I’ve debated about posting this because I know it’s controversial right now. I know many folks are going to disagree with me and I’m prepared to deal with that, I guess. But at this point it comes down to needing to explain my position to folks on both sides of the issue. I feel like I come across in some fora as equivocating.
First, the basics: I am a Christian who practices according to Mennonite faith traditions. I am married to a man I met in college and have been in this marriage for 21 years. It’s one of the happiest and most blessed features of my entire life. I also have homosexuals with whom I am very close.
That’s who I am. That’s what shapes my worldview and gives me this response to the question at hand.
In my mind there are two sides to marriage. My marriage especially. We had to get a license from the state of Indiana, just like we’d get to drive a car or to sell liquor or to put a deck on the back of our house. But then we were also married in the Evangelical Mennonite Church. To do THAT we had to attend counseling sessions with the pastor, make a declaration of faith and have a church ceremony complete with communion, where we dedicated our marriage to the Lord just as we dedicated ourselves when we elected to be baptised. In my mind I have two marriages. The one from Indiana and the one from God.
As far as I’m concerned, anyone of consenting adult age should be able to get the marriage license from whatever state they live in. Once we made marriage part of the State’s business and started handing out little treats and favours to encourage monogamy I think we owe it to people to say “go ahead.” After all, we wouldn’t deny a business license to someone because they were black or Muslim or a woman. We should have the same approach to marriage licensure that we do to others. Yes, there are some restrictions–you can’t drive a car under 16 without a farm waiver. Nor can you marry your sister. You can’t get a non-profit corporation status and earn a profit–nor can you marry more than one person at a time. (I’ll address polygamy another day.) It just makes no sense to me that we are using our religious objections to prevent a civil licensure.
By the same token, my Evangelical Mennonite church of my childhood believes that gays cannot be married in the eyes of God. So I don’t think that they should be forced by the law to allow homosexuals to have their weddings there. Of course that church also taught me that Divorce was an abomination in the eyes of God and that remarriage after divorce was a constant state of adultery. So why they are conducting weddings between people who have been divorced is something I question. We claim to hold marriage to a Christic standard within the church itself and yet we relax those standards in other cases all the time.
Do I believe Homosexuality is a sin? Frankly I don’t think what I believe on this issue matters. I’m not the one who offers redemption from sin. I’m not the one who offers punishment for sin. I do believe that everyone has been separated from God by our human, unholy natures and we enter into a relationship with Jesus so that we can once again speak with God. Part of that relationship is what we Christians call “the indwelling of The Holy Spirit”. That means that we get God with us at all times, affecting how we see the world and how we respond to things. Listening to the Holy Spirit in your life is one of the constant struggles for Christians, because we are so prone to letting ourselves talk over what the Spirit is telling us. But if you’re a Christian you’ve got the Holy Spirit and that will inform you of sin and wrong thought and action. God is God and I’m content to let God be that. I’ll let the Holy Spirit talk to Christians about whatever is in their personal life and how God wants them to handle it. I’m not God’s hall monitor, appointed to hand out tickets to people with their sins listed thereon.
I do know that if you aren’t a Christian you aren’t expected to abide by Christian doctrines and covenants. Why should you be? I’m not a Muslim; I don’t pray toward Mecca five times a day and I drink Coke. I’m not Hindu; I eat beef. So why should I expect people who aren’t Christians to act like Christians?
I do, however, expect Christians to act like Christians. That means, principally, that we love everyone regardless. Just the way God loves us. It also means that if something about someone else offends us or harms us we turn the other cheek. Even if you argue that the existence of Homosexuals being certified as married by the State harms the church-based institution of marriage you….that’s right…turn the other cheek. I personally don’t see how any more harm can be done to marriage than what we as a Church have already done. So it seems very arrogant to say now “we’ve broken our toys, and so you can’t have a toy because ours are broken and your toy will just make ours look more broken and busted.”
Then there’s the issue of Romans. I keep seeing people pulling out that Romans 1 listing of all the sins out there, because that listing includes homosexuality. (Along with a lot of other things…)
But there’s one phrase that keeps getting left out. God gave them over.
Whenever these things are listed everyone insists that we have to curb them in society because they’re sins. But the Bible itself says that God gave them over. What does that mean to us? Well, it means that we can and should tell people about God in whatever strength we’re given. We can and should let them find God using the roadmaps we’ve provided. But God tells us that, unless people are Christians they can do whatever. They aren’t expected to act like Christians.*
So all of this boils down to one thing for me. I think the only response we as Christians can have to the issue of marriage is to allow state-sanctioned marriages to be open to all citizens of the state.
In return I would ask that homosexuals extend the courtesy to the various religions that they continue to practice religious marriage in whatever manner their faith proscribes.
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*There are Gay Christians. And I believe that since they’re Christians they’ve got the Holy Spirit and their chosen church fellowships to deal with and where they stand with God is between them and God.
Very well thought-out and lucid analysis. Good for you.
Thank you, Kathleen. Although lucidity escapes me today. At least I’m able to give a passable approximation.
And you pretty much hit my feelings bang on the head.
Better than hitting someone directly on the head. 🙂
I don’t know. Maybe this is being exceptionally nitpicky, but I’m not sure that people who are Christians can do whatever, and that God allows them to. He sent Christ to redeem us because humanity couldn’t do what it knew it should do.
“’m not sure that people who are Christians can do whatever, and that God allows them to.”
I’m not clear on where you take that from what I said. (sounds confrontational…I mean it in an “I’m confused” way.) I don’t think that Christians can do “whatever”. I think we have a very rigid, narrow set of standards we are expected to adhere to. (“For narrow is the way…” )
Oops, I wrote that wrong, sorry. Miscommunication. You said the opposite of what I did. I meant that people who are NOT Christians….Sorry.
Ah. Okay. That makes sense now. The way I understand that passage in Romans to be referring is that until people adopt Christianity God has given them over in this world. Romans 2 goes on to say
I think that argues for making the case for reunion with God in this lifetime. But it also goes to the point that we can’t force that relationship through earthly laws.
Then Romans 2:23-24 says (to us Christians)
By “Gentiles” this can be extrapolated to modern day Christianity to mean “non-Christians”. So God’s pretty much saying to us “you want sanctity in marriage but you don’t sanctify marriage. You are the reason people mock Christianity.” And I’d have to agree with this. Shamefacedly.
No, of course you can’t force a relationship through earthly laws. I can’t disagree w/ anything you say here.
Kat, not to hijack the original intent, but doesn’t Romans 1 kind of say that non-Christians *can’t* just do anything they want?
msb.to/romans1:19-21
Ultimately. But not temporally. And the question of state-sanctioned marriage is a temporal one.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
I really like this, I think it makes clear a lot of what I’ve always thought. No matter your religion, the church and state need to be separated, which means marriage should be more of a business union than a religious one.
I’d even go further and add that I’m not sure the government should be a part of free-will associations among people. They should only be there to uphold the contract made between two parties and to grant divorces. That gets the government and religion out of marriages (unless the two parties want a religious ceremony).
You really expressed this so well, and what you said helped me organize my feelings about the issue somewhat. I feel like I have two marriages too. Even if the state of Tennessee didn’t recognize my marriage, God does. I remember at our wedding when Pastor Frank said something to the effect of “According the laws of the state of Tennessee and the higher laws of Heaven, I pronounce you husband and wife.” I feel like I’m married according the laws of Tennessee, but Patrick and I established a covenant that is much more significant than that. Our legal union is significant to me, but it’s not the most important thing. We recited the Song of Ruth to each other at our wedding which ends with “May the Lord deal with me be it ever so severely if anything but death separates me from you.”
I know in some countries they have separate civil and religious ceremonies, and maybe we should too.
Thanks, Lydia. It’s a hard issue and one I’ve had to spend years working on, but this is where I’ve come. I get that not everyone is going to agree and that there may be something I’m missing.
I’ve thought for years that we should have more of a deal made in general within the church that emphasises the difference between a church-sanctioned Covenant Marriage and a state-sanctioned marriage. Because what we as Christians call “marriage” is actually Covenant Marriage and is a lot different that what the state has ALWAYS called marriage. Even when it’s between a man and a woman.
A few years ago there was a push in some of the denominations for Covenant Marriage.
http://www.covenantmarriage.com/
I don’t know why it has ultimately gotten downplayed, but I think NOW is an excellent time for us to revisit it.
With us the state just had us sign a sheet of paper saying we weren’t related and were over 18 and in our right minds. Then we had our choice of where to take the paper to have the license solemnised. We could go to clergy, the court clerk, a few other places.
Contrast that with our church ceremony where we said vows before God, committed to a Triune marriage with the Holy Spirit as guidance and unifier in image of the Trinity, took communion in remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice, etc. Our church marriage went into a lot of detail and placed a lot of additional circumstances upon us. I consider that our Actual Marriage. Kind of like how in Braveheart Mel Gibson married his wife in secret with the Catholic traditions even though it was outlawed.
I like that you guys did that from Ruth. I’ve heard a lot of people do the “whither thou goest” portion–and I always like it. But I really like that you also chose that section.
Coble, I’m sure you’re not surprised to hear that I agree with your position (religions should leave gov’t marriage alone; gov’ts should leave religious marriage alone) completely.
But, pedantic nerd that I am, I have to quibble with this assumption: “Once we made marriage part of the State’s business” gets the history of marriage precisely backwards so far as the history of Christianity is concerned. Originally, Christians got married according to whatever local law they followed, and then went to churches to have the marriage blessed. Marriages were only civil, and religions just gave blessings. (And the whole question of whether to bless marriages was controversial, since celibacy was supposed to be the state everyone aspired to.) It took about a millennium for the meaning of “marriage” to shift to something that happened between individuals in a church rather than an agreement made between families in some contracts, and slightly longer than that for marriage to be categorized as a sacrament. (Then the Reformation de-sacramentalized it for many Christians.) This idea that marriage used to always be religious business and that the state only got involved later on, is just wrong. I can send you titles of some completely non-tendentious historical works on the topic if you want.
I am oversimplifying here for the sake of trying to address a common perception among the Christian Right. My father always talks about how we have these laws in place civilly because they encourage “positive behaviours”. So we have tax breaks, etc. in modern America to encourage the Positive Behaviour of Monogamy.
So speaking strictly toward the common argument of using the state to encourage an aspect of behaviour, I phrased it that way.
My brother is a legal counselor for the Covenant Marriage movement (see my response to Lydia above) and we’ve debated this point often in our family. My point being that if we have Covenant Marriage for us, why make Marriage a problem of the State at all. Then my father’s point. Then my counter point. Etc.
But yes, I’d be very interested in the historical works. I usually am.
I’ll e-mail ’em to you.
nm, I’m be curious about the historical background as well. Do you mind sending them to me as well?
I’d be delighted, if only I had your e-ddress. You want Coble to send it to me? Or else she can forward you what I sent her and then you’ll have mine.
I can email you at the address you used to comment on my blog (when we were talking about the Dutch fort) if you want.
Great.
As a Christian while I don’t endorse Homosexuality I also try not to judge them. I have a niece with a same-sex partner and I’d really like her and her partner to feel accepted by me. It’s a narrow road but someone has to walk it.
I’d like to point out that Romans 1(and the Bible in general) has been mis-read and distorted.
It is not about gay people, it is about idolatry; which was a major issue at that time.
One must read the whole text, esp. 1:22ff “Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up….”
The OT context from which Paul draws also makes it VERY clear that the problem is Idolatry. It’s a long passage: Wisdom chs 13-15.
I’d also point out that even though Pauls blames idolatry, we don’t often see gay people making burnt offerings to Zeus or Cybele do we?
There is nothing in Romans that addresses sexual orientation, nor is there anything in the whole of the Bible which addreses orientation.
But it does say “Jonathan your love for me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” 2Sam 1:26 King David speaking
Thanks for this. I think you’ve done a great job of breaking down the basic issues involved, and of taking a very reasonable approach to a very emotionally and politically charged subject.
I find my own feelings well-represented and accurately reflected in your own.
Excellent and well-worded post, Katherine. I’m so tired of the religious right jumping up and down about “marriage” when they don’t bother to keep it sacred themselves. Well said.
I think you know that I absolutely agree with your post here. The government HAS to treat it’s citizens equally under the law (it doesn’t but it is supposed to). But no church should be forced to perform or recognize any marriage it objects to (from a religious point of view, in so far as the church cares about a legal marriage obviously it should recognize the legality of any legal marriage). Of course, by that same token, any church that chooses to recognize and perform same-sex marriage is welcome to.
It’s always seemed to me that churches/Christians opposed to legal same-sex marriage are expressing a bit of insecurity. How small is their god that they believe that a license issued by an earthly government can actually destroy something their god has proclaimed sacred? If the government is more powerful than a god, is that god really all that worth worshiping?
And I’m also baffled by the priority placed on it. A few years ago the Barna Group did a study and found that when Americans aged 16-29 (both christian and non-christian) were asked to come up with a word or phrase that described Christianity, the TOP answer (not one of the top, but the very top most common answer) given was “anti-gay.” Even for Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin, that should really be a bit concerning. I mean, is that really what they want to be the most sticking message about themselves that they are putting out to the world?
[…] my comments section of the earlier post, Dolphin raises a sticking point with me. A few years ago the Barna Group did a study and found that when Americans aged 16-29 […]
Thanks for this post. It clarifies pretty much how I feel about the whole sanctity of marriage issue. My mom has a saying that has pretty much stuck with me, “Tend to your own knitting.” If Christians would confront their own sins instead of pointing out all of my short comings, maybe the church would be a healthier institution.
Amen – Kat. I totally agree. I wish I could articulate as well as you.