The State of Marriage in the State of Oregon

Mount Hood, City of Roses, coffee shops, and Multnomah Falls typically come to mind for those who are familiar with Portland, Oregon. March 3, 2004, brought an entirely different set of images to associate with the city. On this day, residents of Portland awoke to find that their county had thrust them square into the center of the culture war, with the news that Multnomah County had begun issuing marriage licenses to gays and lesbians. Portland is by no means a bastion of conservatism. In fact, the Pacific Northwest city has carved out a niche for itself as ecologically driven and libertarian, with a large and vocal lesbian population that is aggressive and influential.¹ Still the announcement from the County Commissioners' office shocked the citizenry. Gays and lesbians, most from Portland, but many from all over the western United States, began streaming to the county office to receive a marriage license. After the first five business days, Multnomah County had issued marriage licenses to over 3,400 gays and lesbians.

What transpired in Portland was not a first. San Francisco had begun issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples one month earlier. What does make the Portland events worth recapping is what they reveal about the power and strategy of the gay and lesbian political machine and the struggle by Christians to articulate a coherent and compelling response.

The drama actually began two months previous when Massachusetts courts opened the way to gay marriages. Encouraged by the progress made in Massachusetts, a pro-homosexual interest group, Basic Rights Oregon, began to lobby the Multnomah County Commissioners' office. The county is governed by five elected commissioners, two of whom had each previously received awards from gay-rights groups. These two commissioners were the initial targets of the lobbying efforts of Basic Rights Oregon. Persuaded that Oregon law was sufficiently vague to allow the question of gay marriage to be pressed, the two commissioners then enlisted the support of the County Chairwoman and a fourth commissioner.

Knowing that the majority of Oregonians do not support gay and lesbian marriage, secrecy became the highest priority. The state's open meeting law forbids the discussion of public business by three or more commissioners. Even though the commissioners' offices are within shouting distance of each other, to maintain the illusion of following state law, the four commissioners were careful to only meet in groups of two to discuss strategy. Furthermore, they made the decision not to notify the fifth commissioner, Lonnie Roberts, who was outspoken in his opposition to gay marriage. The four conspirators feared that Roberts would make the discussions public, which they could ill-afford.

Ultimately, the four commissioners, working with carefully selected county lawyers, received the legal opinion they sought. Because the Oregon Constitution does not explicitly define marriage as being between a man and a woman, the county concluded that it could not defend itself against a lawsuit if it rejected an application for a marriage license from a same-sex couple. Basic Rights Oregon began notifying potential marriage candidates that the county would begin issuing marriage licenses to gays and lesbians. By Wednesday morning a line had formed outside the county building and the circus had begun.

The response was predictable. Local and national media converged on the scene, careful to focus their attention on the smiles of the "couples" as they emerged with marriage license in hand and the applause of those who came to support them. There were also more than enough shouts of angry individuals carrying vitriolic signs, claiming to speak for Jesus.

The response of the Oregon state government was one of confusion and impotent outrage. Democratic governor Ted Kulongoski, who opposes homosexual marriages, although he supports civil unions, said that he felt "blindsided by the county's secret decision" to grant marriage licenses.² After receiving its own nonbinding legal opinion from the Oregon Attorney General that "gay marriage was illegal under state law but banning such unions probably would violate Oregon's constitution,"³ the governor's office requested that Multnomah County cease issuing licenses until such time as the Oregon Supreme Court could rule on the issue. The Multnomah County commissioners refused, claiming that they would continue to act in accordance with the state constitution-or at least their interpretation of it. Ultimately, the State of Oregon refused to file the marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples, sending them back to the county. In late April, a circuit court judge ordered Multnomah County to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples until the issue is resolved by the Oregon Supreme Court or the voters. At this time, petitions are circulating to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would specifically define marriage as being between one man and one woman. In a demonstration of the moral confusion that currently reigns in Oregon, another county, poised to follow the lead of Multnomah County before the State's decision, stopped issuing marriage licenses to all people, whether heterosexual or homosexual, until the issue is resolved. So much for the state of marriage in the state of Oregon.

The machinations of this process demonstrate the unrestrained zeal with which homosexual advocates are currently willing to press the fight-unrestrained by biblical norms, unrestrained by state law, and unrestrained by public opinion. When such misguided zeal is combined with an utter lack of moral vision by elected officials and a complicit media, then the stage is set for an overhaul of cultural norms-which is exactly what is happening.

The majority of Americans, as many as two-thirds in some polls, oppose homosexual marriage.⁴ However, this commitment is tenuous at best due to the lack of conviction that girds this opinion. In post-Christian America, the best reason many can give for opposition to same-sex marriage is that homosexuality is distasteful.⁵ But this argument has a rapidly diminishing weight. The homosexual community has strategically flooded the airwaves with portrayals of homosexuality as part of the everyday fabric of life. Popular television shows such as Will and Grace and Spin City have been highly successful at making homosexuality appear mainstream, even normal. Starting in elementary school grades, many public education curricula teach that it is intolerance toward homosexuality that is the vice, not the behavior or disposition itself. The result: whereas a vast majority of older Americans are strongly opposed to same-sex marriage, younger generations are evenly split.⁶ Homosexual advocates are playing for keeps and their strategic target is the nation's youth.

At this point in time, the church must do far more than condemn homosexual marriage. As long as the discussion of the defense of marriage is framed in the context of same-sex marriage, then the battle is being fought on the terms established by the homosexual community. And it is a losing battle. What is needed is an elevation of marriage as an institution; a biblical vision of all that marriage is intended to be. It must be proclaimed from the pulpit and lived out in the lives of believers. It is precisely at this point that the church has failed its mandate to be salt and light in the world. The recent rebellious decisions by denominations such as the Anglican Church and Episcopal Church endorsing homosexuality have granted a veneer of religious credibility to same-sex marriage and have given the erroneous impression to the public that the Bible equivocates on homosexuality. But it is not the church's theology of homosexuality that is most problematic. It is the church's theology of marriage, articulated and lived out, that has put us in the position in which we find ourselves.

Advocates of homosexual marriage question whether there is any sanctity in marriage to defend. Where is this so-called sanctity of marriage in our present culture of divorce? When there is little discernable difference between the rate of divorce of those who claim to be Christians and those who do not, where is the platform from which the church can proclaim the holiness of marriage? When Christians fail to speak out against the absolute mockery of marriage in "reality" television shows such as My Big, Fat, Obnoxious Fiancé and Married by America, they diminish their ability to offer a Christian critique of other perversions of marriage. It is hard, if not impossible, for a society whose picture of marriage is informed by the debauchery and voyeurism of The Bachelor and Joe Millionaire to argue against same-sex unions which describe themselves with such words as "committed," "monogamous," and "loving."

Despite how marriage is portrayed on television or lived out in the general populace, the institution of marriage is profoundly theological and therefore deeply practical.

The Bible teaches that when God looked upon Adam, he said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him" (Gen 2:18). To meet the needs of the man, God then created woman. That there is nothing else in creation so perfectly suited for man is evident from Adam's proclamation upon seeing the woman: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man" (Gen 2:23). Scripture describes the nature of marriage, the union of the man and the woman made for him, as the man leaving his father and mother and holding fast to his wife. A man and woman united in marriage are "one flesh" (Gen 2:24); a union so profound and so wonderful that this creation ordinance has withstood millennia of sinful assaults and yet echoes through the portals of time as being "very good." Its irreplaceable utility in society is evident when Adam names his wife Eve, "the mother of all living" (Gen 3:20). Adam would know his wife and she would conceive children; the first father and the first mother engaged in the propagation of the human race in the image of Adam, who was created in the image of God (Gen 5:1-3). From this incredible beginning, the marriage relationship has been universally recognized as the proper pattern for family life and an essential building block for stable and fruitful societies.

But the wonder of marriage, and its importance to society, does not rest in its utility to propagate the human race. The importance of marriage to society is also theological. A recurring New Testament metaphor for the church is that of the "Bride of Christ." Paul likens his watchcare over the Corinthian church to that of a father betrothing his daughter to one husband (2 Cor 11:2). The culminating event in God's revelation of redemptive history is the marriage of the Lamb, where the Bride has been made ready, clothed in the fine linen of righteousness (Rev 19:7-9). That the Lord is like a beaming groom is evident from the invitation in the end times, "Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb" (Rev 21:9). What becomes of such wonderful imagery when the institution of marriage is trivialized, mocked, and perverted?

Marriage is not an ad hoc image of Christ and the church. Scripture teaches that husbands are to love their wives "as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Eph 5:25). The sanctifying nature of Christ's love-in-action for the church is to be the model for a husband's love for his wife. He is to love, nourish, and cherish his wife as he loves his own body, in the same manner that Jesus loved the church, which is his body (Eph 5:28-29). Paul writes that the "one flesh" relationship between a husband and a wife, instituted by God at Eden, is a profound mystery and "it refers to Christ and the church" (Eph 5:32). This means that the relationship between Christ and the church is logically prior to that of marriage. God instituted marriage in Eden because "it is not good that the man should be alone," but he did so with a mind toward giving the world a picture of the loving and sacrificial relationship that Christ has with the church.

Marriage was created, defined, and instituted by God. Therefore, it cannot be redefined by local governments, state constitutions, federal judiciaries, the FOX Network or People Magazine. Christians cannot sit idly by and allow governments to attach the social and religious weight of marriage to what is decidedly not Christian. But neither can Christians ignore popular culture's perversion of the understanding of heterosexual marriage, and they certainly cannot take part in that perversion. When this happens, we lose all moral credibility on the subject of marriage and do not have an audience when facing the controversy surrounding homosexual marriage. To be silent voluntarily on the one is ultimately to mute ourselves on the other.

Our task is far more than to argue against gay and lesbian marriage and against homosexual lifestyles. We must proclaim with our words while we demonstrate through our marriages the God-ordained relationship between a husband and wife. When husbands love their wives as themselves and wives respect their husbands (Eph 5:33), the world sees how Christ loves the church and the church loves her Lord. When the world hears this proclamation of true marriage and sees it lived out to the glory of God in Christian families, then any alternative will be exposed for the hollow perversion that it is.