If you ever go to Washington, D.C., set aside at least a week to see the monuments, museums, art galleries, the White House, the U.S. Capitol and Arlington National Cemetery.

Another must-see, the National Cathedral, stands atop Mount Saint Alban. Its majestic spires point heavenward.

The Cathedral’s foundation stone came from a field near Bethlehem, Israel, and was laid by workmen in 1907. The completion of the west towers in 1990 marked the end of the construction.

The exterior is the length of two football fields, and the aisle is long enough to place the Washington Monument on its side.

It’s the sixth largest cathedral in the world and often referred to as the “nation’s church,” welcoming people of all faiths.

On Aug. 23, 2011, “a shallow and widespread magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck the East Coast,” causing significant damage to the National Cathedral. Their website states that the stones in the pinnacles of the central tower were “literally shaken apart.”

The repair work is expected to take five years.

I see a comparison between the Cathedral and our culture, whose Judeo-Christian foundations are being shaken.

Some think marriage, a cornerstone of civilization, should be redefined as something it has never been, something which no human society has ever accepted as the norm for family life.

According to the National Health and Social Life Survey (documentation submitted by pro-homosexual groups to the U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas), some 2.8 percent of the male and 1.4 percent of the female populations identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual.

As someone with a family member in another state who is homosexual, I know it’s possible to love the person, but not his lifestyle.

Writing on the issue of same-sex marriage, Dr. Dennis Kinlaw, former president of Asbury Theological Seminary, says, “Human sexuality and marriage are more theology than biology, sociology, law or even morality.”

Dr. Kinlaw points out that God created the first human, put him in a garden and told him to name all the creatures.

Adam realized there was no creation like himself, so God created woman from Adam’s rib. They were literally made for each other.

He goes on to say the very future existence of the human race depended on the first couple being commanded to be fruitful and multiply to fill the earth. “A same sex relationship can never fulfill the potential that God built into a heterosexual one.”

Kinlaw believes our society tries to understand the mystery of sexuality without reference to the God who designed us male and female. “First, we divorced our sexuality from procreation…The depreciation of the sanctity of human life that resulted is enough to make one weep.”

He notes the natural result of sexual freedom costs the death of the innocent (more than 50 million abortions since 1973).

“Then we divorced our sexuality from marriage. Instead of its being part of a covenant of mutual, total and life-long unconditional commitment, it became the privilege of the moment” without a sense of responsibility.

Kinlaw concludes, “Now we want to divorce our sexuality from gender.” Jesus defined marriage with the words often quoted at weddings, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother to be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Matthew 19:5).

He was quoting Genesis 2:24, the verse following the scriptures about God creating woman.

To speak up for biblical sexuality is to risk being labeled intolerant.

But I cannot remain silent since the consequences of redefining marriage “legally” would affect all Americans.