An interesting article is posted by “Chaplain Mike” at: http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/mixed-marriage-messages. Chaplain Mike challenges us about Bill Clinton (serial adulterer), John Edwards (adultery with a “love child”), Herman Cain (alleged improprieties), and Newt Gingrich (serial adulteries). As Chaplain Mike concludes, “Now that primary voters have weeded out the adulterers and philanderers…[emphasis added]” What do these men have to say—with any moral authority—on the issues of marriage, fidelity, honor, dignity, vows, integrity and as examples?
Chaplain Mike then offers a review of Mr. Barak Obama and Mr. Mitt Romney. Both men are heterosexual, traditional and creditably faithful in their own marriages and families, but both are diametrically opposed on the issue of homoerotic and civil partnerships. One gets mixed signals, as Mike asserts.
Yesterday, we called for the “vetting” and “review” of elites
by elites (highly educated, Confessional, Reformed Churchmen)
yesterday at: http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2012/05/cultural-elites-and-confessional.html.
While we were thinking about media, Hollywood, journalistic, and academic types, the same review should be applied to political elites—our city, state and national leaders. If they wish to speak to moral issues in public, let them be reviewed publicly.
Let the vetting and review continue.
Here's Chaplain Mike.
Mixed
Marriage Messages
What an interesting cast of characters and
what a conflicted conversation we’ve had in recent history in American
presidential politics when it comes to the subject of marriage.
It wasn’t too long ago, we had public hearings about adulterous liaisons in the Clinton White House.
This year we are being treated to the spectacle of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards’s trial, in which he is accused of soliciting and secretly spending over $925,000 to cover up his adultery.
Herman Cain, Republican hopeful, suspended his campaign when he could not overcome revelations of a 13-year adulterous affair and numerous allegations of sexual harassment by some of his female employees.
Likewise, on the campaign trail this past year fellow Republican Newt Gingrich had to deal constantly with public scrutiny of his marital and extra-marital affairs. Wed three times, his two previous marriages ended in divorce after he had affairs with younger women, once when his wife was seriously ill.
I guess it could be worse. France just elected Francois Hollande, the first French president to enter office unmarried and living with his partner. Just imagine how that would play in Peoria.
Well, at any rate, now it looks as though it will be President Obama vs. Governor Romney in the U.S. November election.
When it comes to marriage, conservative Christians get mixed messages from both.
On the one hand, you have Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican candidate, who married his teenage sweetheart and has had a long traditional heterosexual marriage. He affirms his support for marriage between one man and one woman for life and says he believes the federal government should codify the institution in law. His faith is the basis for this position, he says. Mr. Romney is a Mormon, a faith that now strongly emphasizes conservative “family values,” but which was once notorious for its practice of polygamy (“plural marriage”).
Mormons officially practiced polygamy from the 1830′s until 1890. Certain Mormon sects even today continue the practice and criticize the main church body for abandoning a fundamental tenet of their faith. In 1856, the Republican party which Romney now represents had an anti-Mormon plank in its platform that berated “the twin relics of barbarism – polygamy and slavery.” In 1857-58 a conflict known as “The Utah War” saw U.S. military forces occupy the Territory of Utah under the charge of sedition and failing to honor U.S. laws (including monogamous marriage). Under constant pressure from the government, the LDS church officially changed its stance on plural marriage in 1890, when church President Willard Woodruff issued a manifesto urging Mormons to follow the laws of the land with regard to marriage.
Today the LDS church is overwhelmingly supportive of monogamous, heterosexual marriage, and Romney has conferred with leaders of the Mormon church regularly over the years about how he should approach such public issues as abortion and gay marriage so as to stay in line with church teachings. Will his faith commitment pose a problem for evangelical Christians? Although orthodox believers might envy the strong family morals Mormons promote, they still consider them theologically outside the pale of genuine Christianity, and supporting a member of a “cult” may be more than some can stomach.
For a detailed history of Romney’s actual actions regarding issues related to gay rights and marriage, see this LA Times piece. Those on the right tend to think Romney is a waffler when it comes to most political decisions and his record on gay issues may give them some ammunition to question how robust his convictions truly are.
It will be interesting to see how conservative Christians spin this. Unable to agree with Gov. Romney on doctrines of his religion and suspicious of him as a politician, I assume they will nonetheless support him based in part on his conservative social position regarding marriage. They will do this even though his position grows out of his faith, with which they disagree, and even though they see him as a political opportunist rather than as a man of real convictions.
On the other hand, you have President Obama, who is a Christian, and who also has a traditional, heterosexual marriage. He has said repeatedly that his position on gay marriage has been “evolving,” but the direction of that evolution has been clear.
The president has taken some significant steps toward advancing gay rights. His administration moved to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Clinton, which defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman. And he did assist in bringing an end to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the U.S. military. So, although he has supported traditional marriage, and in statements has even assigned special significance to it because of his Christian faith, it is clear that he has been “evolving” toward acceptance of gay marriage. He confirmed that this week.
Like Mr. Romney, President Obama said that he came to his position via his faith. He specifically cited the “Golden Rule” taught by Jesus and said that Christian faith should not only be defined by Christ sacrificing himself for us, but also by Christians treating others as they would like to be treated.
It is unlikely that conservative Christians will do anything but condemn this. Frankly, most of the public voices I have heard from the “Christian Right” really don’t trust in President Obama’s faith and never have, and it has been rare to hear anyone engage him or take him seriously on that level. There is too much suspicion about his political motives and agendas.
According to a report in the Washington Post, the President’s announcement is already mobilizing Christians to support Gov. Romney: “Pastors in Ohio, North Carolina, Florida and other swing states are readying Sunday sermons inveighing against same-sex unions, while activist groups have begun laying plans for social media campaigns, leaflet drives and other get-out-the-vote efforts centered on the same-sex marriage issue.”
As one prominent gay marriage opponent and activist stated, “We are going to make this our key issue: the attack on marriage.”
Nevertheless, the piece also points out an ongoing uncertainty among those in the religious right that Gov. Romney is fully committed to this fight. They point to statements in recent days that he supports allowing gay couples to adopt children and that he does not view same-sex marriage as a religious issue.
Chaplain Mike then offers a review of Mr. Barak Obama and Mr. Mitt Romney. Both men are heterosexual, traditional and creditably faithful in their own marriages and families, but both are diametrically opposed on the issue of homoerotic and civil partnerships. One gets mixed signals, as Mike asserts.
Yesterday, we called for the “vetting” and “review” of elites
by elites (highly educated, Confessional, Reformed Churchmen)
yesterday at: http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2012/05/cultural-elites-and-confessional.html.
While we were thinking about media, Hollywood, journalistic, and academic types, the same review should be applied to political elites—our city, state and national leaders. If they wish to speak to moral issues in public, let them be reviewed publicly.
Let the vetting and review continue.
Here's Chaplain Mike.
Mixed
Marriage Messages
12
May 2012
It wasn’t too long ago, we had public hearings about adulterous liaisons in the Clinton White House.
This year we are being treated to the spectacle of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards’s trial, in which he is accused of soliciting and secretly spending over $925,000 to cover up his adultery.
Herman Cain, Republican hopeful, suspended his campaign when he could not overcome revelations of a 13-year adulterous affair and numerous allegations of sexual harassment by some of his female employees.
Likewise, on the campaign trail this past year fellow Republican Newt Gingrich had to deal constantly with public scrutiny of his marital and extra-marital affairs. Wed three times, his two previous marriages ended in divorce after he had affairs with younger women, once when his wife was seriously ill.
I guess it could be worse. France just elected Francois Hollande, the first French president to enter office unmarried and living with his partner. Just imagine how that would play in Peoria.
Well, at any rate, now it looks as though it will be President Obama vs. Governor Romney in the U.S. November election.
When it comes to marriage, conservative Christians get mixed messages from both.
On the one hand, you have Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican candidate, who married his teenage sweetheart and has had a long traditional heterosexual marriage. He affirms his support for marriage between one man and one woman for life and says he believes the federal government should codify the institution in law. His faith is the basis for this position, he says. Mr. Romney is a Mormon, a faith that now strongly emphasizes conservative “family values,” but which was once notorious for its practice of polygamy (“plural marriage”).
Mormons officially practiced polygamy from the 1830′s until 1890. Certain Mormon sects even today continue the practice and criticize the main church body for abandoning a fundamental tenet of their faith. In 1856, the Republican party which Romney now represents had an anti-Mormon plank in its platform that berated “the twin relics of barbarism – polygamy and slavery.” In 1857-58 a conflict known as “The Utah War” saw U.S. military forces occupy the Territory of Utah under the charge of sedition and failing to honor U.S. laws (including monogamous marriage). Under constant pressure from the government, the LDS church officially changed its stance on plural marriage in 1890, when church President Willard Woodruff issued a manifesto urging Mormons to follow the laws of the land with regard to marriage.
Today the LDS church is overwhelmingly supportive of monogamous, heterosexual marriage, and Romney has conferred with leaders of the Mormon church regularly over the years about how he should approach such public issues as abortion and gay marriage so as to stay in line with church teachings. Will his faith commitment pose a problem for evangelical Christians? Although orthodox believers might envy the strong family morals Mormons promote, they still consider them theologically outside the pale of genuine Christianity, and supporting a member of a “cult” may be more than some can stomach.
For a detailed history of Romney’s actual actions regarding issues related to gay rights and marriage, see this LA Times piece. Those on the right tend to think Romney is a waffler when it comes to most political decisions and his record on gay issues may give them some ammunition to question how robust his convictions truly are.
It will be interesting to see how conservative Christians spin this. Unable to agree with Gov. Romney on doctrines of his religion and suspicious of him as a politician, I assume they will nonetheless support him based in part on his conservative social position regarding marriage. They will do this even though his position grows out of his faith, with which they disagree, and even though they see him as a political opportunist rather than as a man of real convictions.
On the other hand, you have President Obama, who is a Christian, and who also has a traditional, heterosexual marriage. He has said repeatedly that his position on gay marriage has been “evolving,” but the direction of that evolution has been clear.
The president has taken some significant steps toward advancing gay rights. His administration moved to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Clinton, which defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman. And he did assist in bringing an end to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the U.S. military. So, although he has supported traditional marriage, and in statements has even assigned special significance to it because of his Christian faith, it is clear that he has been “evolving” toward acceptance of gay marriage. He confirmed that this week.
Like Mr. Romney, President Obama said that he came to his position via his faith. He specifically cited the “Golden Rule” taught by Jesus and said that Christian faith should not only be defined by Christ sacrificing himself for us, but also by Christians treating others as they would like to be treated.
It is unlikely that conservative Christians will do anything but condemn this. Frankly, most of the public voices I have heard from the “Christian Right” really don’t trust in President Obama’s faith and never have, and it has been rare to hear anyone engage him or take him seriously on that level. There is too much suspicion about his political motives and agendas.
According to a report in the Washington Post, the President’s announcement is already mobilizing Christians to support Gov. Romney: “Pastors in Ohio, North Carolina, Florida and other swing states are readying Sunday sermons inveighing against same-sex unions, while activist groups have begun laying plans for social media campaigns, leaflet drives and other get-out-the-vote efforts centered on the same-sex marriage issue.”
As one prominent gay marriage opponent and activist stated, “We are going to make this our key issue: the attack on marriage.”
Nevertheless, the piece also points out an ongoing uncertainty among those in the religious right that Gov. Romney is fully committed to this fight. They point to statements in recent days that he supports allowing gay couples to adopt children and that he does not view same-sex marriage as a religious issue.
• • •
So, U.S. Christians, these will be your
choices when it comes to presidential candidates and their views on marriage.
Now that primary voters have weeded out the adulterers and philanderers, we’re
left with two people with positions that conservative Christians are going to
have a hard time trusting or supporting without holding their noses.
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