Why then were the Canaanites singled out for such severe treatment? They were cut off to prevent Israel and the rest of the world from being corrupted (Deut. 20:16-18). When a people starts to burn their children in honor of their gods (Lev. 18:21), practice sodomy, bestiality, and all sorts of loathsome vice (Lev. 18:23, 24, 20:3), the land itself begins to "vomit" them out as the body heaves under the load of internal poisons (Lev. 18:25, 27-30). Thus, "objection to the fate of these nations ... is really an objection to the highest manifestation of the grace of God." Green likens this action on God's part, not to doing evil that good may come (though that does seem often to be God's methodology: the ends justify the means), but doing good in spite of certain evil consequences, just as a surgeon does not refrain from amputating a gangrenous leg even though in so doing he cannot help cutting off much healthy flesh.

But there is more. Green observes that "...We may object to God's doing immediately and personally what we do not object to his doing mediately, through providence. Now nothing is more certain than that providence is administered on the principle that individuals share in the life of the family and of the nation to which they belong; and that, consequently it is right that they should participate in its punishments as in its rewards....Though many innocent persons could not but suffer, it was right, because of the relation in which they stood to the guilty, that this should be so."

One more observation must be made here. Every forcast or prophesy of doom, like any prophetic word about the future except those few promises connected with the Noahic, Abrahamic, Davidic and New Covenants (which are unconditional and dependant solely on God's work of fulfillment), had a suppressed "unless" attached to them. At that moment that nation turns from its evil way and repents then at that time the Lord would relent and cease to bring the threatened harm (cf. Jer. 18:7-10). Thus Canaan had, as it were, a final forty-year countdown as they heard of the events in Egypt, at the crossing of the Reed Sea, and what happened to the kings who opposed Israel along the way. We know that they were aware of such events, for Rahab confessed that these same events had terrorized her city of Jericho and that she, as a result, had placed her faith in the God of the Hebrews (Josh. 2:10-14). Thus God waited for the "cup of iniquity" to fill up -- and fill up it did without any change in spite of the marvelous signs given so that the nations, along with Pharaoh and the Egyptians, "might know that he was the Lord."

Yesterday, the Democratic Party platform drafters approved language that would make same-sex marriage a plank in the platform. According to Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), an openly gay congressman who sits on the committee, the 15-member panel universally supported the same-sex marriage plank. “I was part of a unanimous decision to include it,” Frank explained. “There was a unanimous decision in the drafting committee to include it in the platform, which I supported, but everybody was for it.”

This would be a major break from prior Democratic Party platforms, and would put the Party in major conflict with voters in swing states. Virginians disapprove same-sex marriage by a margin of 49-42 percent; North Carolinians approved Amendment One, the Constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage, by a margin of 61-39. Other states, including Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, and Arizona, also generally disapprove same-sex marriage. Just a few swing states, including Colorado, do support same-sex marriage according to polls.

From August 10 to August 12, the full platform committee will meet to consider whether the plank should be included. But the fact that Frank is going public about the platform means that it is unlikely that the Party will back down.

A bevy of gays and lesbians testified before the committee, encouraging them to adopt the plank. The leader of these witnesses was Marc Solomon, national campaign director for Freedom to Marry. “We are grateful for the Platform Drafting Committee’s unanimous vote to include the freedom to marry in its draft of the Democratic Party Platform,” said Solomon.