Civil Unions vs Family Values

I seem to have made a stir when I commented on Daniels journal that for all his ranting against the bigotry and hatespeech of Destiny Church, he was sounding somewhat similar.

Civil Unions are mainly for people who want to have the same rights that are afforded to married couples, but who don't want to have the whole religious aspect associated with it. No one is trying to re-name marriage as a "Civil Union."

Whilst not opposed to civil unions and the legal protections/benefits they provide, I always find the "we're not renaming marriage" angle somewhat odd - if you're not renaming it; why have a new name? However, my main area of contention is in when someone talks of "marriage without the whole religious aspect", isn't that what the "registry office", or "down at the river/park, anywhere thats not a church" wedding deals with (as well as for financial reasons)? Marriage, and all its legal implications, but without God, or any religious affiliation (vows aside).

In a world with Civil Unions, where does a registry-office wedding stand? The only exception here would be same-sex unions, which is where a majority of the issues lie. Not with civil unions themselves, but with the same-sex portion.

If civil unions had been brought in, but didn't provide any clauses for same-sex unions, I wonder how much fighting there would be from the christian sector; they might not be as vocal, or get as much media attention, but the fights been here for awhile. The fight for family values, and a family home isn't some new "Destiny" agenda, it's been on the TODO list of most churches for at least 30 odd years. If I say anything on this subject, its that civil unions havn't destroyed the sanctity of marriage - its society.

Out of all the people I know, the number of unbroken marriages is growing smaller by the day, and whilst I have both parents together, and it's far from a perfect family, it IS a functioning family unit. Growing up friends would always "spend the weekend with dad", or "have issues with mums new boyfriend", or some other variation - it would seem having a functioning, traditional family home puts you in a minority these days; regardless of religious affiliation... and like all minority groups - we fight to defend ourselves.

Whilst not directly related to family values, or civil unions, the following passage from C.S.Lewis's "Mere Christianity" (circa 1943) comes to the mind:

We must now consider Christian morality as regards sex, what Christians call the virtue of chastity. The Christian rule of chastity must not be confused with the social rule of "modesty" (in one sense of that word); i.e. propriety, or decency. The social rule of propriety lays down how much of the human body should be displayed and what subjects can be referred to, and in what words, according to the customs of a given social circle. Thus, while the rule of chastity is the same for all Christians at all times, the rule of propriety changes.

A girl in the Pacific islands wearing hardly any clothes and a Victorian lady completely covered in clothes might both be equally "modest," proper, or decent, according to the standards of their own societies: and both, for all we could tell by their dress, might be equally chaste (or equally unchaste). Some of the language which chaste women used in Shakespeare's time would have been used in the nineteenth century only by a woman completely abandoned. When people break the rule of propriety current in their own time and place, if they do so in order to excite lust in themselves or others, then they are offending against chastity. But if they break it through ignorance or carelessness they are guilty only of bad manners.

When, as often happens, they break it defiantly in order to shock or embarrass others, they are not necessarily being unchaste, but they are being uncharitable: for it is uncharitable to take pleasure in making other people uncomfortable. I do not think that a very strict or fussy standard of propriety is any proof of chastity or any help to it, and I therefore regard the great relaxation and simplifying of the rule which has taken place in my own lifetime as a good thing. At its present stage, however, it has this inconvenience, that people of different ages and different types do not all acknowledge the same standard, and we hardly know where we are.

While this confusion lasts I think that old, or old-fashioned, people should be very careful not to assume that young or "emancipated" people are corrupt whenever they are (by the old standard) improper; and, in return, that young people should not call their elders prudes or puritans because they do not easily adopt the new standard. A real desire to believe all the good you can of others and to make others as comfortable as you can will solve most of the problems.

What I find interesting here, is that even back in 1943, C.S.Lewis recognised that society changes, and what is, or isn't acceptable in society also changes - over time, and over location. However, there is also the recognition that for Christians, certain things remain constant. In this context, I see laws of modesty being judged, and defined by society, and the laws of chastity being defined, and judged by God. The former changes, and we are judged acceptable, the later is constant - and all are guilty ( enter mercy, grace, unconditional love, and that Salvation thing ).

"Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Mathew 7:1) - this famous, well known verse, in light of the above would (IMHO) be best read as "don't judge others according to gods laws, unless you want yourself to also be judged by gods laws". Given that everyone is guilty when judged against Gods rules, do you really want to know your verdict?

This is not to say we shouldn't fight, that we shouldn't strive to rebuild the family unit, it just means we need to be better at it.

I'm also reminded of a poem I wrote at the end of last year titled "Broken fragile familes":

I am the damage, of excuses you have made
I am a crack, in walls with secrets never told
I am the lost, abused and unappreciated
I am the curse, that threatens your way of life

In this broken family
We're the pieces never seen
It's a fragile fantasy
Societies falling apart...

I am the fear, that hides behind misguided hope
I am the reasoning, that fails to comprehend
I am resentment, from being treated like a whore
I am the damage, I am a bleeding open sore

This is a broken family
I'm a piece that was never seen
In this f*cked up reality
Societies fallen apart.

And one last quote from C.S.Lewis:

Finally, though I have had to speak at some length about sex, I want to make it as clear as I possibly can that the centre of Christian morality is not here. If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and back-biting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.

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