I never really thought I needed to take a clear stance on this on my blog because I assumed that anyone reading my stories would intuitively know where I stood on the subject. It seems I was wrong. I received an email asking me to clearly state my position, so here it is:
If you recognize someone as a citizen of your country, if you allow them to vote and you tax them, then you must allow them to marry, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Not to do this is to create / perpetuate an underclass of people who are not quite fully citizens. It is ethically wrong and it is dangerous. That is my intellectual position on the subject.
My emotional position is a little different. I simply cannot grasp why anyone would object to marriage between two people who love each other and want to make a lifetime and formal commitment to that relationship. This isn’t a position I came to after thought. I grew up surrounded by people of different races, cultures and sexual orientations. Had I taken my parents as the primary model for my view on marriage, I would believe it should be banned altogether, for anyone. My models of loving relationships were, primarily, non-straight ones. I think people have the right to be married. And I can’t really, emotionally, conceive of why anyone would object to that.
I have watched people who are against same sex marriage use the bible as the basis on which they object to it. And I have watched people who support same-sex marriage try to appeal to the opposition’s logic, using the same book. This doesn’t work.
I’d like to openly state, upfront, that I don’t believe the bible – old or new testament – is anything other than book. Admittedly, it has been the most influential book in history to the Western world. I don’t dispute its influence. But I not only dispute, but I refuse to accept that it is in any way ‘Holy’.
It’s a very long book, taken altogether. I have read all of it once and some of it a number of times. It has a fair number of internal inconsistencies. Something that might be expected of any aggregated text. Considering how large a text it is, it contains very few mentions of same-sex relations. There are, all told, six. Some are vague, some are not condemnations at all, and two are clearly hostile to it. Lesbians get off much easier. They’re not mentioned at all in the old testament and only once in the new. The BBC has a really good chart of the mentions and their various interpretations: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3205727.stm
There are many more condemnatory prohibitions on other subjects. Adulterers, for instance, should be stoned. People who wear linen and wool together are terrible, too. People shouldn’t eat milk and meat together either.They shouldn’t work on the Sabbath – whatever day you happen to think that is.
Using the bible as the primary argument for why people of the same sex should not be married is not a logical choice. They are choosing to quote a few, highly suspect passages, because it is THEIR ONLY defense for why people of the same sex should not be married. Think about how ridiculous it would seem if they were using the same argument for why people who wear a mix of cotton and wool should be shunned? It is my belief that the ferocity with which biblical passages are used to argue against same-sex marriages says very little about the rightness or wrongness of that marriage and a great deal about the underlying homophobia of the people making the argument. I think they simply hate gays and lesbians and they will do anything in their power to make GBLT people’s lives miserable.
They consistently insist that allowing same sex marriages threatens the institution of marriage as a whole. They never offer any reasons why this might be the case. They can’t. It doesn’t make sense. How does someone else’s happy marriage threaten your own? It can’t. In fact, quite the opposite. The more happy, loving and successful marriages there are, the more good models children will have to call on for their own relationships in the future. Before parental prejudices get passed on, children are absolutely neutral about what constitutes a good, safe and healthy family.
Arguing with same-sex marriage prohibitionists by trying to confront them with the bible’s own inconsistencies, or pointing out that the concept ‘marriage’ in the bible doesn’t look anything like what we consider ‘marriage’ today, is not only a waste of time.
It validates their only weapon. They cannot argue that same-sex marriage leads to social instability, or worse conditions for the general population, or endangers children. Because societies that DO allow same-sex marriages seem to have higher documented levels of stability, health, and child-friendliness than their own. The very few passages in the bible that condemn it outright are their only argument. It is an unethical, inhumane and fundamentally flawed argument. And the arguments for same sex marriage vastly outweigh them.
I am absolutely pro same-sex marriage, adoption of children within same sex unions, and propose that there are simply no good reasons at all not to afford same sex couples every right afforded to straight couples, period. And I have no reservations in saying so.
Are we good?
The anti-gay prejudices can’t be biblically based because Jesus of Nazareth preached that the greatest commandment, overruling all others, was to Love each other. That’s the test: is this a loving thing to do for this person or these people, yes or no? If the answer’s any sort of hedge (like “love the sinner, hate the sin”) then it’s not yes.
But the overwhelming majority of Christians don’t want to face the fact that they don’t follow their own God’s teachings. Instead, it’s a tribal identification used to justify condemnation of anyone outside the tribe. After all, it’s okay if Senator Vitter sleeps with hookers since he’s part of the tribe, but it’s not okay if Eliot Spitzer does, because he’s not.
You make a lot of good points. I’m an atheist. For me, all arguments based on what a dead guy did or didn’t say are pretty much the same. Jesus, Gandhi, Buddha, Mohammed. They all said some very wise things, and they’re all dead. I have to follow my own personal feelings on the matter.
Anyone who is hell bent on making other people unhappy are assholes.
It’s not that I don’t respect other people’s faiths. I do. And I have often admired and envied the peace of mind and heart that people who are deeply religious sometimes have. But when I see someone use their faith as a cudgel to demean and exclude others, I find it reprehensible. And it happens a lot. And Christians are by no means the only people of faith who do this.
I think you’re right. This has a lot more to do with territory and tribe and dominance than it has to do with faith.
You can argue until you’re blue in the face with *most* people, but have little success. Their minds are closed. People of ‘religion’ seem to have a greater tendency to closed minds than others – especially but not, I fear, exclusively people of the Judeo/Christian/Islamic family of faiths.
The problem is that *some* people, at least *some* of the time, let new ideas in. The tricky part is selecting the right idea, at the right time, for the right people. 😉
I think emotional argument is far more likely to achieve penetration in this way than intellectual, but intellectual argument is needed to make that change permanent. *I* like both of yours. 🙂
I think that, especially in the US, a considerable chunk of the population has reassessed its opinion on homosexuality over the last 20 years. And I think that’s a very positive trend.
And if opponents of same sex marriage were intellectually honest about their motivations and reasoning and simply stated that they think gays and lesbians are inferior and don’t deserve equal rights, very few Americans would support them – even the majority of Christian ones.
So the biblical argument allows them to cloak their real reasons and motivations and compels people who see the bible as a holy book to listen to them.
As always, RG, you concisely and intelligently state your opinion and, I believe, that of many others, including me. Also, it’s interesting, Ed, that you mention Spitzer not being in the tribe. In fact, he is more in the tribe than the Senator. One of the ten tribes, that is, which I’m sure, in no small part, fueled the attack on him.
eve
I’m finding people that support this idea of gay marriage as impossible to converse with as people against.”Their arguments are obvious, so I’m clearly stupid for thinking there should be reasoning behind them…” hence nobody ever answers the one question that confuses me – what is the difference between gay marriage and civil partnership, and why is civil partnership – which was just as controversial but brought in with jubilation – now apparently not good enough anymore?
“what is the difference between gay marriage and civil partnership, and why is civil partnership – which was just as controversial but brought in with jubilation – now apparently not good enough anymore?”
It depends on the country where the marriage / civil partnership takes place. But in the UK, a civil union ceremony cannot include that any religious words be spoken, nor can any music be played, nor can any religious symbolism be in evidence and it cannot take place in a religious venue. In most western societies, the actual moment of marriage takes place at the saying of the words ‘I Do’ and the announcement that the couple is joined together in matrimony by an officiating person. In civil ceremonies, the act of union takes place at the time both parties have signed a legal document of civil union.
There are, I suspect, a number of reasons why gay and lesbian couples feel this is different from a marriage. Maybe it feels sterile and unspiritual. For a lot of people, this formal and public joining together IS a spiritual union and they feel that the civil union doesn’t address that spiritual dimension to their joining. (It would really be great it someone from the GBLT community would address this in a more informed way than I can)
I guess the deeper question is: if a couple find a minister, pastor, etc, willing to perform a marriage between these two people (and there are quite a number of them with the license to perform marriage ceremonies who are ), why shouldn’t the couple be able to be joined that way? Straight people are, so why not same sex couples?
I think for a lot of GBLT people, civil unions feel very much like the ‘separate but equal’ platitudes that went on with regards to race.
Being an atheist, I have only ever had a civil union – that seemed fine to me. But then I was straight, and I had a choice. If all people in your society ARE equal, then Why shouldn’t gays and lesbians be afforded that same choice?
It would be really helpful if someone from the GBLT community would answer Elenya’s question.
RG, your post is very well said and I applaud you. I do wish reason would get through to people. Unfortunately, I’ve found that the only thing that does get through, if at all, is a near and dear loved one standing up and refusing to be cowed. It takes the threat of loosing someone they love to remove their blinders and widen their mind, it seems. ‘Least, that’s what it took with my family(thankfully, a generation before me. I lucked into a trail already blazed).
As for the differences between marriage and civil partnership, and why is isn’t good enough? For me it’s two things.
One, the US Constitution clearly states a definition of church and state and I resent the fact that these narrow-minded, bible-waving asses are legislating by religion.
But, the bigger thing. It is a matter of separate, and they are very much not equal.
For straight couples, marriage, in the US, grants a whole host of rights along with it. By getting married, you:
* gain tax benefits
* create, in essence, a family partnership that shares income
* inherit without penalty
* social security, military, and veteran benefits are limited to spouses and children
* public assistance(civil unions would only allow for this if the state recognized it)
* guaranteed employer benefits, if offered
* bereavement leave or leave to care for an ill spouse
* joint adoption(only accessible to civil unions in certain states)
and so many other benefits that I won’t list them all here. The United States law code has many, many benefits written for marriages to encourage the nuclear family, from zoning to tuition discounts for spouses to family rates on insurances. It’s a pervasive thing.
Civil unions are, unfortunately, a stepping stone. That’s all then can be. They are the lawmakers’ attempt to soothe the LGBT community and their opponents at the same time. But they aren’t the same thing.
Because civil unions aren’t recognized by the Federal government, right off the bat that union isn’t recognized outside the state in which it was performed unless there’s an agreement with another state that they will. For instance, New Jersey will recognize civil unions performed elsewhere, but that’s not the case with all the states that allow for same sex unions.
Above and beyond that, because they’re creating an entirely separate law that creates civil unions, they still don’t entitle you to everything that a marriage does. It depends on the state, how thorough a job they’ve done, and so many other aspects. Also…imagine how easily they could just abolish the law.
Factcheck.org has a really good layout of the differences between the two if anyone wants more information. I went there to make sure I had my nuts and bolts right, and to NOLO for an overview of everything marriage gets you.
http://www.factcheck.org/what_is_a_civil_union.html
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benefits-30190.html
Thank you very much to you both for this information. It saddens me that there is such a big difference between civil union and marriage in America – since I’ve seen the difference here in the UK to be much smaller I had assumed it was the same elsewhere.
Additionally, the same forces that are trying to prevent gay marriage are often trying to prevent gay civil unions. Here in Colorado, the civil union bill failed due to religiously backed Republicans refusing to let it come to a full House vote. The word “marriage” was nowhere in the law, but they still fought like mad to prevent it from being passed.
Yes, this is a point worth making. And one that is probably pretty alien to Elenya in the UK.
The various, state-based civil union recognitions were often fought against very energetically and it must feel very insecure to be – essentially – married in one state, but not in another.
Were same sex couples allowed to be ‘married’ in the same way straight people are, I think it would be a lot harder to discount their union – from state to state and internationally also.
Like Elenya, I’ve found the difference between gay marriage and civil partnership difficult to understand; and I’ve not found any useful guidance on the position in the UK. While I don’t disagree with RG’s view, I suspect it’s more complex here.
Marriage wasn’t a religious sacrament before the 12th century; and afterwards it was sufficient for a couple to declare that they were married before witnesses for the union to be valid — and I’m primarily talking about the countries now forming the UK.
Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753 laid down regulations including the reading of the banns, parental permission for the young, the times when marriages could take place (between 8am and midday); marriages, with minor exceptions, could only take place within a Church of England church (too bad if you were catholic). And the church had to keep a register for the parties to sign. This Act did not apply to Scotland, where marriage by declaration was still legal — hence its popularity for eloping couples; Gretna Green was the first village they reached.
What the 1753 Act seems to have done is to transfer authority from the canon law to the civil law (the canon laws being specifically those of the Church of England). This process of transfer from canon to civil authority had been in progress for several centuries in such matters as adultery and fornication.
So, in a religious ceremony in England today, the union is legalised under canon law by the ceremony as prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, with the parties both saying “I do”; and then legalised under civil law by their signing the register.
I’m not a lawyer; perhaps one of your readers who is could confirm or refute my understanding of this.
When a couple goes to a register office for a ceremony, the heterosexual ones are likely to say afterwards that they were “married”; the gay couple can only say that they “entered a civil partnership” yet both have effectively been through the same ceremony. Perhaps a rather loose use of the word “marriage”.
There are French Revolutionary and Napoleonic legacies in some of the Continental European countries. Certainly, in France and Switzerland, the only legal form of marriage is a civil ceremony; you can have your union blessed subsequently in a religious service, but the church cannot marry you.
So, if a gay couple wishes to be married in a religious sense, it requires changes to canon law (in the UK) to permit this. And really, if they so desire, why shouldn’t their wishes be permitted?
This is the same in Vietnam. You can hold a marriage ceremony anywhere you like, but it isn’t legally recognized, regardless of who you are or how you got married, until you go through the legal civil ceremony.
I was also pretty shocked to read about the vast differences between civil unions and marriage in the US, and even between the states. The many differences in rights that ‘marriage’ affords a couple vs civil ceremonies.
The fact that marriage wasn’t a sacrament until the 12th century does beg the question of why people in the church today want to pretend that is was ever and always that way, and why they feel it would be such an upheaval to change it to any two people who love each other.
Frankly, with the dwindling numbers attending or being affiliated with churches of any sort in the UK, you’d think they’d be thrilled to welcome and include a same sex couple to whom the idea of marriage as a sacrament meant so much.
This topic is making me increasingly uncomfortable the more I read about it. But at the same time, due to my strong belief in equality and freedom, I can’t ignore it.
It seems that the main problem with the discussion is that no one is neutral. And I’m not sure it’s a subject on which you can be neutral without being disinterested. I would love to hear a discussion between interested but neutral people who know what they’re talking about.
The closest I’ve found was on the BBC Radio 4 Today Program when one morning a couple of months ago the thought for the day was from a female Church of England vicar. She took my view of championing equality and freedom but then discussed the problems from a religious point of view saying that if marriage – which under the church is stated as a union between a man and a woman – is a sacrament (and apparently defining whether it is or not is difficult in and of itself) then it cannot be changed. I didn’t find any answers in her thoughts, but it got me thinking of this religious institution in a political way, which I found very engaging.
At the end of the day I am pro-marriage equality. I just have no idea how this is supposed to look.
One thing I do know for sure is that civil partnerships need to be internationally recognised and hold the same state benefits as marriage. Stories from places in the US of LGBT couples not being able to visit each other in hospital are very distressing. That is simply not okay.
I’m not sure that it is necessary to be absolutely neutral on an issue in order for one’s arguments to have value. Certainly civil rights campaigners were not neutral on the issue of racial equality. Did that make their arguments less valid?
I don’t think it’s NECESSARY to be neutral, no; my point is that this is a hot topic, so when I’ve heard people debate it they get very passionate, very fast and ever more rigid in their views. My wish for a neutral conversation is really just a wish for a debate that doesn’t escalate to an argument.
No argument is less valid because of a lack of neutrality. I just think it would be interesting. And also make the problems easier to understand.
I have what I consider to be an almost neutral opinion – as a Christian I can’t put my hand on my heart and say that I believe gay marriage to be a religiously okay thing to do. (I say this as a bisexual but have been called homophobic by a girl that I had kissed.) However as a British citizen I believe that all couples should be granted equal legal rights whether straight or not. If you want to divide Church and State then do so – this means that individuals in their own churches still have the power to decide whether or not to marry gay couples but legally it doesn’t matter what they decide. I don’t agree that Christians should just “suck it up” because as far as I’m concerned, what they think hasn’t changed. They have just as much right to an opinion as everyone else. I don’t think the Church should have sway within the government but I equally don’t think the government should have sway within the Church.
I find it interesting that you identify yourself as Christian (and have reservations on that basis) and bisexual (and have opinions based on that status) and still consider yourself to have a neutral stance on this.
While I, primarily straight for many years, and an atheist, feel that my point of view is not in the least bit neutral.
Perhaps that is because my brother is gay? My god father was gay. My god mother was a lesbian. (what’s all this godfather/godmother thing in an atheist family? No idea. You’d have to ask my mother).
Nonetheless, my brother once said something to me that has pretty much stuck with me forever. He said: “If being gay were a matter of choice, what psycho would choose it? Life is hard enough. No one would voluntarily choose the kind of crap you have to go through for being gay.”
Whether you believe same-sex attraction is nature or nurture or a little of both, what the bulk of research shows is that it isn’t voluntary – you can’t switch it on and off and most people who are gay or lesbian know it very early in life. Long before they become sexually active with anyone. From my point of view, that means that this is their ‘natural state of being.’ If you’re a Christian, it would translate into: this is ‘how god made them’.
I don’t really like the term ‘suck it up’, but I’ll not be disingenuous about it – the church, for centuries, had a hard time recognizing other races as fit to be included in the congregation also, but it was generally agreed that, since god made them that way, they should suck it up. I’m not sure why the church doesn’t take the same view on homosexuality.
What I’d like to do is present this in a more positive light: if the church were to accept gay people into its congregation with open arms, and marry same sex couples with the same joy and celebration they married straight ones…. do you – in your heart – sincerely believe that your god is going to punish you for being inclusive?
It really does go against all Christian doctrine to believe that would be the case. As far as I know, in the history of the church, there has never been an incident of ‘over-inclusion’.
So, as much as I do intellectually understand Christians concern in regards to allowing same sex marriage, because it might not be the will of god, I do have to wonder why so few Christians aren’t haunted by this act of exclusion and worry that God might find them unwelcoming and exclusionary for not allowing it. Since the vast bulk of Christian theology is focused on inclusion and love.
I guess what I am asking, in the context of your own faith, is: what’s the worst that can happen if you include and embrace these people and it turns out to be wrong? Is it worse than the sin of excluding them when you shouldn’t have?
Honestly, I think if more Christians thought about it that way, sucking it up wouldn’t seem so onerous and their own internal debate on the subject would sound a good deal more genuine.
I struggle a lot with this; I sort of feel that if the government changes the law, forcing churches to marry gay couples, that would be disrespectful to the church. However, I do believe that everyone should be able to get married.
The other thing that’s not being said above with the discussion about civil partnerships is that some gay people are religious and do want a church wedding…
http://brewtblacklist.blogspot.com/2012/05/on-gay-marriage.html
Hope it’s okay if my response to this is at my site. I am not gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered, but someone close to me is, and I have a bit to say about it. This is just the first bit.
Glad to see you taking risks with firestorms; yes, we’re good.
English isn’t my language, so I apologize for my mistakes.
Where I live, Spain, same sex marriages are legal now, although the new Goverment, that won elections in November 2011, might declare them illegal again. The curious matter is that in Spain, despite to be considered a very catholic country, just a few people has read the bible. Really here it’s said that in Spain just a few people has read something. So, I haven’t found people using the bible against these marriages. I haven’t read it neither, and I’ll not do it, never, just some parts because I was my childhood in a catholic school. When I finished there, I was atheist.
Anyway, the discussion is imposible and a total waste of time. How can you reason with someone that claims same sex marriages are immoral because the Pope said it? Or people claiming that homosexuality is a disease?
The problems that people and western religions have with gay marriage ultimately stem, I think, from the origins of marriage in the western world. The change from a hunter/gatherer lifestyle to settled agriculture was associated with new concepts such as “personal property”, “inheritance” and “paternity”. To be sure that his work and thus his wealth was invested and subsequently passed only to his children, a father had to be as certain as possible of their paternity; which meant a union with a monogamous woman. It’s not difficult to see that control of a woman’s sexuality was vitally important to the man: and it’s only a short jump to appreciating that any sexual activity other than directly for the production of offspring was “wasteful”, and why the concept of female “virginity” was so important.
So we can view marriage as a contract in which the man produced the food and the woman produced the children; both partners were necessary for a successful enterprise. Marriage was a business entered into for commercial and dynastic reasons; “love” is a very recent factor in the arrangement.
Thus, the underlying (if unstated) reasons for the difficulties in accepting gay marriage aren’t to do with a loving relationship; rather, it’s the “wasteful” nature of the union which must be (naturally) barren.
Following that logic, then no marriage should be performed for sterile men or women either.
The Presbyterian Church USA almost fell apart in the early 90’s b/c a committee recommended gays be allowed to be ordained. Part of that recommendation was also that the church not condemn elderly non-married heterosexual couples and part of it was a recommendation that the church acknowledge teen sexuality and try to address it honestly.
The point is, the committee saw all three as coupled from a theological point of view. They took a very liberal, enlightened view and the furor nearly led the denomination to splinter (Presbyterianism is a democratically organized denomination–churches regularly leave). I left the church in 1993 over the fights b/c it was obvious to me that the committee’s recommendations ought to be adopted and I could no longer stomach being around those who vehemently disagreed.
Quite; and it’s a small step towards (understanding) female genital mutilation, selective abortion of female embryos and the infanticide of girls; to forced sterilization (not just of imbeciles); and to eugenics and ethnic cleansing.
To understand the real reasons behind all these and the above activities is in no way to condone them; rather by understanding we can better confront them. Through real understanding we can take an appropriate, informed moral stance; life isn’t just logic — we are not all Mr Spocks — we should think through our viewpoint, and then attack bigotry, narrow-mindedness and intolerance.
I have carried on at further length at my site in directions that are a bit disparate from what is being said here, http://brewtblacklist.blogspot.com/
But I did want to acknowledge RG’s concern here: yes, it would be simpler if we could all just get along. But the reasons that we don’t seem to be able to do that with ease run deep and stem from fears we are too ashamed to express, at least in some areas.
I think a lot of the problem has to do with exposure: not knowing a homosexual or a sadist or a submissive or a Moslem or an atheist or whatever label we can think of plays first into our fears of what we don’t understand, and some people never get the opportunity to learn anything but those fears, despite the wonders that are in all of us that are such a delight to discover. Our own fears of being rejected mirror back to us far too easily.
I would love to see the elimination of ‘marriage’ as a function of the government completely. It really isn’t any of their business if the person I’m partnering with is because we’re madly in love or because it is my business partner and we’re doing it for tax reasons.
But, if we are ‘traditionalists’ about it, that’s exactly why formalized ‘marriage’ came into practice: to have a joining publicly acknowledged for legal, monetary and inheritance reasons. Love…pah… you love who you love. And it’s always been that way.
Dearest RG,
We are good, but I think we can be better, or at least understand better. Throughout almost all of Christian existance Christians have attacted and persecuted one weak minority or another. For centuries, it was Jews–“Who killed Jesus, the Jews killed Jesus.” When Jews were not around, they found witches to burn and heretics to torture. The holocost made persecuting Jews seem rude, so in the American South they found black people, and American communists. With the fall of communism they have now latched onto gays and lesbians. This need and unwritten mandate to persecute a weak minority is an integral part of Christian fundamentalism that can never be reasoned with. With gays and lesbians gaining their full civil rights we can only wonder who is next. I wish I had an answer but I do not.
Jerry Kircus