I think an even more prudent question is not who are you to stand in G-d’s way, but who is anyone to speak on what or whom G-d blesses? Scripture has not given us the authority to determine others rights. Personally, with the issue of homosexuality, it shouldn’t be about wether heterosexuals can make peace with it, but if homosexuals can. And if so, then our greatest call is to love.

So, I say that, yes, you should perform their marriage. Myself, and many other thinkers, believe that marriage is best as a union of two people who can be better together than they ever could be apart–the joining of two to become one flesh. And that sounds a lot like the situation you have presented.

The violence we’re seeing in the Middle East in general was pretty much non-existent before the 20th century–about the time that oil was discovered in the region. Americans, Brits, and other white people wanted that oil very badly, so we started sticking our fingers in. Our leaders don’t actually want peace in the Middle East, because they are in the pockets of the oil industry, and the oil industry wants countries it can more or less control. Saudi Arabia is run by oil tycoons that WE put in power. WE encouraged the Ayatollah Khomeini to replace the old shah in Iran, then realized what a horrible decision that was by 1979. WE put Saddam in power, then took him out. WE make sure that the only people with any real power are the ones who keep feeding our society’s petroleum addiction, and the rest of the Middle East remains a horrible place to live. WE are the sinners here, not Abraham.

Besides, I’m pretty sure that punishing a person only works if you’re punishing THAT person, not distant descendants who had nothing to do with his actions at all. The former makes you look just, the latter makes you look cruel and arbitrary.

Furthermore, seriously LOOK at the OId Testament. Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, and probably several other people whose marriages aren’t recorded, were polygamous. Never ONCE is polygamy itself said or implied to be sinful in any of those passages. This idea about marriage has changed.

In Leviticus, it says that if your virgin daughter is raped, she has to be sold in marriage to her rapist (essentially sex-slavery with less social stigma). This idea about marriage has also, thankfully, changed.

I would suggest that instead of implying that someone who’s read the entire Bible is ignorant, that you self-examine and decide whether the things you promote as Biblical really are, or whether you merely want them to be because you want to be right. Pridefulness is unbecoming.

The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?“I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways,
According to the results of his deeds. Jeremiah 17:9-10

If your question is why the RCC prohibits no-fault divorcees to remarry while other Churches allow it, that is an interesting question.

Abraham has sex with his slave Hagar, but that aspect of things isn’t the problem. No, God’s just mad at him for not having faith that Sarah will conceive.

Later in the Old Testament, David and Solomon both have multiple wives. Again, their polygamy is not described as a sin or flaw in any way. David is punished for marrying Bathsheba solely because he killed Uriah to get his wife.

A nuclear family, with one breadwinning husband, one stay-at-home wife, and their children living as a unit, is a 20th-century invention. People used to live with their extended families.

Marriage has changed, yet couples are still devoted to each other. People still love their spouses and enter into the commitment of marriage. Marriage is a stronger institution than you seem to think. It will survive this change too.

2. No-fault divorce is relevant. See below.

3. The Roman Catholic Church (tied with Greek Orthodox for the honor of being the oldest surviving offshoot of the Pauline church) has prohibited divorce among its members since the Council of Nicaea. When no-fault divorce was legalized, other churches started marrying divorced people–but the Catholic Church still does not allow it. The RCC suffers no legal penalties for their stance on divorce.

If gay marriage is legalized, then those particular denominations, Christian and otherwise, that accept gay marriage as legitimate will be able to perform same-sex weddings that are backed up by the law. (Don’t kid yourself–ministers, priests, and rabbis of all sorts are already performing same-sex wedding ceremonies nationwide. They just can’t pronounce such couples legally married in states where same-sex marriage is outlawed.)

Those churches that oppose same-sex marriage will not have to change a single thing that they are doing. This is because legalizing gay marriage only affects CIVIL marriage (i.e., getting a marriage certificate notarized and approved by a justice or registered clergy) and its legal benefits, not religious wedding ceremonies. Churches can recognize or not recognize whatever marriages they want to.

I also don’t see how “treat gay couples with basic human dignity” in any way falls under “doing evil to bring about good results.” As the patterns in suicide rates among gay teens clearly shows*, the current conservative attitude toward gay people has brought forth some very rotten fruit. And a good tree never gives forth bad fruit.

This is something the Church needs to change on–just like it changed on slavery 150 years ago. If the Church does not change with regard to gay equality, it will die. Attitudes toward homosexuality are consistently given by young ex-Christians as a primary reason why they left the fold.
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* Suicide rates are 4-5 times higher among gay teens than among the general teenage population–in conservative areas of the U.S. In areas where homosexuality is accepted, the gay-teen suicide rate is the same as it is for everybody else. This implies an external cause for suicidal depression among gay teens.