The answer is, God defined it. After completing His creation of the genre of mankind by the marvelously symbolic crafting of a woman from a rib of the man, God announced: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24 ). In a parallel creation commentary, God told the man and the woman, the husband and the wife, "Be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28 ).

Obviously (though apparently not so obvious to many people today!), one of the purposes of marriage is for the man and the woman to have a family.

Thousands of people in the United States are unashamedly challenging this legal definition of marriage. That's right, legal . We're not speaking of the California proposition that defined marriage as between a man and woman. We aren't referring to the statutes on the books of nearly 40 states saying that marriage is to be between a man and a woman. We aren't referring to the Massachusetts Supreme Court Justices who redefined marriage and ordered their state legislature to craft the new definition into law. We aren't referring to, or joining the national debate over, a constitutional amendment to require marriage to be so delineated.

We're referring to God. His Word is law.

That's a reality that all too many Christian-minded people shy away from, and it's failing them and their leaders in the culture war raging in America . "Law" is the missing element in the religious answers to same-sex marriage-not man's laws, but God's law.

Some Christian teachers and denominations have fostered an ideology that God's law is at the most a "guide" for the believer. In pretzel-like contortions, they teach believers that the law is okay, just not required. But how can a law be law and not require anything?

Political correctness didn't start with the current debate over the definition of marriage. Many Christian religions have a long history of taking the politically correct approach toward God's law, instead of a biblically correct one. In the lifetimes of all reading this, Christian religions have often sought to soften the force of God's law, preaching a religion of platitudes. In the current debate, this type of theology allows for continued moral drift from God's unchanging law.

Christianity at large has run from the law of God for so long, it cannot say with clarity what sin is. What is it? Is it doing something that hurts others? Is it going against your conscience? Is it up to each of us to define?

This approach has no form or shape. God is love, true. Yet in love, God told the man and the woman He made how they and their children should live. And biblically speaking, we love God and our fellow man by obeying His commandments (1 John 5:2-3). When we fail to live by these rules-God's law- we sin. Breaking the law of God is sin (1 John 3:4).

Christian teachers universally talk of grace but vary widely in their teaching as to what should be done because of it. God's grace involves the extension of a pardon -the suspension of the death penalty. It is only common sense, as well as the teaching of the Bible, that God expects the pardoned individual to be law-abiding from that point on, submitting to His spiritual law. Assuredly, there is freedom in grace. It includes freedom from the death penalty, as well as the expectation to live life the way God wants us to live. Anything less is to demean this wonderful gift of God.

Clearly, grace does not include the freedom to break the law of God because His laws reveal the way to an abundant life, as well as spiritual conversion.

Compare the law of God with the rules of a household. God's laws are simply rules for His household. In a healthy family, parents lay down reasonable rules or boundaries out of love for their children. Just as obeying one's parents is normal and healthy, so also obeying God's law is spiritually healthy. Plainly, a loving and respectful child of God will live by the rules He has set for the household.

Society expects every citizen to be law-abiding. Indeed, a citizen who rejects and refuses to submit to law is a criminal!

As long as Christians remain confused about God's law, their arguments about same-sex marriage will collectively continue to be hollow, without a center. If the debate before Western culture continues to pivot on human opinions, society will drift further and further from the way God told us to live.

We are the children of the man and the woman He made in the Garden. We're supposed to live by the rules He gave them.

Are you aware of God's law? Do you know how it applies to you? Or are you wandering in the fog of today's vast array of interpretations regarding God's fundamental instructions? You can't afford to be wrong on this. For biblically sound instruction that provides clarity to this more important subject, request or download our eye-opening booklet The Ten Commandments.