- Well, it's time to answersome of the email questions

that you all have sent in.

And Pat, this first onecomes from Nicole who says,

"I believe marriage originallyis to ask God's permission

"to be together to havesex to make children.

"The system or government makes it seem

"to be all about legal reasons and money.

"Although we have children andboth have never been married,

"marriage is to be under God.

"Can you become married in God's eyes

"through a service thatdoesn't involve legalities?"

- Well of course you can.

When you commit to one another,

that you indeed are gonnalive a life together,

it's nice to have itsolemnified in a church.

And you make vows togetherbefore a congregation,

and the congregation pledgesthat they will support you

and your proposed spouse.

The fact that you do itwith a legal binding thing,

it's a protection frankly.

There are certain obligationsthat a man takes on

and a woman takes on in marriage,

and the law will support that.

But the law doesn't makemarriage before God,

what makes it beforeGod is your commitment

to your spouse and thespouse's commitment to you.

If two of you are livingon a desert island

and there wasn't any government around,

you could still get marred.

You could get married before God,

but you gotta mean it.

Until death do us part is what you say.

You can do the vows or whatever,

but society wants tobuild up that marriage.

It's not that they got a bunch of rules

they're trying to make around you,

but they wanna help you theoretically.

That's what it was supposed to be.

All right, what else?

- Okay, this is Christine who says,

"I am a Christian womanwho was out for dinner

"with a female Christian friend.

"Not far from our table

"there were two men sittingthere kissing a lot.

"I felt sick and had to confront the men,

"telling them that this is a sin.

"The restaurant stafftold me I needed to leave.

"I was trying to help these sinners

"and got treated like this.

"Did I do something wrong?"

- You sure did.

Lets face it, we'retalking about beating oil.

Oil is what lubricates the gears

and what your doing is just reaching out

and condemning somebody saywhat your doing is wrong.

It's not your business, it really isn't.

It's before God.

You wanna pray for thosemen that are doing this,

you pray for them.

If you don't like it andyou wanna get up and leave,

by all means leave.

But we can't go around allover the world telling people

they're sinners and telling them

they're doing terrible things.

But when you're invited in to a situation

and somebody says would you help me,

well by all means help them.

But I don't think weshould impose ourselves

on people like the way you did.

You weren't invited to that table.

If they'd said come over and talk to us,

then that'd be a different matter,

but they didn't okay.

- Okay this is Dan who says,

"Hello Pat, Bernie Madoffis in prison for stealing

"and spending hisclients' retirement funds

"and leaving them with nothing.

"isn't what the government'sdoing almost the same thing?

"They took our SocialSecurity and Medicare money

"and spent it on their own debts etc."

- Well you put it exactly correctly,

but I don't think anycongressman will wanna go to jail

for doing it.

But it really was thievery,

the money was given.

You paid your money under aparticular designated fund,

and it was taken by Congressand spent for the general fund.

It's a misappropriation of funds.

If a lawyer commingledthe assets of his clients,

he'd go to jail for that.

But we don't lock congressmen up

for misappropriating money,they probably should be.

- That'd be one way to cleanthe swamp, wouldn't it?

- Put 'em all in jail and lock 'em up.

Okay, what's next?

- This is Benny who says,

"I've heard people say oh my God

"when referring to a certain situation.

"This really bothers my soul.

"I was wondering what youhave to say about this, Pat.

"Is it showing disrespectfor the holiness of God?"

- Well of course it is.

Now remember the commandthou shall not take the name

of Yahweh, Yehowah, your God in vain.

So it's the name of Jehovahthat is in the commandment,

not the name of God himself.

In the Hebrew it's Elohim,

and they've got other forms of God.

But I just think it'swrong to say oh my God,

you're swearing by God

and you're calling in the nameof deity on what your doing.

I think it's wrong.

I think people who use the name of Jesus,

who use the name of God carelessly,

it's a form of blasphemy, andI think it's wrong all right.

- Okay this is Susan who says,

"Dear Pat, my husband'ssister got married to a woman

"when Virginia made itlegal for gays to marry.

"We did not attend the weddingand have been asked why

"by family and friends ever since.

"As Christians, we decided not to attend,

"since we do not believein same-sex marriage.

"How do we explain tothese family and friends

"that want to know why?

"We love them both and have no regrets."

- Well, they're putting youin an impossible situation.

Just like that cake baker,he didn't wanna a bake a cake

for a gay wedding, sothe state came after him.

He had to go all theway to the Supreme Court

to get justice, but nevertheless,

I don't think you have tocondone same-sex marriage

if you disagree with it.

I don't think you haveto attend the ceremonies.

I don't think you have tosmile and act like it's okay,

so you're taking a stand

that what you thinkthey're doing is wrong.

And therefore, if somebody asks you,

just say look it offendsmy religious beliefs.

You don't have to sayanything more than that,

or just keep your mouth shut.

But you are not

required by God's law

to participate in supporting

an activity you feel is sinful,just that simple all right.

- Okay this is Dave who says,

"My wife was working withour pastor at the church.

"About two years ago, theygot real busy with church work

"and pre-marital/maritalcounseling sessions.

"They started hangingout more and drinking

"to the point of getting drunk.

"I recognized the situation

and asked that she not be with him.

"She refused, and I asked her to leave.

"I bought her land, a trailer,

"and furnished her home, $210 thousand.

"She still wants more.

"I have much anger towards them both.

"What should I do now?"

- (laughs) I don't know the situation.

I'd hate to get involvedin that, but I think

what your spouse is.

- Yeah, well he doesn't really say

whether they're legallydivorced yet or not,

so that's kind of awkward.

But I mean, in either sense,he needs to deal right?

- The pastor himself shouldbe called into account.

The church themselves shoulddeal with that pastor.

He's doing something wrongand he knows it in his heart.

But it's so easy to say,

well I'm counseling that dear sister.

Then they say, well the dear sister and I

are working togetherand we're trying to help

these other people.

A bond is being establishedand next thing you know

the spiritual adultery.

You can bring that one before the church

and say look gentleman and ladies,

I wanna bring this chargeagainst your elder.

I think he's done a wrong thing.

You know, you say howdo you handle all that?

There's lot of complexityin people's lives,

I don't have all the answers,

but the answers arepretty clear in the Bible

that what they're done is wrong.

Okay, well thank youfor all those questions.

I'm sorry we didn't havetime for more of them,

but you're really askingsome very important things.

I'll do my best to provide honest answers

to your very good questions.

For today's power minuteis from the book of James.

"If any of you lackswisdom, let him ask of God,

"who gives liberally and without reproach,

"and it will be given to him."

Well, we've got former navy seals

who are rescuing child sex slaves,

so for Terri and me, thisis all the time we've got.

Thanks for being with us.

We'll see you tomorrow, bye-bye.

(enlightening music)