#STRask - How Does It Affect You If a Gay Couple Gets Married or a Woman Has an Abortion?

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Questions about how to respond to someone who asks, ”How does it affect you if a gay couple gets married, or a woman makes a decision about her reproductive health, or someone chooses a different faith system than yours?”   How would you respond to someone who asks, ”How does it affect you if a gay couple gets married, or a woman makes a decision about her reproductive health, or someone chooses a different faith system than yours?”

You're listening to Stand to Reason's hashtag SDR Ask podcast with Greg Kokel and Amy Hall. And Greg, in the last episode, we were talking a little bit about law and the Christian worldview. And so we're going to continue on that line. And we're going to start with a question from Vince. I have been asked, how does it affect me if a gay couple gets married, or if a woman makes a decision about her reproductive health, or if someone chooses a different faith system than yours? Okay. Um, again, we started the last show kind of like this, so because it came up and I find myself kind of chuckling, not derisively, but how can I best characterize it? It's like, I'm shaking my head, all right, so I'm just going to give a counter example.

How does it, this doesn't cover every one of those points because there are different points that were just made. So how does it affect you if I beat my wife? It doesn't hurt you. Go home, enjoy yourself. Kiss your wife. Let me beat my wife. How does that affect you? So that would be a parallel to the so-called reproductive health, which is just a,

euphemism for a woman taking the life of her unborn child. How does that affect you? How does that affect me if, you know, women who try to learn to read in Saudi Arabia get acid thrown on their face? How does that affect you? It reflects such a, at least in that particular example, such a, I don't even know how to describe it, such a completely narcissistic point of view. If it doesn't affect you personally, then why should you have anything to say about it? When it turns out that many of these things that we're talking about,

maybe it won't affect me personally, but they affect somebody else in a way that harms them. And since the second greatest commandment, now I'm starting to get a little tense about this, riled up, the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. self. And as we've said in the past last broadcast, as I recall, that has moral content to it. Loving our neighbor doesn't mean just saying, hey, whatever, you want to kill your baby? Have a good time. You want to beat your wife? Never mind. Doesn't hurt me. That makes you feel good. Great.

You know, that's not, that's not the definition of love. By the way, if you read the love chapter, which I'm wondering if people used to use this, First Corinthians 13 in weddings a lot. I haven't heard it in a while. I wonder people abandon that because love is always characterized there by certain actions. Love is patient, love is kind, like love doesn't take into account of a wrong suffered, et cetera, et cetera. So this kind of complaint, what do you care? How does it hurt you? And notice how the ethic is reflected here.

It's all about me, my own thing. And so they're presuming for you, Christian, it should be, I know for me, it's all about me and things that don't affect me directly. I'm not going to squawk about it. So why are you complaining? Because it's not hurting you. Notice the emphasis there. By the way, this also, it just strikes me that this is self-destructive in a way, because this person, seems to be setting himself up against the Christian ideologically regarding your view.

And so, especially if this is a guy who's not going to get pregnant, why do you care? What my campaign against abortion isn't going to hurt you. How does that affect your life that I'm campaigning against abortion? So that knife cuts both directions if it cuts at all. Now, what I'm saying is it doesn't cut. It's not sauce for the goose or the gander, all right? So that deals with the so-called women's health care issue. What was the first one?

How does it affect me if a gay couple gets married? Oh, okay. Well, what it's going to do is affect culture, all right? Because basically, same-sex marriage, by the way, when Scotis made this decision in 2015 about same-sex marriage, it did not really give any new liberties to same-sex couples because every single thing that married people could do prior to SCOTUS they could do before SCOTUS, the O'Bergelfil decision, Supreme Court. And so it didn't give any new liberties.

What it gave, what the result was was a redefinition. Okay. So redefining marriage to include same-sex couples essentially gutted marriage of its definition. As one person put it, all marriages now is a list of names. A guy, a girl, a guy, a guy, a guy, a girl, a girl, one guy, two girls, two girls, three guys. There are no restraints because the definition of marriage is whatever. Now, family is the core of civilization. And I'm not saying family, whatever you want to make it.

It's like the signs that came out, the new traditional family. The new traditional family, really. So there's a reason why, watch my words here, because it took me years to work this sentence out, hopefully I get it right, literally years. There's a reason why monogamous, heterosexual, long-term, committed relationships are in that style, have been approved of and regulated and privileged since time immemorial because those kind of relationships produce the next generation. If your relationship is not that kind of relationship, as far as the culture is concerned, more power to you.

But we're not going to treat your relationship, whatever it happens to be, as if it's the same as this relationship that provides this particular function for culture. So if those kind of long-term monogamous heterosexual unions produce the next generation, if there's an axlade to that definition of marriage, which, by the way, is not, is not a contrivance. I didn't just make that up. It is an observation of what what this word marriage has referred to forever. If you take an axe to that, you're taking an axe to civilization. You're making it up. And during the Scotus discussions about the Bergerfield case in 2015, one of the justices said, you know, maybe we should slow down a little bit on this issue

because the idea of same-sex marriage is not even as old as the cell phone. Yet what we're deliberating here essentially is this point is a reconstruction or a deconstruction, more appropriately, of a tradition, not a tradition, an institution that has been at the bedrock of civilization from the beginning. And so if we're going to start taking an axe to that, just because I can't say, well, here is the bad that's going to come from it tomorrow next week, next month, next year. I know it ain't smart to do that. It just is not smart. And now we've been able, the last 10 years, to see some of the fruit that's come out of it.

Because now it's same-sex couples are, it's obligatory if they want to adopt. They can do that. But that guarantees that a child will not have either a mother or a father, as if that didn't matter. Right. And this is a big part of how it's changed society. As you mentioned, and we have a lot written on our website about same-sex marriage and what the issues we're going to be, which have turned out to all be true. As you mentioned, marriage exists because the union between a man and a woman creates children. So the marriage binds them together for the sake of the children, and that's how families are created. So if, so marriage is for a man and a woman because that union is unique. So if you say, okay, now marriage is going to be about this other kind of union, now the problem is you have to use all these legal means to try and prop it up as being the same kind of union when it isn't. So now you have, okay, we have a right to have children. Well, now you've got surrogacy and now you've got all these other things that are causing problems.

And I even think changing the way we look at human beings because as you see people buying children and, you know, a surrogate mother will, let's say they decide they don't like one aspect of the child. Maybe it's the wrong sex. Maybe it has a disability. Then they're demanding that the mother killed a child and won't allow her to adopt. Like you've seen this happen. Right, right. Just read a case just a couple of weeks ago on the very same thing. And you see this also involves IVF, and then you see people creating embryos and discarding them and freezing them and doing research on the leftover, quote, leftover embryos. And what's happening is it's changing the entire way we look at human beings. Right. Children have become commodities and they're getting hurt. They're getting hurt from this. And all of this, a lot of this has come from, and I'm not saying that heterosexual couples aren't engaging in some of these things too.

But the push for all of the legal means to create families other than in the way that we were created to create them is changing the way we look at human beings. And that will change the way other laws play out. That's right. It's just it's shaping the entire way we look at human beings. This is the unwillingness of people to look at the genuine consequence of ideas in our lives. Okay. I think it was John Stone Street who said that ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims. You know, I just recalled now how I, the kind of, you know, I just want to offer this for the record for those listening, the way we've characterized are just drawing from memory, bits and pieces there. But my point here about marriage is marriage is not defined, it's described. It's a feature of a communal reality because human beings. are bisexual by nature. They're binary by nature, and that's how they reproduce. There's only two sexes because there's only two kinds of gametes. All right. Now, given that fact and that families

are the core of civilization, it's these groups of families that keep us moving forward and helping us to help us to thrive. And when I say groups of families, I mean groups of that kind of family, not whatever you want to call family, all right? Robb-dub, three men at a tub. You call them a family and a potted plant, that's not going to make them, that's not going to contribute to society. It's an observation, okay, and the rest of this observation is that as a rule, and these are qualifiers that are important to make the point because people are already, not everybody can have children.

I say, okay, wait a, listen carefully, as a rule, as a group, and by nature, and I would add by design, but you don't have to get theological, long-term monogamous heterosexual, long-term monogamous heterosexual unions create the next generation. That's why they're different. The rule of justice is treat equals equally. Same sex unions are not equal to heterosexual unions as a rule and by nature in this way. And so, therefore, there's no obligation to treat them as if they were. And this is a serious misstep by the Supreme Court to make this kind of statement.

But it was on the heels of the Casey decision, which came about a abortion years before that kind of implied and put into law, Supreme Court law, that the mystery of, you know, one's purpose and meaning is up to individual people, some screwy language, whoever was wrote that was on drugs or something. It was crazy. But it just opened up just a brats nest of difficulties, legally speaking. So anyway, I wanted to get that out because that basic argument, because that's what took me so. long to kind of put together in a very careful way. And again, we have so many, so many articles. I think there's one on our website at STR.org, understand the same-sex marriage issue. And I link to a bunch of our different articles that explain different aspects of this. I know we've, we've said it very briefly, and there may be lots more questions.

Sure. But the bottom line is that the reason why we supported man, woman, marriage is because it is actually, there's an objective definition to marriage where if you remove that, then there are a lot of problems that come from that, in particular for the children that are involved. It's not just that we hate people. And I think that's how it's always interpreted because people don't take the time to understand. And as it happens, the things that we warned would happen are, in fact, happening, which is really frustrating. But again, I encourage you to go and look up those articles to read more about the reasons why we opposed that change in the definition of

marriage. And by the way, if you remove the man-woman requirement, there's no longer a reason to have two because everyone has their boundaries that they want for marriage. It's not like we're asking for boundaries and no one else is. Most people will say it's two people who love each other. Well, why too? There's no, in the case of a man and a woman, you need two people to complete the reproductive system and create children. That's why it's two people. That's why it's – I'm trying to think of the three words that Ryan Anderson always gave. But anyway, that's why it's two people.

If you remove the man-woman requirement as part of the definition, now there is literally no reason to keep it to two people. So I've seen people say it should be two, but there's actually their definition is That's just arbitrary. Yes. Okay. There's no reason to keep it to humans. Really?

I mean, look at it, in Europe, a woman married herself, all right? Because this definition was gone a long time ago. She married herself. People want to marry a machine. Some people want to, why not marry your schnauzer? You know, why not? Oh, that's ridiculous. Why is it ridiculous?

20 years ago, people thought that same-sex marriage was ridiculous. Okay. Now, what was, you know, unthinkable yesterday is thinkable today and ordinary and commonplace tomorrow. That's Francis Schaefer. It's a great observation. What was unthinkable yesterday is thinkable today and ordinary compromise tomorrow. And what you're hitting on, Amy, is that this move has removed any normative element to marriage. Well, if people are in love, who says you've got to be in love to get married?

If love was, I make the joke, you know, I said, And love isn't part of the definition of marriage. Ask any married person, you know, everybody laughs because they understand when they're married that it doesn't work out that way. And there are, what, maybe billions of people on the planet who think they are married and are not according to this definition because there are arranged marriages. That isn't love that brought them together. So marriage is not about love.

And if it is about love, then why not? What if I love my schnauzer? Give me the principled reason. And don't say it's ridiculous because that's not adequate, okay? And I think this point is correct now that once you change this particular aspect of the definition, there are no more restraints. And as one person said, that all marriage is is a list of names. That's all it is, is a list of names.

There is nothing normative, meaning required prescriptive, kind of a standard definition of what it ought to be. It's gone. So, again, there's so much more that could be said. So if this sounds new to you, and this is surprising to you, I encourage you to read more on our website if you want to understand where we're coming from. And I just want to respond to the reproductive health part of this before we go on to the last part. I think if someone says, why does it matter? And you answered this so well of why we do care when people do wrong things because it hurts other people. But I think part of the reason why people don't understand why we care about this is that they don't understand what our view is, that you are killing an innocent human being.

Right. And so if somebody is saying that, I think it's important to point out that this is why we are against abortion, because we think killing innocent human beings is wrong. And I suspect the person you're talking to thinks that too. Which is why the wife beating illustration is appropriate. Exactly, exactly. And so if you can help them to understand that that's the argument we're making, then you can say, okay, so now we both agree we shouldn't kill innocent human beings. So now let's talk about what is the unborn? Is the unborn an innocent human being?

Because if it is, then you will at least understand why I'm against it. Even if you continue to not be against it, at least we're going to understand each other. So that being said, Greg, let's go on to the last part of this question. If someone chooses a different faith system than yours, why should you care? It kind of goes back to the same guiding principle. It depends whether or not there is a truth about this or not. If it turns out there is no God and there is no transcendent reality or if there is either, it doesn't matter to anybody because the nature of that reality or the nature of that God is irrelevant to our daily life.

Well, then it wouldn't, then no, why mess? Why get an argument? Why get people angry at you, you know? we are convinced otherwise, and we are convinced that, as Jesus said himself, and this is the kind of capstone characterization of it, but the concept is throughout all the Gospels from beginning to end. I am the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me.

And then another time, he says, unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. Now, if you knew anything about Jesus' theology, that's not a good thing. It isn't like, okay, so I die a sinner. No, you die culpable and guilty, and then stand before, guess who? Jesus himself in the final judgment. All the judgment has given to him. He said, I don't judge anybody.

Now, I will be judging later. And this is clear in a number of passages. Paul himself brings it up in what Acts 17, Ariopagus, having appointed one man as judge giving proof by having raised him from the dead, is what he says there in that particular forum. So it's, it's, if, if religion is the opiate of the people, Karl Marx, it's just to whatever you want to make you feel better, it doesn't matter. However, if there is a truth of the matter, if there is, if any particular religion issue, if Islam was true, that matters, there's consequences to that. And there's going to be a reckoning, even if Hinduism or Buddhism, there's always going to be a reckoning of some sort. Maybe it's karma or whatever, but there's going more reincarnations, ad nauseum until you get it right or whatever. But if these things are the most weighty things that we can talk about.

And that's why, given that Christians are convinced that there is a very particular kind of reckoning, we love our neighbor. The act of communicating this is loving our neighbor. So the person who says this kind of thing, what does it matter, must be convinced that there is no truth to any so-called faith system. That's a pretty strong claim. You mean everybody's mistaken? Now, they could be, but is that what you're saying? I'm not saying that. Oh, okay, are you saying that whatever turns out to be the truth when it comes to religion

has no consequence on people's lives? Well, I'm not saying that. Well, then what are you saying? Because both of those notions seem to be embedded in the challenge. And that's why these questions will help to kind of draw that out. We care about people caught up in other so-called faith systems because we think they are being deceived by an untruth that has eternal consequences for their lives. I think people, especially when it comes to religion, they don't like the idea of having some sort of narrow truth that they have to believe. But this is the way we operate in all of reality.

That's right. I was talking to someone at our youth conference, a student, and he had so much trouble understanding the claim that I was making that there was actually a spiritual truth. This is so countercultural. But at least if you understand, even if you disagree with what I think is true, I think if you can understand my claim that we think Christianity actually is true just like it's true what street is outside and whether or not there's a car coming. And all these things that we accept as being true for everybody and we adjust our lives according to the truth all the time. That's how we live. So it's not so crazy to say that the same is true about the spiritual world. So I think what people tend to do is because they have this kind of relativistic idea of religion, they interpret our claims as being hateful. Yeah. We don't like you because you disagree with us.

Well, that, by the way, is a whole other trend. why would disagreement be labeled hate, but that's just another rhetorical ploy to diss the person who disagrees with you, which itself strikes me as an act of animosity, maybe not hate, but it's so odd. But think about it. If somebody, if you believe that religion is all about what you like, then my telling you that you have to believe the way I do makes no sense. Yeah, an ice cream. You're a sinner because you don't like Hoggedhouse Butterpick on ice cream or something like that. Exactly. By the way, this is why I use the phrase when we get to this point in a conversation with audiences or here on the year or many have heard me say this before. When I say true, I don't mean true for me. I mean true the way gravity is true. All right. If you don't believe in gravity, you're not going to float away. It's still there holding you down or whatever. And in the same way, if we're right about these things and they're true, then they aren't going to go away. They're still going to apply whether you believe. leave in them or not. So imagine you're about to cross the street and I'm standing next to you and I see a truck coming and you're stepping out into the street and I say nothing and the truck hits you and you're lying there on the ground and you say, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you

tell me the truck was coming? And I said, because I love you and I wanted you to enjoy your belief that the truck was not coming. I mean, It's so clear that that is not a loving thing to do. So, again, if you can just help people to understand the kind of claim we're making, I think it will make more sense to them. And then the question becomes, okay, so is it true? Now we're in the right place. Now we're where we want to be in the conversation. That is where the conversation needs to be.

But if they can understand that if it is true, then it matters to us if people don't know about it. about it or reject it. And we want to try and persuade them because we think it's true. And we're trying to tell them that a truck is coming. All right. Well, we are way out of time, Greg. Well, Vince, thank you. You gave us a question for the entire show. We really appreciate hearing from you. And you can send us your question on X with the hashtag STR Ask or go to our website at STR.org. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason. Thank you.