Marriage is far more than just a social arrangement that evolved to maintain social harmony by preventing males from fighting over females, more than just a romantic notion conjured up in the fevered minds of star-crossed lovers. To believers, to those who look beyond the mere facts of our material existence to the transcendent and immortal, marriage is sacred. We look at the demand for fidelity in marriage as evidence that the Creator put within our nature an inherent design for marriage as an exclusive intimate bond between a man and a woman that enables them to bring forth and nurture new life. And, beyond that, marriage points the way to God’s design for bonds of sacred intimacy in a covenantal relationship with Him, a relationship of faithfulness — despite our inconstancy — which He illustrates for us in the life of His prophet Hosea and Gomer, Hosea’s adulterous wife.

For these reasons, believers oppose expanding the definition and purpose of marriage beyond the traditional one; our resistance to homosexual “marriage” is not, as the liberal secularist supposes, because of mean-spirited homophobia. Those who view marriage as merely a social institution that can be amended at will, like any other provision of contract law, put forth the view that divorce in heterosexual marriage has destroyed all claim that heterosexuals hold marriage to be a sacred bond that should not be redefined. Their claim — that we have not treated marriage with the reverence we claim it deserves — may have strong appeal but it is fundamentally flawed.

Why? Bear with me.

The sacredness of marriage lies not in ourselves or how we have treated marriage; it lies in the fact that marriage is part of the design of the transcendent Creator of all things. But the secularists retort, “Scientists have looked through their telescopes and microscopes and find no evidence of this Divine Creator.” Correction. Some in this generation of scientists may find no evidence, but generations of their equally brilliant predecessors — scientists as renowned as Sir Isaac Newton — agreed wholeheartedly with what the Psalmist saw with his naked eye: “The heavens declare the glory of God. And the skies proclaim the work of His hands.”

In this election year of resurgent in-your-face radicalism that echoes the 1960s, it seems almost too much to hope that Californians will rise to the occasion and repudiate the immoral Hollywood culture which is so integral to the California image and lifestyle. If California voters embrace same-sex “marriage,” history will record that vote as another step toward the paganization of America. As in so many areas, as California goes, so goes the nation. So, we watch and pray that the citizens of the Golden State will choose wisely and preserve marriage.