The Fighting Continues (UPDATED)

The topic of Gay Marriage has become a religio-political tennis ball being whacked back and forth between various Adventist groups.

First, there was an article on Spectrum Magazine by Jared Wright about "Why Adventists Should Consider Supporting Gay Marriage." It laid out several reasons why Adventists might want to vote against the Marriage Amendment in California.

Then came a rebuttal on Spectrum by Janine Goffar with some friendly one-upmanship in the title, "Why Everyone Should Oppose Same-sex Marriage." Janine did her best to counter the points made by Jared Wright.

Around that time, the North American Religious Liberty Association (NARLA), a Seventh-day Adventist organization came out with an endorsement of the Marriage Amendment saying, "Seventh-day Adventists have an important contribution to make to the public debate about marriage."

Their contribution was to endorse

this initiative, known as the Marriage Amendment, [which] will appear as Proposition 8. The Church State Council, a ministry of the Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, is the oldest public policy organization in the southwestern United States devoted exclusively to issues of liberty of conscience and religion, and the separation of church and state.

The Church State Council’s endorsement of the Marriage Amendment is predicated on two primary factors: 1) the importance of marriage to the social fabric of our nation; and 2) the reality that gay marriage is the most serious threat to religious freedom in the nation today.

That loud, yammering call to arms from the Church State Council and the invitation to all Adventist pastors to support the Marriage Amendment fired up Seventh-day Adventist Kinship, an Adventist fellowship "supporting and advocating for gay Adventists since 1976." They wrote a Religious Liberty Alert on their web site where they say, "Our religious liberty [is] at stake."

Kinship continues, saying that "Although Adventists have traditionally believed in religious liberty for all, including those with whom they disagree, it appears that prejudice against homosexuals is so great they are willing to reverse this stand."

On top of it all, Adventist authors, theologians and ethicists recently wrote a book called Christianity and Homosexuality: Some Seventh-day Adventist Perspectives, which has been circulating among pastors and church leaders around the world.

Man oh man. That is sooooome ping pong (or tennis if you please) match the church has got going on. And it all provides some excellent action for us to watch from the grandstands, cheer about, and make cartoons about.

********UPDATE*******
Now there's another web site for people living in California who oppose Proposition 8. It's called Adventists Against Prop 8. Will the fun never end?