The Federal Marriage Amendment is set for a vote in the U.S. Senate during the week of July 12, 2004 -- even though passage appears unlikely. Desperate to rally the conservative grassroots, many Christian organizations have planned a "Protect Marriage Sunday" for July 11th. 
 
Jerry Falwell, Gary Bauer, Paul Weyrich, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and others have all announced it feverishly. They call for preachers to use that Sunday to preach support for the amendment. 
 
A live program, "Battle For Marriage," has also been scheduled to be aired that evening on various Christian television networks. 
 
But for true conservative Christians, it is the misguided calling for the preaching of idolatry. 
 
The conservative Christian paradigm is premised in the religious belief that everyone is a sinner. All are helpless to overcome their sinfulness alone. Not one person is self-righteous. The penalty for sin is condemnation by (only) God to the "lake of fire and brimstone." But joyous life-everlasting -- and being freed from one's sin and penalty -- is freely available to all. One simply must repent of the sin and faithfully receive the free gift of that salvation which is only made available by the love and sacrifice of the Savior Jesus Christ. 
 
That makes the conservative Christian paradigm a simple three-step process. One, confess/repent of sin. Two, receive the free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. Three, "go and sin no more," as the Bible records Jesus saying. 
 
However, "going and sinning no more" is not as easy as it simplistically sounds. 
 
Mortal life is a spiritual battleground. The devil -- also known as Satan or Lucifer -- is the real and only "enemy," using and/or deceiving people to commit or remain in unrepented sin. As such, the devil spiritually deceives people -- including Christians -- into believing that their sin is not sin, so that they will refuse to repent and receive their forgiveness and salvation in Jesus Christ. 
 
For that reason, conservative Bible-believing Christians rely on the Scriptures to help them know what is sin. They do not want to fall into sin again. When they do, they want to know it so that they can repent. Relying on Scripture is not about being judgmental. It is about having clarity for loving and righteous living the way Christ taught. 
 
Enter the "same-sex marriage" issue, and the Bible is explicitly clear for conservative Christians. 
 
Romans chapter 1, for one example, says that the "judgment of God" will come upon those who practice homosexual behavior. When one does not repent of it, unrepented sin will condemn them to hell. But if they repent of it (to God, not to man), all is forgiven by God and they are thus "pre-rescued" from the hellfire punishment. 
 
When one understands this foundational paradigm of conservative Christians, regardless of agreeing with it or not, one can then more easily see how the Christian non-supportive response to "same-sex marriage" really is a love-issue for such Christians -- when conducted in right love, of course. 
 
In an honestly-held love for the homosexual to not face the hellfire punishment of God, the conservative Christian paradigm is unable to support the behavior which the Bible defines as sin. Instead, Christians pray and hope that one day the homosexual might freely choose to also repent and receive the gospel.  
 
Some of the cases of conflict which arise, however, do occur when a Christian mistakenly begins an over-zealous psychological transference of their own self-realized failings and sinfulness. That is when they start positioning themselves as -- and acting in place of -- God in judgment of other sinners. It is those mistakes made by some Christians which lead to inaccurate accusations that supposedly "all" Bible-believing Christians are somehow "hateful bigots" against homosexuals. 
 
Notwithstanding the mistakes of the few, most conservative Christians are genuinely about love and preaching salvation through Christ. 
 
It is for these reasons, therefore, that organizations have called for "Protect Marriage Sunday." They appeal to sincere Christians who cannot support what the Bible defines as sin, so-called "same-sex marriage." 
 
But what such organizations have called for can be seen as (what the conservative Christian paradigm would define as) a crafty trap of the devil. 
 
Truthfully, "Protect Marriage Sunday" must more accurately be called, "Protect Government Marriage Sunday." The Federal Marriage Amendment does not "protect" true Godly marriage according to the Bible. Rather, it is a turning to the false god of big socialist government to "protect" an unconstitutional concept called "government marriage," and uses that false god to enforce such Marxist social engineering. 
 
The proposed amendment is completely unbiblical. 
 
There is not one example in the Bible of anyone ever being married "by government." So, the amendment seeks to "protect" something which never happened in the Bible. 
 
The amendment de-legitimizes the Biblical marriages of polygamous Moses, Abraham, Israel, David, and the dozens of other Biblical heroes who married more than one wife -- polygamy. So, undermining those heroes undermines the credibility of the Bible itself. 
 
The amendment chooses a false god instead of the God of the Bible. Scripturally, God never once used the false god of big socialist government to define or "protect" any doctrine. God alone defined marriage, not the false god of big socialist government. So, the amendment promotes outright idolatry. 
 
For Christians, that all makes the "Protect Government Marriage Sunday" a trap of the devil. Exploiting the conservative Christian non-support of the Bible-defined sin of so-called "gay marriage," the devil uses that to deceive such Christians into unrepentantly committing the sin of idolatry. 
 
By misleading such Christians into thinking that that idolatrous sin is not sin, they never repent of such sin. But in the Scriptures, Revelation 21:8 says that all idolators shall have their part in the lake of fire and brimstone. 
 
Sin against sin. Opposing homosexual sin cannot justify idolatry sin. So true conservative Christians cannot support "Protect Government Marriage Sunday" and the unbiblical Federal Marriage Amendment. 
 
In tragic irony, this July 11th, the Bible declares that anyone who preaches that idolatry -- and does not repent -- guarantees their own condemnation, by God, to hell. 


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