Last Friday was a sad day for marriage and, if the advocates of same-sex marriage are right, it was also a sign of things to come.

American churches and denominations had better take note. When a church or Christian institution bows to the authority of the state on a matter of such direct biblical importance, it is destined to lose biblical fidelity.

Marriage is so essential to human happiness and to the organization of human society that it simply cannot be ignored or denied.

The New York Times has asked the question. How would you answer it?

The President has made his decision. The Attorney General has now made his announcement. Mark your calendars for yesterday. That day now represents a tragic milestone in the betrayal of marriage.

For reasons that include all that we can learn from this report, and for many more that we know from the Scriptures and Christian wisdom, Christians know that the marginalization of marriage can only lead to unhappiness, unhealthiness, and the unraveling of human relationships.

Who needs marriage? I do. You do. We all do — and for reasons far more fundamental than can be explained “in purely practical terms.”

A healthy masculinity should motivate men to find their way in this new world of changed economic realities and work opportunities, and to do this while remaining men.

The church would demonstrate the power of the gospel in a whole new way by assisting young people into the successful and faithful transition to adulthood, celebrating this transition as a matter of spiritual maturity to the glory of Christ.

Yesterday, a very important gavel fell on marriage. The central institution of human civilization suffered a direct hit, and its future hangs in the balance.

The sociological research presents a clear case for social concern, but the Christian case against mixed-faith marriage emerged long before the academic discipline of sociology. That case is rooted in the logic of the Gospel itself, and in the reality of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

With this approach to the Bible, you can simply discard any text you dislike. Just dismiss it as a marginal comment, or deny that Paul even authored the text. This is where the denial of biblical inerrancy inevitably leads — the text of the Bible is deconstructed right before our eyes.