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'marriage' is the problem
The following was published on the editorial page of The New bedford Standard-Times August 17,2003. It's one more attempt to try to bring some reason to the gay "marriage" battle which is overheated and, too me, surprisingly so.
Ok, I admit it. I’m having trouble with this whole gay marriage thing.
I understand it’s an emotional issue with deep religious overtones, and it raises some fundamental questions about the separation of church and state. But it seems to me the solution is simple: Stop using the word “marriage.”
If I’m hearing the arguments correctly, gays are concerned that their unions do not enjoy the legal protections of marriage and they feel they should. I agree. But we don’t have to do this by having them “marry.” What they need is the same protection under the law for their contract as is afforded by a traditional marriage contract. I can’t think of any reason they should not have this protection.
But don’t call it “marriage.” Call it a “domestic union contract,” or whatever. Some, if not all, gays seem to be saying this. But somehow the word “marriage” keeps grabbing the headlines. Maybe it’s the opposition. Maybe it’s the media. But either way, I think it’s the word “marriage” that has all the emotional baggage,
Everyone is entitled to a contract, gay or heterosexual – and I’m for the churches staying out of the business of marriage entirely. Please note, I say out of the “business” of marriage. I have no objection – in fact, I encourage – a religious group deciding to bless a particular union. Blessing is a proper role for religion. Creating, enforcing, and adjudicating legal contracts is the business of the state. Church officials are acting in a secular, civil capacity when they legally marry people.
Long before the subject of gay marriage was prominent, my father, an Episcopal minister, used to complain about having to marry people. At the time I didn’t fully appreciate why this bothered him. He was referring to the legal part of the ceremony – the secular part – the creating of a contract under the eyes of the state. As a minister he didn’t think that was any of his business. He was interested in love, and you can’t command love with laws.
I now see the wisdom of what he was saying. I hasten to add that in my personal faith I am all for blessing the vows of two people to love one another and I don’t care if they are a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and a man. Love is the proper business of faith, and blessing that love and helping people maintain it is the proper business of a faith community.
But that has nothing to do with law. Laws are the proper business of the state. Contracts are the proper business of the state.
George Bush doesn’t agree with me. That’s fine. I don’t accept his brand of Christianity because for me it denies the foundation of that faith, which is love.
Ditto for the Vatican.
But the Vatican and George Bush can believe anything they like. And it is certainly appropriate for either to argue that within their faiths there will be no blessing of gay unions because – as a matter of faith – they find such unions improper. But the state isn’t in the business of blessing anything and it should not be. The state is in the business of making and enforcing laws and those laws, should provide equal protection for all people in the state regardless of sexual orientation.
Bottom line. I think in the legal battle we should all drop the use of the word “marriage.” It is just an emotional flame-thrower. Instead we should be talking about domestic contracts that give equal protection under the law regardless of sexual orientation. Various faith communities can make whatever judgments they want when it comes to blessing such a union and/or calling it a “marriage” – but they have no business stepping into the legal fray and trying to enforce their spiritual beliefs by creating laws that take away basic legal rights from others.
Thunder down under...
As in the US, gay "marriage" is splitting Australian church communities into warring groups. Battle lines have been drawn, and shots fired.
Both sides, I think, could gain from this article. For the first time I have come to realize that the problem may be mostly semantic. "Marriage" has too many entrenched connotations -- religious, social, biological and cultural. If gay "marriages" were rebadged as "social contracts" a lot of heat could go out of the debate. And clergymen could be permitted to bless the social contract between "Joe and Jack" or between "Jane and Jill."
Thinking out of the box is the right way to attack problems that won't fit in the box!
Posted by: Dom at August 20, 2003 04:02 AMHi Greg,
My Church, and your former Church, was very careful with its language as it recently approved local options for developing and performing liturgies to "celebrate and bless" same sex unions.
No mention was made of "marriage" -- partly because that is not what the Church does in any case -- heterosexual or otherwise. As you know, our clergy do not "marry" people. They officiate at a liturgy during which the church community celebrates and blesses a marriage that has already taken place (since marriage is a civil institution, not a religious one). The liturgies that may be developed, indeed have been developed, for same sex unions will do the same: celebrate and bless a relationship or union that has already taken place -- but not a marriage.
So in reality, it isn't the Church's problem -- whether or not to allow same-sex unions and what to call them. It's a state problem. Our problem is whether or not to bless those unions, no matter what they are called. That makes the decision a little easier, I think.
Regarding what to call those relationships, there is still too much conflict or disagreement over the term "marriage," with many people -- perhaps the majority -- in or out of the Church believing that marriage is a formalized relationship between a man and a woman by definition. Thus, they hope we can find a different term for a formalized relationship between people of the same sex. But again, it's a civil issue, not a religious one.
Of course, behind much of this discussion, and the whole reason for the conflict, is the view of our conservative brothers and sisters than homosexuality is a sin -- because the Bible says it is, and I thought your article in the Standard-Times and other comments you've made were helpful and thought-provoking in addressing the issue. I would just add that when we learn to do biblical exegesis in seminary, one of the aspects of any passage to consider is its historical-cultural context. In the case of the Old Testament passage you have cited, one has to understand the times in which the Hebrew people were living. These were wandering tribes at the time, just beginning to settle in towns and becoming farmers. They were few in number, and their existence as a people was tenuous at best. Thus, it was critically important to procreate, to build the people and the faith. Homosexuality didn't do that, in fact worked against it. For that reason alone it was anathema and was called un-natural. Of course, letting strangers have their way with one's daughters is just as bad to our way of thinking, but again, in those days daughters were property, like wives. If they got pregnant, so what? It added to the population!
I think one of the problems from a conservative point of view is how we read the Bible. If it is the literal word of God, then one must take it literally. And if one does that, then it's easy to see how homosexuality is considered a sin. But to me, taking the Bible literally, flies in the face of reason. In too many places, the Bible contradicts itself -- over and over again. In too many places, it just isn't relevant to life today, for modern industrial and post-industrial societies. In other places it is unclear to us what was meant by the original authors -- because of translation problems, missing text, and contexts we simply do not understand due to the passage of time.
And just because it was ok in those days to provide your daughters for sexual pleasure to strangers, does that mean it's ok today? Ask a conservative Christian that and see what he or she says.
And then there's the problem of the heterosexual male ego...and that I'd like to write a book on someday. But not now. Suffice to ask the question: Why is homosexuality so terrifying to many of us males?
Any thoughts?
Peter asks:
"Why is homosexuality so terrifying to many of us males? "
I don't know. Some homosexual acts repulse me - but so do some heterosexual acts, so I see that as wrapped up in other preferences that have nothing to do with homosexuality per se.
Perhaps homophobia has something to do with one partner assuming the role traditionally assigned to a women? But if that is repulsive to someone, what does it say about their whole attitude towards sex and women?
Do they find a women's role demeaning? And if so, how do they see themselves in a heterosexual relationship? It sounds to me like this would mean they see themselves as taking a superior role - the "women are mere receptacles" attitude. If that's the case they have deeper problems with sex and love than simply their homophobia.
In any event, I don't understand it because I never felt it. I understand love of war because I was once a war lover. Oh, I always wore a veneer of civilization and sanity, but undernerath I loved the violence of war. I think part of the appeal was simply that war cut to the quick - it slices the Gordian Knot - it solves all of life's complex problems by reducing them to an "on-off" switch simplicty. Either you're alive or you're dead.
I am now repulsed by war. I don't fully understand why I once loved it and I don't fully understand why I now have an equally harsh, gut reaction against it. Where int he past I would seek out war movies, I now turn them off. I don't think either position is driven entirely by rationality - there is something working at a deeper level.
Thus I suspect it is with homophobia. There is something working at a deeper level that repulses some of us - something that is impossible (or very difficult) to put into words because the feeling was not arrived at by rational thought. Words become mere rationalization for decisions already made and impossible to deny - for the person who feels this way. ( I think this is one reason we should be loving and forgiving of them - of the homophobe. They are wrestling with forces they don't command, let alone understand.)
I suspect somewhere deep down there is the biological drive to procreate which homsexuality works counter to. At some level we must find this as difficult to understand as if a person refused food.
But in the final analysis I don't have an answer to the question. I feel what I feel - I don't really take credit for it, nor should I be blamed for it by others who feel differently. We all need to accept one another and when I'm functioning at mty best - which is rare - I do. I even accept George Bush ;-)
But this is the love "that passeth all understanding" - this is grace.
Perhaps there are other explanations on other levels for homophobic behavior. Perhaps someone else reading this has a better answer and will share it?
In any event, thanks for your thoughtful comment.