Doug Humphrey, Senior Pastor

Transforming Ordinary People into Extraordinary Followers of Jesus Christ

May 1, 2012 Dear TCC Family, This Tuesday, North Carolinians will have the opportunity to shape our Constitution in regards to the issue of homosexual marriage. How should serious followers of Christ think about and respond to this issue? The North Carolina Family Policy Council (www.ncfpc.org) has some helpful resources which cut through the rhetoric, helping me understand why I intend to vote YES this Tuesday on the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA) to the North Carolina constitution. Following are some of their findings: The Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA) is about preservation, not discrimination. It is not a ban on gay marriage since it does not ban anything that is, or ever has been, legal in North Carolina. North Carolinas Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is not sufficient; a constitutional amendment is necessary. DOMA laws, which were designed to preserve marriage, are being attacked through the courts. An amendment to the Constitution would protect marriage from judicial activism. There is no legal basis for arguing that the Marriage Protection Amendment would diminish in any way the protections afforded by North Carolinas Domestic Violence Statutes. Domestic Violence Statutes have been found constitutionally consistent with other states marriage amendments. The Marriage Protection Amendment would not affect North Carolinas current laws regulating child custody, wills, trusts, and medical powers of attorney, or hospital visitation rights. The Marriage Protection Amendment would not prohibit private employers from providing benefits to domestic partners, but it would protect them from being forced to do so. Marriage Protection Amendments are not aimed at interfering with love. Love is a great thing, but marriage is about more than just love. We dont allow siblings, children, or more than two individuals to marry because it violates Gods design for marriage. When the MPA is approved, everyone will continue to have the freedom to love whomever they wish. continued... 4216 Kildaire Farm Road Apex, NC 27539 919.362.9996 w w w. t c c . o r g

Beyond legal issues, pastor and theologian John Piper (www.DesiringGod.org) offers the following sound biblical guidance in the face of efforts to legalize so-called same sex marriage: We do not realize what a calamity is happening around us. The new thingnew for America, and new for historyis not homosexuality. That brokenness has been here since we were all broken in the fall of man. (And there is a great distinction between the orientation toward homosexuality and homosexual actsjust as there is a great difference between my orientation to pride and the act of boasting.) Whats new is not even the celebration of homosexual sin. Homosexual behavior has been exploited, and reveled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia. Whats new is normalization and institutionalization. This is the new calamity. My reason for writing is to help the church feel the sorrow of these days. And the magnitude of the assault on God and his image in man. Christians, more clearly than others can see the tidal wave of pain that is on the way. Sin carries in it its own misery: Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error (Romans 1:27). And on top of sins self-destructive power comes, eventually, the wrath of God: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. (Colossians 3:56). To help Christians think through this issue in advance of the the May 8th vote on North Carolinas Marriage Protection Amendment, John Piper offers these five reflections: 1. God defines marriagethere is no such thing as so-called gay marriage. 2. Same-sex sexual relations are sin. 3. Not all sins should be prohibited by human law, but some should be. 4. The legal significance of marriage makes a statutory definition necessary. 5. It is wise that our laws define marriage as between a man and a woman. Piper concludes: I am not making a case for the legal prosecution of homosexual practice. Nor would I advocate the legal prosecution of heterosexual fornication. But I would make a case against the institutionalization of fornication, or making it a building block of society, or mandating its approval, or imbedding it in our laws. It is one thing to tolerate sin, it is another to build society on it. Warmly,

Pastor Doug
PS Tuesday I will be voting YES for Amendment One to the North Carolina Constitution.