Marriage Protection Act

The website for the California Marriage Protection Act (protectmarriagesd) features a “Protect Marriage” timeline, one which incorporates both spiritual and political efforts. (The act seeks to amend the California State Constitution so that marriage will be limited to the union of one man and one woman.) On the spiritual side: “Sunday, July 27: Preach on prayer. Monday, July 28: Begin 100 days of prayer. Sunday, September 21: Preach on fasting. Wednesday, September 24: Begin 40-day fast. Month of October: Preach on marriage.” On the political side: ballot, registration, and voting deadlines, along with scheduled phone-bank and door-to-door efforts, plus a youth rally and “The Call,” an all-day gathering at Qualcomm Stadium on November 1.

Also on the timeline: monthly “Pastors Conference Calls,” which are opportunities for pastors around the state to network and discuss their efforts to ensure the act’s passage. The first call linked 1600 pastors in 101 locations; the goal for the Oct. 22 call is 6000 pastors in 400 locations. I visited one of those locations — New Hope Church in Rancho Peñasquitos — for the second call, held Wednesday, July 30. (By then, the number of locations in California had risen to 175.) “Politically Incorrect and Proud of It” read the bumper sticker of the car next to mine; the license plate read, “RGN N ME.”

“This conversation began 15 years ago,” said one attendee to another in the church’s conference room as we waited for the call to begin. “Which companies are ‘pro-gay.’ People started talking about boycotting. Then you dig down deep enough, you realize that you’d have to boycott everybody.” Our host led an opening prayer: “Father...show us what is in Your heart, what Your concerns are, what Your passion is.... We ask for You to speak through the speaker, and we pray that You would protect them.”

The call began, accompanied by a video presentation. Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline Church in Rancho San Diego, served as emcee and opened by asking me to leave: “We want to say this tenderly but firmly: we’ve asked the media not to be present. This is a private meeting. We’ve also received numbers of emails telling us that there are people from the opposition in our midst. We are here for one particular reason, and it’s very, very simple: to honor Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. If you have come for that reason, you are welcome to be where we are today.”

At that point, I left and went home to visit the Protect Marriage Website, which contained an outline of the call’s schedule. First up: “How to equip yourself,” including a word on legal questions and an overview of Garlow’s “10 Declarations,” made “to unite, focus, and ground us during this precarious season.”

The declarations began with the claim that “authentic inclusivity means loving all persons, without the need to compromise biblical integrity.” They defended marriage as “a covenantal union of one male and one female, which provides the foundation for a healthy, whole family life” and stressed that while “race is a fact of birth,” “a homosexual act is that — an act. Acts involve choices.... It is inappropriate to compare homosexual marriages to interracial marriages.” They declared repentance for the failure of Christians to “teach and model authentic Christianity” and to “adequately sanctify marriages.... The divorce rate is an abomination to God, a curse on the world and nation, and is an anathema to us.” They promised perseverance and noted that “while the church is the force for righteousness in the culture, its ultimate purpose is to glorify God by bringing persons into a relationship with the Father.”

Later topics included: “How to energize your church,” “How to mobilize your city,” “How to activate your spiritual community,” and “How to educate your state.” Also, “How to please your Father” — the spiritual element was anything but background music. The website linked to a sermon given in February by Miles McPherson, pastor of San Diego’s The Rock Church. In it, McPherson said that fighting homosexual marriage was “not a civil government issue, but a spiritual issue. The attack is not from the gay lobby. Here’s who the enemy is: it’s the devil. He’s trying to normalize homosexuality. He’s trying to criminalize preaching the Word of God. In Canada, if you preach Romans 1 — that talks about homosexuality being an abomination — you will lose your license. You will go to jail.”

McPherson warned that if you “take the Bible out of society, you have complete anarchy. If you take God and the Bible out, then murder is no longer right or wrong because God is the one who said that murder is wrong.” He also argued that when man and woman join in marriage, “that’s the fullness of [God’s] image. You’re back the way [God] originally had you,” after He had “made man in His image” but before He made Eve from Adam’s rib. “Here is Satan’s intent: ‘How do I destroy the ultimate image of God? I’ll destroy marriage.’”

Garlow also preached a sermon on the website, this one introducing a brochure designed to engage the unchurched as well as the believer. The brochure explored marriage in world and American history and argued that anthropology has found heterosexual marriage to be almost universally “a pivotal institution,” while homosexual marriage is “never the basis of a ‘viable social order.’” Further, “the historical origin of marriage is in society and culture, as a response to the needs of the family, and has only later been extended legal recognition and regulation.”

And the brochure argued for the social benefits of heterosexual marriage, concluding, “as the family goes, so goes society.... Whether American society succeeds or fails in building a healthy marriage culture is clearly a matter of legitimate public concern.... The problem with endorsing gay marriage is not that it would allow a handful of people to choose alternative family forms, but that it would require society at large to gut marriage of its central presumptions about family in order to accommodate a few adults’ desires.”