“I cannot support a church or a pastor that affirms gay
marriage!”
Not surprisingly, I’ve heard this claim more than a few
times since I preformed Eddy County’s first Same-Gender Marriage this summer.
The angry, spirited, and hurtful backlash against my belief in Marriage
Equality has been a humbling experience for me and one that has forced me to
seriously and prayerfully revisit my long-held theological positions on
marriage equality.
I understand that people have strong religious and moral
convictions. I respect that the idea of homosexuality in general, let alone
same-gender marriage, violates the religious beliefs and moral convictions of
some people. Honestly, I once felt the same way. As one who believes in
religious diversity and upholds the blessing of our Constitutional freedom to
practice religion free from discrimination or incrimination, those who believe
in their own right that same-gender marriage is a sin have every right to that
belief and should never be singled out or sanctioned for their beliefs.
I believe, however, there is a lot more to the debate
regarding this issue that needs to be shouted from the mountaintops and written
large for all to see. Right now, the debates over sexual sin and traditional
marriage are so focused on gay people having sex that the church is overlooking—or
completely ignoring—a serious conversation that we need to be having!
First, we need to take seriously the difference between historical
marriage and modern marriage. Historically, marriage, including Biblical
accounts of marriage, has more to do with property rights than love. In the
modern age, this is not the case. In Biblical history a woman was exchanged by
her father to the groom and his father’s family in accordance with a business
transaction. In a literal sense, the bride ceases to be the responsibility of
her father and becomes the responsibility of her groom and his father’s family.
This is symbolized in the traditional
changing of the woman’s last name to the man’s. Additionally, love and personal
choice were frequently not part of the marriage covenant. Brides were exchanged
at the behest of the fathers’ or sometimes the groom’s choosing and rarely had
input or choice by the woman. Therefore, when people clamor for some sort of a traditional
or biblical marriage, I have to question, “by whose standards and whose interpretation
of scripture are we defining traditional and biblical?” Bottom line, I don’t
see any traditional or biblical marriage happening in modern American culture
and I don’t think any of us want to return to a world that treats women and
girls as possessions to be owned rather than children of God to be loved and
respected.
Condemning sexual sin is, perhaps, the larger issue at stake
here. I find it difficult that people are fast to judge two women as an abomination
to God and destined to hell because they are intimately involved yet we live in
a culture that sexually objectifies just about everything. Consider a few
questions:
Why is it an abomination to God for two consenting adults to
live out a natural, loving, and affirming covenant relationship while we
frequently turn a blind eye to the fact that scantily-clad women with artificial
breasts and air-brushed bodies are being used to sell everything from cars and
office equipment to guns and beer?
Why are people so offended because two men wish to be
married, but some of the most popular television programs on the air today
glamorize the bed-hopping behavior of their characters?
Why are some people so against the notion that a church or a
pastor will perform a Gay-Marriage which has been approved by State law but
ignore the fact that sexual exploitation, rape, sexual abuse, infidelity, domestic
violence, and hideous emotional viciousness permeates so-called “traditional
marriages” every day?
The pornography, sex-trade, and adult entertainment
industries are, in my opinion, far more dangerous to our families, our culture,
and our understanding of healthy sexuality than the relatively small percentage
of loving adults who have chosen to live in a life-time covenantal partnership
of marriage.
Finally, we have to remember, marriage is not all about sex.
Frequently, when I engage in conversations with people about how repulsed they
are regarding same-gender marriage, they are focused on the sex. “It is wrong!”
It is a perversion.” “It is unnatural.” “It is against God’s will.” We all know
the arguments and, more often than not, they all focus on the physical act of
arousing the genitals for pleasurable outcomes.
Let’s be honest! Marriage does involve sex, but sex is not
all there is to marriage. You show me someone who feels otherwise, and I’ll
show you someone who doesn't understand marriage at all. Marriage is about
covenant and commitment. Marriage requires sacrifice, mutuality, compassion,
grace, and understanding. Marriage is a partnership forged in love and a mutual
decision to be together no matter what. As I say in my wedding ceremonies, it is
an intentional decision to permanently live together in a common life where
each partner may be to the other, “a strength in need, a counselor in
perplexity, a comfort in sorrow, and a companion in joy.” It is the covenant,
not the pleasurable stimulation of genitals that makes a marriage. Often times,
I fear we forget this necessary fact when debates about same-gender marriage
arise and become contentious.
So, when it comes to Same-Gender Marriage I think it is time
we re-frame the debate. It is not a matter of who is right and who is wrong as
there are clearly different ways of interpreting the Bible and church history.
It is not a matter of forcing anyone’s religious beliefs or spiritually-defined
moral standards on others as we must honor our freedom of religious expression.
When it comes to the debate on Same-Gendered marriage, we
need to all take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Today we live in
the most sexualized culture I think history has ever known. The overall divorce
rate, the ubiquitous availability of pornography, the use of sexuality in
marketing, the media objectification of women, the constant need for Domestic
Violence Restraining orders and Battered Family Shelters, a burgeoning sex and
human-trafficking trade, and the vast numbers of women who are essentially sexual
slaves in their own home are the real sexual sins that this society must
address. Rather than investing money, time, and emotional arguments in the definition
of marriage, we would all do better to invest that energy into strengthening
the covenants of marriage and cultivating an environment where the covenant
thrives. It is time we re-frame the debate!