Your writings here are a great example of why so many people are choosing a secular life today over a religious one. For instance, when you state, "the challengers’ vision of marriage is not a self-sacrificing institution designed to provide an optimal setting for raising children and structuring society, but is a self-centered institution used to secure society’s approval of intimate relationships," you come off as extremely dismissive. Can you tell me how you came to such a conclusion? Have you interviewed same-sex couples as to the reason why they decided to be married? Have you amassed data that shows homosexual couples to be self-centered rather than self-sacrificing? How can you claim to know what the secular view of marriage is, when you are not secular yourself? Some more questions regarding your claim that children "are the most obvious, natural gift of marriage." If a couple is found unable to bear children, should they be allowed to marry? If an elderly man and an elderly woman, both long past child-bearing age, ask to be married, should they be prevented from doing so, since they are incapable of having children? As to your claim that "as late as 1990, not a single jurisdiction recognized the right of homosexuals to marry;" are you really arguing that because something has been illegal or frowned upon for an extended period that it should continue to be illegal and frowned upon because it's always been that way? What is your view on women's rights? Should women be allowed to take leadership positions in the church? From my understanding, women have been ordained as Lutheran pastors since at least the 1970s. But how did this happen, since before that time, there were zero women pastors for nearly 2,000 years. Using your logic, women should not be ordained, as women were disallowed from doing so for a thousand-plus years. I understand that religious institutions such as the Lutheran Church are threatened by the progress made in the homosexual civil rights movement that has gained much momentum in the last decade or so. But tell me, how have legal gay marriages in states such as California affected the marriage rates in the Lutheran Church (or any other church, for that matter)? Are Lutheran Churches folding because of gay marriage? How exactly does gay marriage affect Lutherans personally? Your view of marriage is myopic to your own religion, but you must remember that not everyone shares your religion, and thus, your religious laws do not apply to everyone. In this country, we have freedom FROM religion as much as we have freedom OF religion. This country was founded as a secular country, but a secular one wherein citizens are free to practice, or not to practice, whichever religion they desire. In fact, the founders made it quite specific that the new country they helped to create would be secular in nature, with no religious litmus test for its leaders, and no national religion. While you are free to define marriage as you wish in your own church, you are most definitely not free to define marriage to those of us who wish to worship in our own ways, outside the realm of traditional religion. If you need further proof that marriage has always been a secular institution, I would encourage you to try getting a divorce from a pastor or priest. You cannot, and not simply because pastors or priests wouldn't grant a divorce on religious grounds, but because the state does not recognize the right of that pastor to grant a divorce. Marriage in this country has always been of a secular nature, first and foremost. Marriage in this country bestows upon the married couple certain rights as regards to tax law, to medical law, to family law, that are not bestowed upon couples who are not married. This is in rather clear violation of the 14th Amendment's language of Equal Protection. I look forward to your discussion of the 14th Amendment as it relates to your religious views on this matter.