Okay, this piece is allegorical. It’s about the marriage amendment. Let’s get that straight (no pun intended) right up front.
Lighting rod salesmen are going to hit the air waves next year. They’ll use a blunt force messaging with funding from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the Minnesota Family Council. They’re collecting and clearing the checks even as I write this.
You’ll be hearing all about the threat. Not to worry, they have a solution. They’ll try and convince you that you’ll not be safe without the protection they offer. Get yours today is the message and find refuge from the oncoming destruction.
Now as it happens about nine years back some scientists went to work on lightning rods. The fundamental question before them was a sharp tipped rod more effective than a blunt tipped rod.
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As it turns out their set of data suggested the blunt tip was far more effective. But that is how science and logic is about things, you look at the facts, draw a conclusion, and challenge a peer review to repeat the experiment and see how things pan out, the result being either supportive or unsupportive.
Now in the end the lightning rod manufacturers, or shall I call them job creators, will probably save some money by not having to employ anyone to sharpen all those tips. But either way the intent is to get you to buy the lightning rod. They’ll grant you a choice of two styles but you must get one or the other to be safe.
Now in this allegory of mine the lightning is the threat of redefining a term we use in law. That term we use in law is marriage. If this term fails to be defined as one man, one woman, then your house is sure to get hit and burn to the ground. All occupants included, and it may even burn down the village in which you reside.
You’ve probably heard the arguments. To mitigate the threat and coerce state representatives the loophole of “civil unions” has been left open. This will certainly placate the skittish.
But it seems to me that rather than fighting the redefinition the hard way the churches would do well to adopt a new term of their own, like “sanctified marriage” to delineate the sacred nature of their view of the legal construct marriage. After all, even as it stands today two atheists of differing sexes can marry. This is hardly a sanctified union since they point blank reject the positions of the various faiths.
So if two atheists are married will their marriage become null and void once the faiths capture and claim the term marriage in the state constitution?
Probably best to use the term marriage in the legal sense and let the faiths claim a new term for their special view. That’ll leave the married atheists with their marriages intact.
We’ll see what the lightning rod brochures and advertisements look like come next year. If you haven’t been in the market for one you will be forced to consider buying one in the months ahead. Remember, it’ll come in two styles; pointed and blunt. The real question of course is did you need one in the first place.
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