Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 647 | Who Defines Marriage & Why It Matters

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed.

Starting point is 00:00:33 You can watch this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com slash All right. All right. Today I want to talk about the respect for marriage act, which fully repeals the

Starting point is 00:01:05 defensive marriage act, which defined legal marriage. as between one man and one woman and was passed in 1996 and signed into law by Democrat president, Bill Clinton. The House of Representatives just voted on this respect for marriage act that codifies what is typically referred to as gay marriage. So you will hear me say a few times so-called gay marriage or gay unions or quote unquote gay marriage. Why do I say that? well, because I am a Christian and therefore I believe as many faiths have believed that marriage was created by God. Therefore, it is defined by God in the beginning pre-civilization and he defines created marriage as between one man and one woman. Therefore, all other forms of so-called marriage

Starting point is 00:01:58 are actually illegitimate. They're not by definition marriages. They might be civil partnerships. they might be unions that are recognized by the state that are recognized by the law as marriages. But because marriage actually precedes America and precedes civilization, we do not define marriage as anything other than between one man and one woman. I will probably use that phrase gay marriage throughout this because that's kind of the colloquial term and we kind of understand what I mean by that, but also know where I'm coming from and what my actual perspective is on that. So why are we even having a respect for marriage act? Why is this going on? So we're going to talk about that. I'm also going to talk about why I believe

Starting point is 00:02:45 as conservatives, we shouldn't support the codification of what is referred to as gay marriage. And then, of course, as Christians, but also just from a general, secular, nonpartisan perspective, why it's important to maintain and to protect the legitimate traditional definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. I very much understand that this is a controversial position, whether you're on the left or the right. I understand that I am out of step with the mainstream here. But, I mean, that's typical of most of my views.

Starting point is 00:03:23 I simply believe what Christians have believed about marriage for thousands of years, what Jews believed about marriage for thousands of years before that. What by common grace, all civilizations, all societies, all nations for all of time, have believed about marriage. And that is that it is between man and a woman for the purposes of procreation. So even though my position on this seems radical to us, the reality is the vast majority of even Americans believed what I did just 20 years ago. The majority of Americans, as we'll talk about in a little bit, believed that marriage was between a man and a woman even just 12 years ago.

Starting point is 00:04:03 So I may be out of step with where we are today. I am not out of step with most of human history and even most of the world today when it comes to the definition and this perspective on marriage. So why are we even having this conversation? why are politicians having this conversation when Obergefell passed in 2015 saying the marriage of same-sex couples was a constitutional right? There are probably a few reasons for that

Starting point is 00:04:35 that I'll get into. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself.

Starting point is 00:04:53 On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts.

Starting point is 00:05:19 I hope you'll join us. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said this, quote, this legislation guarantees that no married couple can be denied equal protection under federal law. This is really very important, she says, from tax provisions to social security benefits and more, even if the court were to erase marriage freedom, God forbid. So there are probably two reasons why Democrats are pushing this right now. You might think it's kind of random. One, they may legitimately think the Supreme Court will overturn,

Starting point is 00:05:59 Bergerfeld, which as I just mentioned, declared marriage between two men or two women, a constitutional right. That could be one reason because of what Justice Thomas said in his concurring opinion on Dobbs. Now, Justice Alito, who wrote the majority opinion for Dobbs, which was the decision that overturned Roe at the end of June, explicitly said that the decision to declare abortion not a constitutional right should not be interpreted as calling into question other decisions like those on birth control or same-sex unions. But Justice Thomas in his concurrent opinion said this, quote, we should reconsider all of the court substantive due process precedence, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Griswold guaranteed the right of married couples to obtain

Starting point is 00:06:50 birth control. Lawrence ruled anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional. Now, Now, Thomas is not saying in his concurring opinion whether he agrees morally with birth control or sodomy or gay unions. He's not even saying that these things shouldn't be legal. That's not what he's arguing in his opinion. He is disagreeing with the court's idea of substantive due process, which served as the basis for not just these three cases, but also for Roe. So you can go back.

Starting point is 00:07:19 You can listen to Episode 633 of Relatable, where I explain more about his reasoning. we'll link it in the description of this episode. So perhaps Democrats are truly sincerely trying to preempt a Supreme Court decision overturning O'Bergfeld, which is incredibly, incredibly unlikely to happen. Now, maybe in 50 years, like what happened with Roe v. Wait, but not anytime soon. But perhaps that's their motivation. But here's another likely reason, and that is to make Republicans vote on it before the

Starting point is 00:07:54 midterms in November. Democrats want to show that the entire movement, or they want to try to prove that the entire movement that conservatives have been forging against gender identity indoctrination in schools and drag queen story hour and men and girls bathrooms are really just hating the gays. That's what they want everyone to think. And that conservatives are in cahoots or are a part of, you know, this far right movement along with the Supreme Court to control people and to establish Christian Nationalist, Fascist Theocracy. Their buzzword for this election cycle, if you haven't noticed, is freedom. Nancy Pelosi said it in the quote that I just read a couple minutes ago.

Starting point is 00:08:36 Gavin Newsom is running ads in Florida, trying to get California's defectors to move back, saying that they're the party in the state of freedom. Do you think this is just an aside, just a little parenthetical part here, like, do you think that you're actually going to make people forget why they left California? because much of California is an overtaxed crime-ridden tyrannical hellscape overflowing with drugs and homelessness. People are not forgetting that as they are relaxing on Miami Beach. As usual, when Democrats use this word freedom in their ads and in their tweets,

Starting point is 00:09:06 this is their buzzword going into the midterms, they actually mean the exact opposite of what they say. So when they say freedom, they mean tyranny. When they say democracy, they mean authoritarianism that they like. When they say authoritarianism, they mean democracy that they don't like. And the Dobbs decision is a great example of that. The Obergefell decision is a great example of that. So the Dobbs decision said, this decision should be placed in the hand of the people of the states,

Starting point is 00:09:31 should be decided democratically. And the left is calling that authoritarianism, handmaid's tail, far right, fascist extremism, when in reality the Roe decision was far more authoritarian banning states and their voters from banning abortion if they wanted to. But the left's vision of democracy is actually where all of their wishes are pushed through dissent is silence. That's why they support Obergefell, even though Obergefell was undemocratic. The decision of marriage should have been left to the state. It should have been decided democratically. This is also why this kind of subversive opposite interpretation of the words that they use, like democracy and authoritarian and freedom, it's also why you saw so many articles about how,

Starting point is 00:10:22 and, you know, news segments about how Elon Musk's commitment to free speech on Twitter would have been a threat to democracy. Free speech, they think, is a threat to democracy. It's because they mean the opposite of what they say and you're hoping that they don't notice. It's the same thing that they do with abortion. Abortion is health care. Okay, well, no, because health care doesn't include purposely, intentionally killing an innocent person, right? So they always mean the exact opposite of what they say. They're hoping that you don't think about it.

Starting point is 00:10:50 They're hoping that you don't notice. So when Democrats say that they are for freedom and Republicans are not, they're not actually telling the truth. It's not that Democrats who are for child drag shows or teachers teaching kindergartners how to be non-binary or for abortion through all nine months or for illegal immigrants living here on the taxpayer's dime or for violent criminals being released from jail. It's not that they support these things because they are for liberty, like max amounts of liberty, as we define liberty. They're actually just pro chaos, specifically pro moral chaos. Pro in many cases, outright immorality. So we know that they're not interested in what we think of when we think of liberty. They shut down businesses, forced masks, forced vaccines, closed schools, kept family members from

Starting point is 00:11:39 visiting their loved ones in nursing homes and in hospitals without any scientific evidence that this was helping. They're constantly fighting against speech they don't like online. they use every legal tool at their disposal to ruin the lives of people who pray on football fields or refuse to sell wedding cakes to gay couples or people who defend themselves against violent criminals. They're incredibly intolerant of dissent and of personal liberty. But to be fair, and this is all building the argument and helping us understand why conservatives should be for protecting traditional legitimate marriage.

Starting point is 00:12:17 So to be fair, it is also true. that conservatives are against the freedom to do some things. That is also true. We are against the freedom to abort your baby. Because we believe in the baby's freedom and the right to live. We are against the freedom to mutilate a minor's body because they decided one day that they're the opposite sex. We are against the freedom to murder, to steal, to assault, etc. We believe in laws. We believe in governance. We believe in order. Conservatives and liberals fundamentally disagree, though, on what freedom is and what rights are because we disagree on where rights and morality and truth come from. The left, in general, replaces God with government. The government creates rights,

Starting point is 00:13:02 which means these can be given and taken away and changed as those in charge see fit, based on what's politically expedient for them, according to their ideology, or according to which way the social winds are blowing. The right in general is supposed to believe that the government is subservient to God. We believe, as the founders outlined in the Declaration of Independence, that we were created by God and were endowed with certain inalienable rights from him, among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. That does not mean that every right in the Bill of Rights is found explicitly in Scripture, although some, like the right to do process are, but that the rights that we see listed there were determined to fall under the umbrella of

Starting point is 00:13:45 the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. Because God, the Supreme authority has given individuals these inalienable rights and therefore the government did not create them and therefore cannot take them away arbitrarily because they don't have the authority. That is why we believe in the right to self-governance. That is the basis of this concept of self-governance. That doesn't mean that there's no official government. That doesn't mean that there are no laws. It means that our elected officials are supposed to be beholden to us and beholden to the

Starting point is 00:14:16 constitution, beholden to the bill of rights. These things acknowledge that our rights come from God, who is our authority. He gave these rights to us. He says what is and what isn't, what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad. And if rights come from God, as our declaration declares, that means that truth and morality come from God too, because what are rights except for an application of truth and morality? The only way God has the authority to give us rights is because he is the creator of those things, the creator of those rights. He is the arbiter of what is true and false. He is the arbiter of what is right and wrong.

Starting point is 00:14:56 So the security of our rights in the United States depends on this belief that there is an authority that transcends our government that gives us rights that cannot be arbitrarily taken away by the government. And the stability of this type of governance depends on a common agreement by man. by man that our consciences are bound to God or at the very least a higher authority than us. The founders believe that there was a higher authority. Sometimes they call it providence. Sometimes they called it a creator. They didn't necessarily all agree exactly theologically on how to interpret scripture. Today, that is not the debate that we're having.

Starting point is 00:15:34 We're debating whether there is a God or not. Whether there is a higher immoral authority than the government or not, whether human beings are just accidental purposeless clumps of matter or whether we are individuals created by God in his image and given certain rights. That's why we are so divided between the right and the left today. The only reason that anyone could ever be trusted the founders knew to self-govern is because they're actually being governed by a transcendent moral authority that is God himself. That is why John Adams said that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Starting point is 00:16:10 So limited government as conservatives are supposed to stand for, and as the founders created, it's dependent on the belief in God as the giver of rights of truth of morality. Therefore, let's bring the back. When you abandon God as the giver of rights of truth, of morality, you eventually lose limited government. I am not advocating, as I've said many times, for a theocracy where everyone is forced to worship the same God in the same way.

Starting point is 00:16:37 It does mean, however, that God, in the founder's vision, the Christian God, really, the Christian idea of God. And his law does inform the formation of our basic laws. Laws against murder, theft, assault, laws requiring due process against cruel and unusual punishment, are all based on the laws and or principles found in God's law giving to Israel. You'll hear people say things like, no, murder is illegal because it's common. sense. No, it's not. It's not common sense to most people in the world, to most governments in the world today or throughout history. Murder is illegal because of the idea that people are made in God's image. And that is the basis of Western civilization. And it is the manifestation of that belief.

Starting point is 00:17:22 That has led to true liberation and equality like the emancipation of slaves. Everywhere in the world has had slavery. Unfortunately, still, most places in the world or many places in the world today do have slavery. It is because of the manifestation of the gospel, the manifestation of the Christian belief that all people are made in God's image and therefore have equal rights that led Western civilization and specifically the United States to obliterating slavery. So we are not built. Conservatives should understand. Americans really in general, but conservatives should understand that basic, that integral to conservatism is the belief that rights, the truth, morality, come from God that he created us that were not accidental clumps of matter, but we actually have rights

Starting point is 00:18:09 because of him. Now, you will also hear that you can't legislate morality, but every law is moral. Every law is based on a worldview. Secular progressives believe their worldview should inform our laws, but have a problem when Christians want their worldview to inform the law. The reality is there is no neutral law. The question is only ever whose morality and worldview is informing this law. Let's debate the laws. Let's debate the ideas. May the best one win. That's how it's supposed to work. But we are all supposed to have a common agreement about where morality, truth, and rights come from. It is our disagreement about that on the left and the right that ultimately and fundamentally divides us. So, conservatives and Republicans who support the codification of what is called today, gay marriage, do not understand what they are actually foregoing. Everything that I just talked about, they are abandoning. They are actually abandoning the very basic tenant. of not just conservatism but of America, because they are redefining marriage as God who gave us our rights and truth and morality, therefore, our authority to self-governed defines it. And you snub God as the authority.

Starting point is 00:19:24 You will lose the rights that the founders knew are inalienably ours because of him. The foundation of America and conservatism is not the freedom to do whatever you want to. The foundation of America and conservatism is a limited government made possible by people who are voluntarily constrained by the principles of God. Also, you cannot create moral order. You cannot create societal order when you abandon the created order. And that is what is happening. I mentioned earlier that every society by the gift of common grace,

Starting point is 00:20:00 that means grace and knowledge and wisdom and understanding that is given to everyone, whether they are Christians or not, special or specific grace, is given to Christians who are in Christ, but the gift of common grace, so good food, sex, marriage, science, things that human beings can understand because God has given that gift of common grace to the universe or they can partake in because of that common grace. Marriage, the institution of marriage, is a gift of common grace that has been understood and accepted and practiced by virtually every single society for all of time, the last 10 to 20 years.

Starting point is 00:20:42 And if you look throughout history, when that created order of male and female, when that institution of marriage between male and female is subverted, it's perverted, it is demolished, you get chaos. Why do you think over the past seven years since Obergefell was decided in 2015, we have seen the sexual and moral revolutions go the way that they have. We said, or we were told, that this is about visitation rights in hospitals. This is about equality. This is about people being able to do what they want to do in the privacy of their own homes between two consenting adults. It is very quickly turned into something else. It is very quickly, as Justice Thomas prophesied

Starting point is 00:21:34 guest or deduced in his dissent on Obergefell that it we have come head to head with religious liberty. I mean, you see that with an example like Jack Phillips, the baker who has had his life nearly ruined because he refused to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple because it violates his conscience. It violates his religious belief. He has gone through litigation for years and years because of that. You see that in the Equality Act, which is trying to force religious hospitals and religious hospitals to perform abortions and to perform sex change surgeries, trying to force religious organizations and even churches to hire people that identify as the opposite sex, even if it violates their beliefs and doctrines. And so we are seeing a conflict between

Starting point is 00:22:28 what have been created as new sexual rights different than anyone for all of history has ever thought of or has ever considered a right or has ever considered legitimate sexuality or a legitimate marriage and our First Amendment rights, which is the right to religious liberty. So we're seeing a conflict there, which is exactly what we knew was going to happen. That is exactly why the moral and sexual revolutions have gone the way that they have gone. that is why you are seeing a subversion of parental rights. That's why you are seeing the indoctrination that you are seeing in schools. You really cannot separate the idea of gay marriage from what we are seeing in the way of gender ideology.

Starting point is 00:23:14 I know that people try to separate those two things. I understand there are people who identify as gay who are against transgenderism. They're against the gender ideology that we see in schools. And I think that's great. I think it's important to get their perspective. but they both go back to the same idea that men and women are really interchangeable, that it's okay that if you create a child through sperm donation or egg donation or surrogacy, you manufacture the creation of that child and then you take them away from their biological father

Starting point is 00:23:43 or biological mother and you come together and you raise that child with two women or two men, that that is going to be equal, that that's going to be just as okay as a mother and a father raising that child. mean, that practice is based on the same idea that gender ideology and transgenderism is, that there really is no important or inherent difference between men and women. Really, what is called gay marriage is a giant social experiment that no country in the world throughout history has really tried. And the people who are going to pay for that primarily are, of course, as we've talked about, many times before, children.

Starting point is 00:24:25 There is no science, there is no evidence, there is no logic behind this idea that we can take a child away from their biological mother and father, whether it's whatever through whatever reproductive technology and that that child will receive the same benefit, the same nurturing, the same security and stability as they do from being raised by a mother and a father. It's almost like God, or if you don't believe in God, science knew what it was doing. when it gave us procreation. Everyone in the world has a mother or a father. You might not be raised by a mother and a father, but everyone in the world has a mother and a father. We do not even know yet the consequences of separating a child from their biological mother or father for the sake of the social experiment

Starting point is 00:25:22 that is gay marriage. And I'm not sure that we will ever really see what that looks like down the line, the consequences that will be felt by those who were purposely created with the intent of being taken away from their biological mother or father. So that is part of why the state actually has an interest in protecting marriage as between a man and a woman, because the state has an interest in the well-being of its future citizens. It has an interest in protecting the family also because the family, husband, wife, mom, dad, and children has been part of the foundation of every functioning and every flourishing society that has ever existed. So conservatives that are abandoning this are abandoning a foundational tenant,

Starting point is 00:26:20 of society, specifically of Western civilization, particularly of America. And at that point, like, what are you really conserving? You're not going to get all of these economic benefits without social conservatism. They really go hand in hand. Like, if you believe that the family is the bedrock of society, which we do, which we should, whether you're Christian or not, like, you're not going to get all of the benefits from that stable bedrock if you demolish it. If you change. it. It's just not going to happen. I've heard before that the family is the incubator of liberty. Okay. Well, if you redefine that, if you break that apart, you no longer have that incubator. It just doesn't work. Of course, this goes back to everything that we just talked about.

Starting point is 00:27:04 You abandon the God who created all of these things. You also abandon the idea that he gave us our rights. You will not get the limited government and the liberty that you say that you are fighting for by foregoing something this fundamental. Now, I want you to listen to to a couple arguments from people who are kind of giving just the political and secular perspective on why the state has an interest in protecting marriage between a man and a woman. Alan Keyes was the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs. There is a televised debate between him and Barack Obama on C-SPAN at the City Club of Chicago, So October 27th, 2004, he's debating Barack Obama.

Starting point is 00:28:04 He's asked about this concept of gay unions, gay marriage, and here's what he has to say. Mr. Keyes, on the Channel 7 debate last Thursday night, you said, and I'm quoting you, where procreation is in principle, impossible, marriage is irrelevant. You went on to say it was irrelevant and not needed. What about marriage between people who are well beyond their childbearing? age irrelevant not needed no no simply a misunderstanding the word in principle means relating to the definition of not relating to particular circumstances so if an apple has a worm in it the worm is not part of the

Starting point is 00:28:43 definition of the apple it doesn't change what the apple is in principle so the fact it retains it pertains to to act as if concepts are laughable means that you want to be irrational human beings reason you said you said you said it If it was irrelevant and not means. Reason by means of concepts and definition, we also make laws by means of definitions. And if you don't know how to operate with respect for those definitions, you can't make the law. An individual who is impotent or another who is infertile does not change the definition of marriage in principle. Because between a man and a woman in principle, procreation is always possible.

Starting point is 00:29:24 And it is that possibility which gave rise to the institution of marriage in the first place. place as a matter of law it's still as a matter of law and principle but when it is impossible as between two males or two females you're talking about something that's not just incidentally impossible it's impossible impossible and that means that if you say that that's a marriage you are saying marriage can be understood in principle apart from procreation you have changed its definition in such a way as in fact to destroy the necessity for the institution since the only reason it has existed in human societies and

Starting point is 00:29:57 civilizations was to regulate from a social point of view the obligations and responsibilities attendant upon procreation. So when you start playing games in this way, you are actually acting as if the institution has no basis independent of your own. Okay. So that's one argument. Alan Key is very smart person. He has a lot of good arguments on a lot of different political issues. And so that was what the majority of Americans believed for a very long time. He's very articulate and more sophisticated than most people in arguing the position on traditional marriage. But that was just kind of the common understanding. Of course, Barack Obama sitting there like he's so confused. But of course, Barack Obama believed in protecting traditional marriage,

Starting point is 00:30:43 too, even when he was running for president in 2008. So the whiplash from the sexual and moral revolutions really is just crazy. Now, Thomas Sol has written about this. Of course, he's written about everything. And of course, I think that his arguments are brilliant. He too is coming from a secular perspective. So let me read you some excerpts of his arguments about what is referred to as gay marriage all the way back in 2000. He says the issue of gay marriage is one of many signs of the sloppy thinking of our time. Centuries of laws, policies, and traditions have grown up around marriage as a union of a man and a woman. Now the demand is that all those laws, policies, and traditions simply be transferred automatically and in mass to an entirely different union

Starting point is 00:31:27 that chooses to use the same word. Homosexuals were on their strongest ground, Thomas Sol says, when they argued that what happens between consenting adults is nobody else's business. Now they want to make it everybody's business by requiring others to acquiesce in their unions and treat them as they would other unions, both in law and in social practice. So Thomas Sol argues that really the government does have a concern when it comes to marriage between a man and a woman. But he believes that the government does not have a concern and should not be involved at all when it comes to the union of two men or two women. And some of his reasoning

Starting point is 00:32:07 for that is that, well, men and women can create children. There are different effects on men and women in marriage. They have different positions in marriage. And that's just not true of gay couples. When they come together in unions, you don't have the procreation of children. They don't have different positions in marriage because there's, you know, they're two men or two women, so there's not some inherent differences there. I think that argument is a little outdated because he could not have foreseen in 2000 all of the reproductive technology that has now developed, that allows two men or two women to procreate in a sense sons and daughters. And so because, as he argues, the state does have an interest in the well-being of its future citizens, in the

Starting point is 00:32:53 well-being of children, I believe that the state actually does have a place when it comes to actually proactively defining what marriage is. Now, he also argues, he argued in 2006 in an article titled, Gay Couples Misunderstand Intent of Marriage Laws. He says, the equal protection of the laws provided by the Constitution of the United States applies to people, not actions. And so you're often hearing while I believe in the equal application of the law, therefore I believe in gay marriage. He says it doesn't apply to individuals, it applies to individuals, not actions. Laws exist precisely in order to discriminate between different kinds of actions. When the law permits automobiles to drive on highways but forbids bicycles from doing the same, that is not discrimination against people.

Starting point is 00:33:42 Such a brilliant point. A cyclist who gets off his bicycle and gets into a car can drive on the highway just like anyone else. In a free society, vast numbers of things are neither forbidden nor facilitated. They are considered to be none of the law's business. He says gay marriage advocates depict marriage as an expansion of rights to which they are entitled. They argue against a ban on gay marriage. But marriage has for centuries met a union of a man and a woman. There's no gay marriage to ban. That's a very, that's a very radical statement, which of course aligns with what I believe. He says analogies with bans against interracial marriage are bogus. Race is not a part of the definition of marriage. A ban on interracial marriage is a ban on the same

Starting point is 00:34:21 actions otherwise permitted because of the race of the particular people involved. It is a discrimination against people not actions. There is no reason why traditional marriage laws should be transferred willy-nilly to a different union, one with no inherent tendency to produce children. Well, again, yeah, no inherent tendency. But again, I don't think he would have known all of the technology that has been developed today, nor the inherent asymmetries of relationships between people of different sexes. It'd be interesting to hear knowing everything that has developed over the last couple decades,

Starting point is 00:34:55 how his argument would come across today. But clearly he is for the protection of traditional marriage for a variety of reasons. Now, the fact that 47 House Republicans voted to ban states from recognizing the traditional definition of marriage, that's really what happened. That's how the blaze puts it. and at least two GOP senators will do so is actually really radical. It's really stunning. I know a lot of people like Pete Buttigad are saying that it's so tragic that in 22,

Starting point is 00:35:32 157 House Republicans just voted against marriage equality. Adam Schiff is saying that Republicans just voted against codifying marriage equality for LGBTQ plus people. They have an extreme and a backwards agenda. No, the headline is actually that 47. Republicans voted to codify what is called gay marriage and that there are going to be Republican senators who do the same that this might actually pass. That is what is radical. That is what the headline is because it shows such a drastic and quick shift away from what the entire world has

Starting point is 00:36:07 known about family and marriage. So what's interesting is that people say, I mean, people on the left say that we are turning into this Christian nationalist fascist state. that the religious right is getting their way, that they're enacting all of these harsh laws, that they're taking us back 50 years. Obviously, nothing could be further from the truth. Like, do you not see the moral and sexual landscape that is the United States right now?

Starting point is 00:36:45 Like, do you not see how progressivism dominates every institution that exists from the federal government to academia, to the mainstream media, to big tech, to the public education system? Much of even what claims to be the church to do. day is kind of steeped in this progressivism when it comes to social justice, when it comes to economics, when it comes to certainly sexuality and gender. Like progressivism dominates our country. Yes, there is a minority of people who are loud and proud like you and I are who are

Starting point is 00:37:18 pushing back against the progressive zeitgeist, but absolutely progressivism, especially when it comes to things like homosexuality and gender dominates. dominates our culture today, and there is no greater example of this than America's views on what is referred to as gay marriage. 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act was passed by huge Democrat and Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate that defended and was meant to legally protect the definition of marriages between a man and a woman that was signed into law by a Democrat president, Bill Clinton. And then you had in 2000, of course, George Bush said that he was going to protect marriage as the definition between a man and a woman. You even had Obama, as I mentioned earlier, say, in 2008. That marriage is between a man and a woman. He later kind of, of, of course, later he, what they would call is evolved. But even like a few years later, he said, well, I think this is something that should be decided by the states. I don't think it should be decided by.

Starting point is 00:38:24 the Supreme Court and the majority of Americans believed that as well. It wasn't until 2014, eight years ago, that the majority and a slight majority of Americans believed in legalizing quote-unquote gay marriage eight years ago. Up until that, the majority of Americans did not believe in legalizing gay marriage. And so, So now not only does the majority of the country, 61% believe in legalizing gay marriage, I'm surprised it's not higher than that. It probably is higher than that today. I think the last year that they have is 2019.

Starting point is 00:39:09 So not only has that shifted dramatically, but also look at everything else that we've gotten. I mean, we literally have men being nominated as woman of the year by the University of Pennsylvania for the NCAA Woman of the Year awards. I mean, could you have imagined that it was going to go this fast? And you actually have the audacity of people on the left to say, we are going towards like some right-wing theocratic state? Are you kidding me?

Starting point is 00:39:37 Are you kidding me? So no, the story is, the headline is, is that a few dozen GOP representatives and that probably more than a few GOP senators are going along, with what is a radical position historically, a radical position on the foundational understanding, the foundational definition, the definition of marriage, which is foundational to all functioning and flourishing societies and which is connected to the conservative and what is supposed to be the American belief that we were created by God, that he gave us our rights, he gives us our rights, he has the authority to do so because he transcends the government, he predates the government,

Starting point is 00:40:26 and within that he gives us truth, he gives us morality. Part of that is defining not just who we are male and female, but also what marriage is. And then of course, the secular perspective, if you want to call it that of the idea of marriage being important for the purposes of procreation and for the perpetuation of society and the human race. Conservatives. if it's abandoned that, you'll abandon everything else. I understand there's law cabin Republicans. I understand that there are a lot of people who call themselves conservative in a lot of different ways that I really respect, that I really like, that I'm glad to talk with and partner with on a lot of different things that believe that we can just kind of compartmentalize things, that you're going to be

Starting point is 00:41:08 able to get capitalism and free speech, but you're going to be able to abandon social conservatism and these kind of foundational beliefs in God in marriage and children, and you can't. I'm just telling you you can't. You can argue with me all you want to. You can call me a bigot. You can say I'm crazy. You can say, oh, you know, that's a some Fox News person, like tweeted at me on Twitter. It was like, huh, that's a take and did some like little cringe emoji or something. Like, okay, that's fine. You have your position. I have history on my side. I have the understanding of our founding on our side. I have an understanding, a coherent and cohesive understanding of political philosophy and what makes societies on my side.

Starting point is 00:41:49 But sure, all of human history, all civilizations were probably wrong until 2015. No, you're probably right. You're probably right. Let's see how that works out. It's worked out really well since 2015. Things are going awesome. So, you know what? If we, if, if, if, if, I'll tell you what, if things swing in the other direction.

Starting point is 00:42:11 If we start having more liberty, if the family structure gets stronger and we have more parental rights and we start heading towards a good direction while still completely abandoning the traditional definition of marriage and the traditional definition of the family, that I will be happy to say, you know what, I and all of humans until 2015 were wrong. I'll be willing to say that. Unfortunately, I don't think that I am wrong because it's not me. It's not me that I am appealing to or it's not my authority that I am using to argue this. It is the authority of God himself. It is the authority of history.

Starting point is 00:42:52 And as I said, cultures around the world and throughout history. So that is why I believe that we should support the legal protection of traditional marriage. Of course, you guys know why I believe as a Christian, marriage is between a man and a woman. It's rooted in creation. It's repeated throughout scripture. It's reiterated by Jesus himself. it's representative of Christ in the church, and therefore it is reflective of the gospel. I will link a past episode on that where I get into that thoroughly from a theological perspective.

Starting point is 00:43:24 It doesn't mean that you hate gay people. It doesn't mean that you don't believe that everyone is made in the image of God. That doesn't mean that you don't think that they should have rights, visitation rights, or that they should be able to live happy lives or that we should be regulating what two consenting adults do in their own home. It's not what I'm saying. not for enacting a theocracy. I am for a little bit of common sense and a little bit of understanding

Starting point is 00:43:47 of where our rights and morality and truth come from. If conservatism doesn't conserve that, it's not going to conserve anything else either. All right, that's all I've got time for today. We will be back here on Monday. Have a wonderful, fantastic weekend. And also, make sure to check out our merch

Starting point is 00:44:05 because we've got a lot of really good stuff. We'll link that in the description of this episode. See you guys soon. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

Starting point is 00:44:36 We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this T-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 647 | Who Defines Marriage & Why It Matters

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.