While people across the nation celebrated the election of the first black president on Nov. 4, citizens of California witnessed another historical moment as voters adopted a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

In a state where same-sex marriages were legal since June, the initiative, known as Proposition 8, won with 52 percent of the vote. The measure came only months after California’s Supreme Court ruled a same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, spurring the adoption of the constitutional amendment.

The amendment left Connecticut and Massachusetts as the only states where same-sex marriages are legal, although New York and Rhode Island recognize such ceremonies performed elsewhere; more than 40 states have constitutional bans or laws against the marriages.

With so many state supreme courts deciding the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, we as a Christian community must recognize the possible ramifications if the issue makes the docket at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Marriage should not apply to lesbian and gay couples. It has been a religious practice for more than 4,000 years. Governments should not dictate that which religious institutions have established. Although the Bible does not address the concept of same-sex marriage, the Scriptures clearly tell us homosexuality is a sin (1 Cor. 6:9, Romans 1:27).

God ordains marriage as an act between a man and a woman, not a man and a man or a woman and a woman.

The book of Matthew states God created man and woman, and man will leave his father and mother to marry his wife. “The two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate” (Matt. 19:4-6).

California, along with a handful of other states, still allows same-sex civil unions, which carry many similar rights as marriage but under a different name.

With the California ban, the status of about 17,000 same-sex unions performed in the state is left in doubt. Although the state may continue to recognize these marriages, Jerry Brown, the state’s attorney general, expects some legal skirmishes.

These couples instead may claim civil union status and continue to receive the same state benefits, civil rights and protections as married couples. A civil union is not a religious institution like marriage; it is a government invention. Vermont legislators created the term when passing the first civil union law in 2000 after the state’s Supreme Court ruled that denying gay couples the benefits of marriage was unconstitutional discrimination.

Although we do not support same-sex marriages, civil unions are a governmental matter and would have to be judged by different criteria.

Our disapproval of same-sex marriages does not mean we are championing the denial of gay citizens’ rights. And it does not mean we are homophobic. As Christians should, we love our fellow man, no matter his sin, as God loves us (Romans 5:8). If the U.S. Supreme Court must one day rule on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, Christians should voice their beliefs, stand for their principles and trust God to guide the justices in their final decision.