Standing against the Religious Wrong.

May 8, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

You don’t have to point this out to me: After all the blogs about the same-sex marriage fight in America, what does gay marriage really have to do with being Christian? The question can cut both ways, and, no, I haven’t addressed it here (probably because an entire book won’t fit on this screen), yet.

In the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s analysis of why Proposition 8 (overturning the Supreme Court’s May 2008 decision which legalized civil same sex marriage in California) passed, the religion card played a big role. Conservative churches produced buckets of money to push Prop 8, and they demanded that their members vote for it, to “save” marriage.

(As if the lesbians and gay men were going to, multiple choice, (a) steal it; (b) damn it; (c) throw it away; (d) destroy it; or (e) none of the above.)

((One commentator of the Daily KOS site I mentioned last week said this about same-sex marriage coming to Iowa: “Thank God! Marriage is saved. Let Gays do to marriage what they do to run down neighborhoods…. fix it up, make it better, sell it back to the heteros for tidy profits, and move on to the next thing that needs rehab.”))

But on the progressive side, a lot of churches are entirely supportive of same-sex weddings. My own parish started to allow same-sex ceremonies in the church long before I was called to serve there. Last fall, it went on record against Proposition 8. The United Church of Christ (successor to New England’s Congregational churches), in its advertising campaign “God Is Still Speaking” and other venues has made clear that it supports gay marriage. So does the Universalist–Unitarian church denomination.

At one level, marriage is completely irrelevant to the Christian message. Jesus stressed that in the world to come people “neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven,” (Mark 12:25) and he criticized those who tried to bait him or pose trick questions or devise spiritual litmus tests. “But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?” (Matthew 22:18)

But at another level, marriage is foundational for the family and community life which most human beings believe is important to humanity and civilization. Traditional Christians, who have so far opposed same-gender marriage, strongly believe in the value of family and fidelity.

But, so do progressive Christians, including many LGBT Christians and their straight allies. Speaking as such a one— both as a pastor and as married (33 years together; legally recognized for 7 months and counting)— I too believe in the value of family and fidelity.

Then why the odious, noxious and expensive fight over civil  marital rights? Why Christians against Christians?

It certainly isn’t just semantics. No one owns the word “marriage.” Besides, the traditionalists have the words “Holy Matrimony” and a host of other terms to use. And they don’t use the words “civil marriage” to describe the sanctity or sacramental nature of Christian marriage, anyway.

And as I said to a reporter last June in West Hollywood, “if you want to ‘protect’ marriage, then buy your own wife some flowers and listen to her when she talks to you. Protect your own marriage, and Marriage will take care of itself.”

No, the only reasonable answer is that ring-wingnut leaders, who do believe in the value of family and fidelity, do not want anyone else to have except people like them. This is no mere struggle over the use of the word “marriage,” and therefore it’s no mere struggle over whether a “civil union” or “domestic partnership” is truly equal to a civil marriage. The bald, undisguised truth is that right wing does not want homosexual persons to have and enjoy family, fidelity, stability and security. To deny us familial relationships makes it easier to continue to reject us as promiscuous sexual perverts, even when clearly many of us are not. They want to lower our ability to lead stable lives which might be regarded by others as decent and comparable to their own stable lives.

Taken as a group, the negative actions of the Right, especially the “Christian” Right, if successful would all reduce us back to closeted, insecure, self-loathing and pathetic individuals who neither deserved nor possessed significant relationships. They would prevent us from having the right to employment or housing, from serving in the military, from parenting or adopting children, from belonging to a Christian church, from teaching in public schools, or even from having intimate relations in the privacy of our own homes. If you glance back to pre-Stonewall times, 40 years ago this coming June, gay and lesbian people were in constant fear of the law simply for having a drink and talking to one another in a neighborhood bar.

The clear pattern of prejudice has been to do everything possible to deprive us of our self-esteem, our dignity and our very humanity; and instead to taunt us that we are despised here and damned hereafter by God.

Even the rhetoric about the so-called Gay Agenda is a smoke-screen thrown up by the right wing to conceal their agenda: to control, hurt and destroy people who are different from themselves. The methodology is to intimidate, shame, attack, and sue.

Do you think I am painting this with over-broad strokes? That I exaggerate, that I am unkind and therefore un-Christian toward those of simple faith and traditional values? I know activists that would say the opposite: that I am being too kind, too gentle on the right wing. Jesus, after all , utterly reject the right wing of his day. “You brood of vipers!” (Matthew 3:7); “You hypocrites!” (Matthew 15:7) He caricatured the self-righteous in parables, for example, “The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.’” (Luke 18:11)

It is not my place to judge. But of this I am certain: the call of God to all Christians is to do all we can to build one another up with love, to be compassionate, and to forgive one another as we have been forgiven. In my view, that precludes virtually all of the angry, harsh rhetoric of right-wing Christians who repeatedly defame and reject progressive Christians.

So, if marriage is the battleground right now, but the war itself is over our dignity self-esteem, our humanity, then marriage is important for progressive Christians. We are simply not backing down. We will stand against any and all who devalue our relationships, our life experiences, our faith, our consciences, and who would deny us our place at the table (Luke 15:28–32), even other brothers and sisters who call themselves Christian.— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, "The Closet", Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, History, LGBT Christian, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »