Table of contents for Carrie Prejean

1. 10 Lessons From Carrie Prejean
2. Anything You Record May Come Back to Haunt You
3. Confession Is Not Enough
4. Save It For When You’re Married
5. It’s Good To Take a Stand For Marriage
6. Beauty Is Only Skin Deep
7. Delayed Reaction
8. Taking a Stand Is Costly
9. Don’t Seek the Spotlight
10. Grace, Seasoned With Salt

The reason that Carrie Prejean is in the news is not only for the fact that she is good looking and was Miss California—it’s that she was almost Miss USA (or at least that’s what many said) but for an answer she gave to Perez Hilton about same-sex marriage.

In her interview portion, Hilton asked Prejean what she thought about Proposition 8, the California proposition that would have legalized same-sex marriage, but was rejected by the voters of the state.  Prejean stated that she believed marriage was between a man and a woman.

That’s great—I mean, I agree.  It’s the traditional definition, and altering that definition does erode the meaning, even if it doesn’t directly effect my marriage or those around me.  The problem is, marriage is already pretty weak as it is.

Marriage Erosion

The definition of marriage is as old as time itself—or perhaps a few days younger.  When God created Eve and gave her to Adam, He declared that the two had become one.  It wasn’t until a couple generations later that this would receive its first test.  Lamech, believing he was better than anyone else at the time, took to himself two wives.  Polygamy was the first attack.

Marriage was further eroded by the process of taking a wife’s handmaid to have offspring, and adultery, prostitution and concubines were all things that took place a long time ago.  Today we can add Cohabitation¹ and “same-sex marriage.”

See, marriage has been under attack from the outside—from people trying to alter the definition—for a long time.  However, marriage as a term has always meant the same thing—a joining of a man and a woman for life.

Marriage Already is A Weakened Institution

Marriage is and always has been under fire.  As a culture decays in morality, its institutions are polluted and decayed to the point that they lose their meaning—and this is what is happening in this country.  It’s not just “same-sex marriage” that’s the issue.  It’s cohabitation.  It’s “serial monogamy”—the culture of divorce and remarriage.

If you want to take a stand for marriage, you need to take a stand for marriage in its purity.  You need to tell those couples that are living together that they should not be “playing house.”  You need to tell that couple about to get divorced that they’re breaking a promise (and help them to resolve their issues).  You need to do more than make fancy statements about “same-sex marriage” because though I believe they’re wrong as well, there’s a lot more to this topic than whether two people that are already committing sin can commit sin with the state’s blessing.

So yes, take a stand for marriage, but don’t simply make it about homosexuality.  If you’re going to take a stand, make it for what marriage should be.

1. Though it’s probably much older, just without the formal definition—since there are laws on the books for “common law marriage.”

Table of contents for Carrie Prejean

1. 10 Lessons From Carrie Prejean
2. Anything You Record May Come Back to Haunt You
3. Confession Is Not Enough
4. Save It For When You’re Married
5. It’s Good To Take a Stand For Marriage
6. Beauty Is Only Skin Deep
7. Delayed Reaction
8. Taking a Stand Is Costly
9. Don’t Seek the Spotlight
10. Grace, Seasoned With Salt

In the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the two young children that live with their widower father are all excited because they feel that if their father kisses the lovely leading lady then “they’ll have to get married.”  Today, the leading lady and man move in together while he’s recovering from a divorce.

Our society has changed a lot over a couple of generations to the point that many of the things that we would expect to hear about self-control and decency we no longer hear.

It’s Nothing New

It’s not that these things didn’t go on before.  It’s not that there were not trysts, adultery, and pre-marital sex.  It still happened.  It’s just that it was expected and assumed that these things should happen after marriage vows had been said, and those vows were to be more permanent than they are today.

Carrie Prejean fell into the trap that many of our young people today are falling into when it comes to relationships.  She believed that she should be giving things to her boyfriend that should be reserved for her future husband.  The presence of this sex tape makes one wonder about what else happened in their relationship.

Finding a Mate

The drive to find a life long mate is something all young people go through.  Many of them will go to great lengths to keep the person that they are seeing attracted to them, and at any sign that the person might leave, they’ll do something more dramatic to keep them.  While it may not be the only reason, I’m sure that this is one of the biggest reasons for the teen pregnancy rate being what it is and these kinds of photographs and videos.

I think this shows part of the flaws of our current system of courtship—people naturally want a partner, they want someone to share their lives with.  They get invested in a person, and they want it to stay.  When one of those parties wants out, it creates a situation for manipulation.

Obviously, Carrie Prejean’s boyfriend could not be trusted as much as she trusted him.  She gave him something that he, in turn, used against her.

For Your Own Protection

I believe in the Bible, and that it states that there are clear boundaries as far as sex, nudity, and marriage goes.  I go further and believe that you should only invest emotionally in a person that you’ll eventually marry, and that once married you shouldn’t invest emotionally in any other.

That being said, I also believe that we would all be wise to hold back—to walk back from how far we’ve gone—because of what we’ve seen.  It is obvious to anyone watching that when a couple breaks up, everything that is personal is no longer treasured, and should the opportunity to humiliate or profit off of these personal things present itself, it will happen.

Therefore, I would suggest, practically, that distance should be kept from couples who don’t have a vow.  You should not be sharing space, your body or your emotions with someone that’s not committed to you.  Save it for when you’re married.