As the debate over same sex marriage heats up, it’s becoming more difficult for the convictional Christian to stay out of the fire. Even in states where there’s a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union between one man and one woman, same sex couples are mounting court challenges. And, increasingly, wedding vendors are being told they must provide their services to gay weddings or face penalties. The Biblical view of marriage clashes with the quest for so-called “marriage equality” and each believer must decide if, or how, he or she is going to engage in it.

We can fight the political battles to try to protect traditional marriage in our own states and in the nation. The best we can hope for, short of a Supreme Court decision for natural marriage, is a sort of patchwork quilt with different definitions of marriage in different states. The current administration is siding with the states that allow same sex marriage, and is treating these marriages like natural marriage for many federal purposes.

Rather than allow the government to impose a revisionist definition of marriage on the entire society, some Christians are advocating that marriage be privatized. Get the state out of marriage altogether, they say. Let churches, synagogues, and temples make their own rules regarding which “marriages” they will bless, or not.

Last week, I addressed the privatization of marriage, explaining that marriage’s public nature exists in great part for the benefit of children. This point must be emphasized because taking the state out of marriage would be detrimental to the interests of children.

Economist Jennifer Roback Morse, Founder and President of The Ruth Institute, says the libertarian mindset, which she claims on many issues, does not work here because children are not autonomous and adult society has an obligation to see to their interests. God’s plan for the family provides this. Dr. Morse points out that “children have a legitimate interest in the stability of their parents’ union. Marriage,” she writes, “is society’s institutional structure for protecting these legitimate rights.”

Contract parenting, where people negotiate to decide who will be the parents and what form the family will take falls short because contracts are limited and can also be of limited duration. Parenthood is a status and it is forever. By the way, adoption is not a contract. It confers permanent parental status.

When a mother and a father conceive a child inside marriage, that child is biologically, legally, and practically theirs. Dr. Morse admits that “things don’t always work perfectly or smoothly.” But both parents, literally, have “skin in the game.” The concepts of mother and father are “natural, pre-political concepts.” The state did not create them.

But the state’s job is to provide justice. To protect the rights with which humans are endowed by our Creator. A church, or a contract does not have the power to protect and enforce those rights.