I believe that one of the things the Father is doing in this time is to put right so many misconceptions that the Christian church has held for so long.

Misconceptions that come across to the unbeliever, not as bravely-held convictions worthy of honour and careful consideration, bringing glory to God as we stand firm as illuminated believers in a dark world, but as anachronistic, irrelevant ironclad rules that simply put people off the beautiful simplicity of Jesus’s love!

Silly arguments about how old the Earth is; how old the Universe is. Silly arguments against modern scientific discovery which is reminiscent of the ‘Earth at the centre of the Universe’ model so beloved of the Church in the 17th century that they persecuted those who held the sun-centred view that we now know to be completely correct. And that wasn’t even an important doctrine!

So, in this time, the landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to legalise same-sex marriage in all 50 of the United States of America is also seen by many Christians as the ‘end of marriage as we knew it’.

But in fact it does nothing of the sort. This ‘end of marriage’ statement is, in my opinion, simply an overstatement to try to get people on to the side of the anti-lobby, by frightening them. Heterosexual marriage will continue to thrive as it always has; the legalisation of same-sex marriage will not affect it in any way.

In fact, the effects of this law are asymmetric.

On the one hand, the anti-same-sex marriage lobby, for whom life will go on pretty much as normal. This result will not affect them one iota, unless they let it. And in any event, they’ll get over it. To put it bluntly, we heterosexual people have lost nothing!

On the other hand, for all these dear people who now have more of the freedom to be who they want to be, and who God made them to be, life will never be the same again. In a good way.

Let me remind my readers: there is serious doubt among modern theologians that the Bible does in fact condemn ‘different’ sexualities. And we should therefore err on the side of Love, rather than hate. Take a look at my previous article, The Call to Love, for more on this.

Granted, making same-sex marriage legal is not going to change the hearts and minds of the anti-gay lobby, at least not overnight. There will still be persecution; entrenched opinions sometimes take several lifetimes to drain from some people, if indeed they ever do. But in 25 years time, we will look back from a time when same-sex marriage is accepted as perfectly normal, perfectly run-of-the-mill, and wonder what all the fuss was about.

But for the people for whom this judgement is so important, the people in same-sex marriages, life will be as it should be.

For a real from-the-heart piece on this subject, check out Susan Cottrell’s blog entry here at FreedHearts. It’ll be well worth it.

Also, I have made an archive copy of Susan’s article here on my blog. You just never know how long some sites will last on the Internet; they are constantly disappearing!