Identifying factors that make up the context of a life, or society requires considerable care (from love), time, education, prayer, faith and commitment. The more we search, the more likely we will feel that we know too little, even that some life questions may be unanswerable with our available terms or information. One approach suggests that we are faced with life’s paradoxes and contradictions, and we are often unsure which term applies to the matter before us. A paradox, in the simple meaning of the word, is something that has at least two sides to it that seem to be contradictory but are true in variant contexts. Contradiction refers to at least two sides to an issue, one of which can’t be true. It is possible that neither side is true, but one can’t be. Complexity becomes so traumatic to persons that they tend to give up, and live with whatever life offers in confusion, lies, hypocrisy, and competition in natural life registering on the senses and muddled through in human conduct. General personal and social conduct is often contradictory.
One of the ways we manage this troubling state of affairs is to redefine what is meant when a term is used. For example, in the early years of my professional life, there was an extensive literature about how to counsel persons who were homosexuals. At the time, to have said that this condition was normal for any persons would have meant going against the views of nearly all persons, professional and lay. With the publishing of several limited polls in the 1970s, the story for homosexual orientation began to change. With publicity from some communities, orientation shifted rapidly. The way had been prepared by social casualness in some communities. Persons, who had been so right by history, became the disoriented. The pejorative term became homophobic. Opponents of homosexual lifestyles were made prejudicial. Advocacy changed sides. Society was persuaded, pushed, or fell into a number of changes. Processes continue even as I write. The general society began to feel that any negative about humanist belief or conduct represented something of prejudice, perhaps ignorance, or delay of progress. New contexts grew.
Marriage was impacted as one of the changes. It too was offered up as no longer what it had always been: the commitment of a male and female to a life together, implying family. In addition it is now advocated for two persons of the same sex. The social battle is heated. At this writing, many States have approved same sex marriages, although some are holding the application of the laws until national court approvals are compelled. Liberal judges have tended to strike down any law denying marriage as limited to gender history. Identity ideals are now extended beyond the interpretation of the founding fathers. The growing humanism, in an accepting context now wants approval. (In this later edit, the Supreme Court approved.)
Problems multiply. Those who have held to multiple marriage contexts that include several wives for one husband are breaking into public attention, and are defended as a right of freedom. Further, that if marriage is varied in its identity, why may not persons live together in private bond, even if temporary, and move on to some other context in the future? All this, and more, affects other laws. For example, who inherits property in the death of a partner? What kind of retirement program needs to be invoked to care for all involved? What is legal responsibility? What is privacy? What are the rights and needs of children? What is a model? The society has received a host of problems, when it is already visited and burdened with fresh issues from other directions, such as legalization of a narcotic that has been illegal, but enforcement, as with the prohibition of the 1920s has not been serious. In all, the future will surely be more difficult to manage than the past has been. The church, now divided over issues, may come up with its own concepts of spiritual integrity for the family. Scripture argues for marriage identity, model, practice, and the meaning of biblical marriage based on righteousness in fidelity and love between genders, and life meaning in the Christian marriage parable of faith. The Mormon society was stopped in its first perception of the possibility of multiple wives – with the violation of one woman and one man defining marriage. That concept seems more in line with the male/female biology than same-sex marriage. The changes may create a society formerly avoided, nowlegal and contradictory. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020