CA's Proposition 8 Overturned

I just finished watching CBS Evening News' coverage of federal judge Vaughn R. Walker's ruling earlier today.  What I found most disturbing was his statement that "Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians."  That a federal judge would enter the realm of theology and pronounce upon it floors me.  He just said that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam - objectively, as they have historically stood; not in the watered-down version often practiced here and in Europe - run counter to the good of some of our citizens.  The implication is easy to see - these religions should drop what is disagreeable to the secular morality that has recently gained ground in our society.  It isn't even a robust secular morality - with its rejection of Natural Law it can no longer claim rationality.

As one who speaks and writes about Christianity, the judge's words about religious belief outrage me, and I feel the need to respond.  I have nothing but love and respect for men and women experiencing same-sex attraction.  I do not believe it proper to act on such attraction, but I would never under any circumstance discriminate against or belittle the innate dignity of one who did.  (I've discussed this in several blogs.) Christianity is a revealed religion and its statements on the morality of sex acts between same-sex individuals are crystal clear, unmistakable.  A Christian cannot excise this datum of faith from their belief set without calling into question every other datum of faith - that God desires us to be His children, that Jesus died for his/her sins, that salvation rests upon God's grace, etc.  Christianity is one complete system and should be accepted or rejected as a whole.  Jesus made a claim like no other in history, "I am the Truth" (John 14:6).  As He said to the Roman judge, Pontius Pilate "For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth" (John 18:37); and to His disciples, "For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory" (Luke 9:26).