'Without God, everything is permissible'

All my life I have worked with parents, educators and pastors doing their best to teach children to respect the law, government and authority. We have aimed to make them constructive citizens and to keep them from the streets or prison. Such work is very rewarding. As the Hasidic saying goes: “If you save a child you have saved the whole world.” With the passage of the bill to legalize gay marriage in the State of New York this changed overnight. Now children are being taught that the most important laws (God’s laws) are irrelevant and can be disregarded. This undermines the basic fabric of our society and threatens to destroy everything. Without clear moral standards, our country will head to a complete collapse that will invite chaos and anarchy like never before. As Dostoyevsky says: “Without God, everything is permissible.” As dire as this might sound, it is not too late to do something. We should have a national debate about the moral standards and American values on which our country was founded. Gay marriage is not an issue of civil rights; it’s an issue of right and wrong. I believe that most people, in their consciences, know that gay marriage is wrong because it is against God’s natural order of creation and family, as clearly written about in the Bible. Ironically, gay rights activists who claim to speak for tolerance and compassion are now becoming very intolerant of anyone who opposes their lifestyle. This fear-mongering is silencing thousands of people. We must respect one another, but if you do not support gay marriage, please do not become silent or apathetic now. Remember that our country was founded on freedom of speech and religion. Will these freedoms still be practiced when our children become adults? Respectfully, Johann Christoph Arnold Senior Pastor, Bruderhof Church Communities The Bruderhof Church Communities in the United States is based in the Ulster County community of Rifton, and includes a community in the hamlet of Bellvale in the town of Warwick.