its denizens. Yes, tolerate them. Put up with them. Otherwise you're in an uncomfortable position of being compelled by conscience to disobey any government which is not completely legitimate, whose laws do not mandate perfect holiness. The problem is that no such government exists or can exist. You'd be honor bound to live as a rebel all your life. But you would be, sadly, "a rebel without a clue," in the immortal words of the philosopher Petty. Governments are flawed institutions administered by human beings; there is not a one of them whose founding is not steeped in blood. They're all illegitimate in one way or another. But they're still authoritative. The fact remains, though, that we would not need them were we not fallen. We would not need the negative which they have been given to wield--the administration of violence, the sword. It's been said that we'd still need traffic lights, stop signs and the like, but I don't think there would be cars in an unfallen world. Well, maybe there'd still be BMWs.
...but I digress.
I'm not sure what annoys me more: the fact that homosexuals are allowed to "marry," or that all the rubes from the Christian Coalition et al are out there on the steps of the nation's courthouses protesting in a high dudgeon like they own the place, incredulous that this could have happened in God's Country!
Why are they/we so surprised? Why are they protesting at a courthouse? This is a human problem at base, not a political one. I'm not saying that there are no political steps which must be taken as well, but they're already being taken -- at the ballot box. And for now, marriage amendments (which I am uneasy about to say the least) are passing by the slimmest of margins, and gay "marriage" is still illegal in most states. But that's not making anyone less gay, remember? So vote against them if they come up in your state. But if and when they pass, you are duty-bound to obey the law, and tolerate civil marriages between gays. You can move to a different state, or retreat to the country. But you have to honor the law--again, unless the terms of a particular law are telling you that YOU, sir, must marry a man, in which case, sure, protest. Disobey.
Not only is it a bad idea to build Christendom, I'm not sure we have the right to build it. But then there's that bugaboo again: WHAT IS THIS CHRISTENDOM THAT WE SHOULD/SHOULD NOT BUILD?? Suffice it to say that I remain dubious about the possibility of a political alliance of Christian states, dubious, even, of the notion of a "Christian state," as I've said before.
Thoughts? Byrthnoth, yours especially...
