Going forward, I plan to move beyond the narrow issue of abortion. This is not because I no longer think it’s an important issue. Just that there are other important issues I want to speak to as well. Tonight, we’ll look at gay marriage.
As of this writing, the nation of Ireland has just finished voting in a referendum to legalize gay marriage. The results will be announced tomorrow, but basically everyone expects the YES vote to win. I expect there will be a lot of blowback in social conservative circles about how Ireland has turned its back on God, and rebelled. But this rebellion is not new. Ireland has been in rebellion against God since long before the day of its independence. Back in 1890, Irish leader Charles Stewart Parnell desecrated the institution of marriage. The Catholic Church rightfully took Parnell to task for this, but much to the church’s surprise, the rank and file citizens of Ireland sympathized entirely with Parnell.
After independence, Ireland wrote a Constitution which began with these words:”In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,We, the people of Éire,Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ.” But the words were lies. As the Old Testament prophets would have said, they were as devoid of real faith as the Temple sacrifices in pre-exilic Judah. The United States Constitution, for all its flaws, is at least honest enough to admit up front that its supreme god is “We the People.”
The most basic desecrations of marriage, fornication and adultery, seem to have been legal for a very long time. Then in 1995 came the barbarous popular legalization of no-fault divorce. God’s design in Genesis for marriage was by this point mutilated beyond recognition. Divorce, together with sex outside of marriage, quite obviously destroys far more lives than gay marriage ever will. Ireland is not beginning a rebellion against God tonight, but merely continuing one that has lasted a long time.
As a general rule, Catholic countries tend to be less ungodly than protestant ones. Indeed, Ireland does at least have the decency to (mostly) take a stand against murdering babies. But culture and history are not enough. Every new generation has a duty to submit to God anew. That’s certainly not happening in Ireland. Instead, the old ‘Catholic’ mask is slipping off the nation more and more. Tomorrow, it will become more obvious than ever that, spiritually, the nation’s Constitution always began and ended not with Christ, but with ‘We the People.’
Pro-lifist 