Let's back up a second before I get to the the last sentence of this picture.
Yes it is a sin in the bible, but it ALSO goes against the Institution of Marriage in the first place.
The Institution of Marriage is not some man made institution, it is a Divine Institution. It was established since the days before Christ. Heck, you can even go back to when God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1). It was established way before the social issue of gay marriage was ever mentioned. It is not something that is "owned" by the State as the case of Goodridge v. Massachusetts tried to argue. (More on this point a little later).
There is a reason why Adam felt so alone even after God created the animals of the sea, air, and land. He was missing the other half of himself. And as the story goes in the bible, God created a woman for Adam from one of his ribs. Did he create another man from his ribs? No, it was a woman. We see from this that marriage is a sacred and permanent covenant between ONE man and ONE woman.
One could argue that marriage is solely an emotional and practical alliance between two adults. What does that mean? According to the court case Goodridge v. Massachusetts, marriage should be based upon each person's individual rights rather than the rights of couples. In other words, it doesn't matter if they are male and female, just as long as they love each other, they have a right to be married. BUT, the Supreme Court has always viewed marriage in the traditional sense: between one man and one woman. Also, marriage is not something that only satisfies the individuals separately; it is about the development of each member's earthly and spiritual life. It's about being vulnerable and giving one's self for the other, and not being selfish in trying to satisfy your own need.
Before I dive into the Constitution, I would like for you to read through it and have the page up while you read the rest of this post. Below, I have provided a link to a very simple read of the Constitution.
U.S. Constitution: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Preamble
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I am going to pay particular attention to the 1st Amendment for the purpose of this post and to better understand what it means for us as individuals.
When the Constitution was first written, the founding fathers knew exactly what they wanted and how they wanted us Americans to live. During their era, the people rose up in a revolution against England because they wanted to escape from the way they had to live under the rule of a monarch - especially one that supressed the religious groups that went against the king. They wanted the people to live freely, to express themselves freely, to practice whatever religion they wanted to freely; they wanted to get away from someone telling them how to live their lives.
The 1st Amendment gives us the Freedom of Speech, the Freedom of Religion, and the Freedom of the Press.
Lets start with Freedom of Speech. What do you think that means? Do you think it means that we can burn the American flag because we are expressing our 1st Amendment right to Freedom of Speech? No because that's just plain disrespectful and unpatriotic. Freedom of Speech, as the founders sought it, was for us to freely speak our minds without being reprimanded or punished for what we have to say. It does not mean the government has control over what we say or think about anything. If we believe the government is ruining our nation, we have a right to say and do something about it without any consequences. In other words, we have a right to our own opinion without someone putting us in jail for it.
The Freedom of the Press was given to the media, journalist, etc. to "keep an eye out" on the government's activity and actions freely. If this was not established, then reporters would have to toe around so they would not get into trouble, or even arrested. It is also a way for the people to see what the government is doing for our nation.
We are at the best part of the 1st Amendment: Freedom of Religion. The people are free to practice their own religion in this country. If there was a set religion, like it is over in England, it would defeat everything there is about our 1st Amendment rights. Again, this is part of the reason why there was a revolution in the first place. The people did not want to be deprived of practicing their own religious beliefs.
Mormons were practicing polygamy because it was part of their religion. They believed that the men had the right to marry as many women as they want. Now a days, they have changed this. They no longer practice polygamy. Why? Because of a court case, a few in fact (Reynolds v. United States and Mormon Church v. United States), that changed everything for the Mormons.
In the case of Reynolds, a man had intentionally married a second time while he was still married to his first wife that was still living. Reynolds was charged with bigamy, but tried to get it appealed through the Supreme Court. Reynolds argued that he was practicing his 1st Amendment right to Freedom of Religion: to freely practice his religion without precaution. In doing so, he was ignoring the Morril Anti-Bigamy Act which, at the time, was a federal enactment that clearly banned bigamy. The Supreme Court recognized that under the 1st Amendment, Congress cannot pass a law that would prohibit anyone from freely practicing their religion. It argued that the law prohibiting bigamy did not fall under this. The court also recognized the very fact that 'a person can only be married once' has existed since the ruling of King James I, which the United States laws are based upon. Therefore, the Supreme Court upheld the charges against Reynolds.
An example of Freedom of Religion is to take a quick look at what Catholics believe about contraception. Catholics take on a lot of heat for believing that contraception is a moral sin. Any form of contraception prevents the woman from bearing children which goes against what marriage is. We marry to procreate, to have children so that we can expand our nation, not to die out the people. If gay marriage was constitutional, that would cause problems for the Catholic and a substantial number of Protestant religious practice. Relating this to the Catholic view mentioned above, there would be no way for a gay couple to procreate. There has been an argument against this essential purpose of a marriage. The Goodridge case stated that procreation and marriage were not linked together. This argument went all the way to the Supreme Court case Skinner v. Oklahoma, which they stated that marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the human race.
"What about using birth control for medical reasons only?" The answer to this is yes you can, but only for that reason. There are many people who need to use birth control for medical reasons and that is fine. I used to be one of those woman. I would have horrible pain in my abdomen from cramps where I could not get up and move. I got on the pill and it helped a lot, but did I ever consider that my body changes as I get older? I never ever considered it since I was still in my twenties. I knew that as we got close to age 50, we would go through menopause and our bodies would change then, but our bodies do change periodically within our lifetime and that it doesn't start when we hit menopause.
I had been on the pill for 2 years when my husband, who is a practicing cradle Catholic, asked me if I ever considered that my body might have changed in the past two years. I did not have an answer to this because I've never tried to get off the pill to see if I would get my horrible cramps. A month after I started RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults), I got off the pill and have been off of it ever since, without those painful cramps that I was experiencing in high school. From this experience, I do not need the pill anymore and the only reason (and disagreement with some of my relatives) that I would "need" to be on it is to not conceive any children after I give birth. I fought (and still am fighting) tooth and nail about my decision to not get back on the pill after I gave birth to our third little girl. Therefore, I am not and will not be on the pill to satiate what my relatives believe I should do. Being on the pill goes against what I practice and goes against what I believe as a Catholic woman.
These are just a few examples of someone practicing their religious beliefs. Of course, people still judge those who practice their faith, but at least our country has given us the freedom to be able to do so, rather than sentencing us to death for believing in something the government deems "not the religion of the land."
The reason why I broke the 1st Amendment down was to let you see why it's established in the first place. Each living person that has been born in the United States of America have these rights, whether you deem yourself gay or not. You already have individual rights as a person, which is why we have our Constitution. The Constitution is not something to uphold laws based on social whims, it's to uphold the laws of the land.
Now, each state has their own Constitution, and if they so chose to, they can partake in the social issues of their State. If they want to make gay marriage legal then they make it so. This is where I come back to the claim that marriage is an institution that is owned by the states. The case argued that the government created civil marriage and has been a wholly secular institution. Another case, Hernandez v. Robles, stated the same theme. Besides saying that the institution of marriage was created by the government, the case also stated that it has been redefined within modern American society and that the law has adjusted accordingly. It also said that the general population now views marriage as a partnership of equals with equal rights and that the gender of the partners is no longer critical in the definition of marriage. Again, another Supreme Court case (Murphy v. Ramsey) proved this wrong. The case stated that "[N]o legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth, fit to take [its] rank as one of the coordinate States of the Union, than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony."
There is one another thing I want to go over to completely answer the pending question of "Where's that in the Constitution?" and that is to address The Defense of Marriage Act. I have never heard about this until my husband actually told me about it when I was seeking some advice and help with writing this post. I just wikipedia the act and got a quick summary of what the act is all about.
First off, it's a United States Federal Law that defines marriage as a legal union of one man and one woman. Furthermore, no state is required to recognize a same sex marriage that was treated as a legal marriage from another state. More recently, as I found out, Section 3 which "codifies the non-recognition of same-sex marriage for all federal purposes, including insurance benefits for government employees, Social Security survivors' benefits, and the filing of joint tax returns" has been found unconstitutional according to the Obama Administration, but NOT from the US Supreme Court which is the only authority on determining whether or not something is constitutional.
So where does it say in the Constitution that gay marriage is a sin? With all the claims and arguments I have mentioned in this post all come to one conclusion: The Supreme Court sees that marriage is defined as a union between one man and one woman. The Supreme Court is given the right to examine laws that are challenged through the lower courts. They examine these laws through the "eye of the Constitution." Meaning they have the authority to interpret the Constitution to upheld laws that are constitutional or to strike down laws that are unconstitutional. What ever the Supreme Court decides is as it stands, unless Congress passes an amendment to the Constitution, or the findings of a succeeding case overturns a previous court decision.
Sources:
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Preamble
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrill_Anti-Bigamy_Act
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