Is the effort surrounding California’s Proposition Eight, banning gay marriage, and the fact that CA Proposition Eight has been recently overturned- as well as many other similar efforts concerning gay marriage- necessary? In 1989, Denmark was the first country to recognize civil unions. A civil union or similarly titled act, is one which recognizes the physical unions that the true church will not recognize; because of their failure to meet the standards clearly outlined by God, in The Word of God, which is The Holy Scriptures, the Truth which governs the true church.

Civil unions, and the like, permit these couples to exist in relative peace; being allowed the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness- or whatever are the rights protected by a particular society for its citizens- as  these unions define for them the same political legal rights as are extended to those couples who are recognized as married by the church. These unions also allow those couples, who recognize fully that they do not wish to include a God to which they show no allegiance in their own alliance with one another, to exist as a couple, with political legal rights equal to those afforded legitimately married couples.

At this point in time, the debate encircling California’s Proposition Eight, banning gay marriage, and other similar legislation is centered around the question:  Is marriage an institution which should encompass two consenting adults? Soon, the question may be:  Is marriage an institution which should encompass two human beings? Then:  Is marriage truly an institution that should encompass only two beings? The alarming trend is evident.

It appears that the institution of marriage originates with the Hebrew God, Yahweh, and that the definition of marriage is clearly stated by that God in His Word in the second chapter of Genesis.  The problem then is largely one of semantics.

Let those outside the church, our neighbors, be treated civilly, humanely.  May it be that we, as a church, treat them better than we treat ourselves- loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, as our King has ordered us to do in the twenty-second chapter of Matthew, verses 37-40.  Let us invite our neighbors into our homes and into our gathering places, and there let us love them.   However, let our neighbors not demand the rights of membership in the body, unless they have complied with the standard set forth in our Governing Body of Truth.  Let us not wittingly include (in church membership) those who do not agree with our constitution.

Lastly, if the world at large insists upon commandeering the term ‘marriage’ and its derivatives, maybe we must consider a new term to label and define the unions which we as a church are willing to recognize.