for the love of what?

over the last few weeks this huge debate has sprung up from a comment by Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy.  essentially Cathy said that he believes in the "Biblical" definition of traditional marriage.  as a Christian person, and a company that strives to base itself on Biblical principles, this really isn't a shocking statement.  i have been more shocked by the response to this statement then the statement itself.  

its never been a secret about the Christian background of the company, its long standing policy of being closed on Sundays being on of the biggest, most visible expressions of those principles.  so the fact that groups of people found this statement so shocking is confusing to me.   maybe what is shocking is that someone was willing to share their views.   i think we are in a place where the majority of people have a fear of sharing what they believe because of the backlash of being called either intolerant, hate-filled or whatever.   this doesn't just mean in the debate of gay marriage.  i mean this across the board.  our society has become consumed with the idea that who ever is the loudest is the most right.  that is simply not a true statement. 

Cathy shared his personal feelings.  that is his right, his first amendment, plain as day, written in black and white in the Constitution right.  the backlash that has me most concerned is the number of people, people of power, that have made ultimately illegal statements infringing on Cathy's rights to free speech.   agree with him or not, that first amendment is pretty clear.   but i don't seem to remember any constitutional right for anyone to get married.  gay or straight. the trampling of that first amendment right is disturbing and disgusting.  and i think its a terrifying example of the direction this country is headed.  political correctness has driven us to a place where our fear of offending anyone has brought us to the point where our genuine, laid out before us in the constitution rights are being tossed out the window.  i do not care, AT ALL, about where you stand on the gay marriage issue if it means that myself or anyone else in this country is not able to speak freely about what i believe.  this issue that has been born of Dan Cathy's statement should really be the story here, it is truly terrifying the statements and threats being thrown about because one man shared his personal opinion. 

as for the main stream Christian response... i think what has disturbed me the most has been this rallying behind the Biblical traditional marriage being this grand point we stand on.  but, lets get off our high horse for a minute.  stop fooling yourself.  can we honestly say that we hold this Biblical definition of marriage in such high esteem as we watch many, many of our friends and family members getting divorces.  really, how sacred do we hold this idea of marriage when we stand by watching countless marriages fall apart and we do nothing because we "don't want to interfere"  that's garbage, and it makes this cry of holding to the Biblical definition of marriage to be garbage as well.  this issue of gay marriage is something worth discussing, i do not deny that.  but stop pretending like we as Christians have really done our part of modeling the Biblical definition of marriage much of the time. 

wherever you stand on the issue, i thank God that we live in a country that you are free to express those feelings.   at least for now, at this rate, in could be a matter of months until that changes.

--aaron

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