God Bless Miss California

“Miss California,” Carrie Prejean, was asked about her views on gay marriage by one of the judges at the recent Miss USA Pageant on April 19.

This is certainly a no-win topic in our politically-charged environment, and a question requiring more than 30 seconds to answer.

It’s less controversial to talk about “world peace” or “save the whales”!

Prejean upheld the traditional view of marriage.

Speaking in her home town church on April 26, Prejean said the pageant pressured her to apologize. According to the website news.sawf.org, she quoted officials who said, “You need to apologize to the gay community. You need to not talk about your faith. This has everything to do with you representing California and saving the brand.”

Prejean is to be commended for her courage. Whereas she didn’t mention her faith in response to this question, she’s talked about it quite openly since.

And it’s interesting that Prejean voiced the majority view of her state. Californians passed “Proposition 8” last November which amended the state constitution and forbids gay marriage.

The evangelical church cannot deal with this issue in a 30-second sound bite, but we do speak clearly two principles.

First, the church upholds the so-called traditional view of marriage (as does the Islamic faith). Marriage is a commitment of one man and one woman for one lifetime.

God performed the first marriage ceremony and emphasized its “leaving” and “cleaving” aspect. The man and woman leave their family of origin, as demonstrated in the “giving away of the bride,” and they “cleave” to one another until death parts them (Gen. 2:24).

Second, the church and her God, offer grace to all.

The standard is in place, but not all meet the standard. We’re fallible human beings. We need forgiveness when we don’t measure up.

I attended a wedding in which the minister talked about the sanctity of marriage, and then said that if Sam and Sue later decided that their union was a mistake and dissolved it, all who love them will continue to love them.

Of course this is true, but how ludicrous to lower the standard in a ceremony that’s supposed to uplift the standard!

What consenting adults do in privacy is beyond our concern for we don’t see ourselves as moral police. But the church holds to a public standard for marriage believing that a high standard lifts society higher.

And to the homosexual community the church offers another way.

Paul noted in 1 Corinthians 6 that some in the church came from the homosexual lifestyle—“and such were some of you,” he said—but that was past tense. They’d made commitments to Christ that radically affected the whole of their lives.

The God who created the world is fully capable of changing the lives of all who believe.

Brian Harris
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