Same-Sex Marriage: America’s New Litmus Test for Holding Public Office

“Do you believe that gay sex is a perversion?” was Senator Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) question to CIA Director Mike Pompeo during a Senate confirmation hearing for Secretary of State.^[1] Booker was concerned about a speech in which then-Senator Mike Pompeo cited a prayer delivered before the Kansas state legislature, mourning how Americans had endorsed perversion, calling it an alternative lifestyle.^[2] Incredulous, Senator Booker asked Pompeo, “So you do not believe it is appropriate for two gay people to marry?” and he concluded his time by expressing concern that Mike Pompeo could not hold such a radical view of marriage and accurately represent the values of America as Secretary of State.^[3]

“After the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage [in 2015], Mike Pompeo, the president’s nominee to head the State Department, called the decision ‘wrong’ and ‘a shocking abuse of power.’”^[4] But is this truly a radical view of marriage that stands at odds with American values?

In the first place, this was a deeply divided decision by the Supreme Court with five Justices ruling in favor of the petitioners and four Justices opposed. In his dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts declared, “The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment… The Court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?”^[5] Similarly, Justice Scalia wrote:

But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch. The five Justices who compose today’s majority are entirely comfortable concluding that every State violated the Constitution for all of the 135 years between the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and Massachusetts’ permitting of same-sex marriages in 2003. They have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment a “fundamental right” overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since… These Justices know that limiting marriage to one man and one woman is contrary to reason; they know that an institution as old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until 15 years ago, cannot possibly be supported by anything other than ignorance or bigotry. And they are willing to say that any citizen who does not agree with that, who adheres to what was, until 15 years ago, the unanimous judgment of all generations and all societies, stands against the Constitution.^[6]

Same-sex marriage was never an American value until 2015 when it was forced upon a divided nation. In fact, 38 states had passed bans on same-sex marriages, mostly by amending their constitutions to define a marriage as a union between a man and a woman.^[7] Therefore, it is shocking that in the space of only three years, our nation’s representatives are now demanding that government officials not only tolerate but affirm same-sex marriage as a prerequisite to holding office.

There is a moral war being waged within our country, with a minority of influential individuals imposing a foreign value upon our nation. Unfortunately, many Americans have been content to accept the new “normal,” but we as Christians can never affirm same-sex marriage. On this the Bible is clear.

The Genesis account provides definitions for the terms “husband” and “wife.” Genesis 2:23–25 defines “wife” as being a woman united to a man through a marriage relationship, “‘[S]he shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Likewise, Genesis 3:6 defines “husband” as being a man united to a woman through a marriage relationship, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” Throughout all of Scripture, there is never an exception to these definitions. Instead, these definitions are affirmed by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:2, “But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.” They are further affirmed by the gender-specific language associated with the terms “husband” and “wife” in 1 Corinthians 7:2–3 and 10–17.

Thus, every instance of the terms “husband” and “wife” in Scripture refers to a man or a woman in a heterosexual marriage relationship. There is never an exception. Moreover, the very definition of marriage is established in the creation account as being exclusively heterosexual based upon God’s decision to create mankind as consisting of male and female genders designed to satisfy each other’s needs. This is testified to by both the Apostle Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 19:4–6). Because of these clearly defined definitions, there can be no such thing as same-sex marriages. It is a self-contradicting title.

While Senator Booker’s concerns did not prevent the committee’s approval of Mike Pompeo, as Christian Americans, we should be deeply concerned when our representatives establish as a litmus test that one must affirm same-sex marriage to hold public office. Such a “value” is neither American, nor Christian. But if we remain silent in moments such as this, then it can only be a matter of time before this truly does become an American value. Quite frankly, given how much has changed in the space of only three years since the Supreme Court ruling, we may not have many more opportunities to voice our dissent before this shift is complete.