GayMarriage.html
On Gay Marriage
We have here an interesting challenge. All people deserve the right to reap the benefits of our society, one of those rights being marriage. At the same time, we have a religious establishment that condemns homosexuality (and all other “variant” sexual practices), bringing the two forces into conflict.
What is the basis for this condemnation?
Alleged Christians support their positions with Biblical references. However, the bulk of these references are disputable, often distorted from the original texts due to the prejudices of the translators. There are numerous Gay Christian websites that can supply references to supportive scripture.
Historically, Gay people have been denied the right to marry, at least to marry within their own gender. This denies them the benefits of filing tax returns as married couples, the rights of inheritance by a surviving spouse, the rights of adopting children, of hospital visitations, powers of attorney, and so on. As of late, there has been an effort, resisted by the religionists, to give Gay people the right to civil unions, enabling most of those rights.
Now, the efforts are renewed, the goal being not just civil union, but the right to a full marriage, legally identical in all respects to that between heterosexuals and sanctioned by a willing church. And the religionists are up in arms, claiming this to be a threat to our very way of life.
For myself, I was raised a Catholic by my family. Over the years, I explored many avenues of Spirituality which would range from alternative to practices which would raise the hackles of most traditionalists. I have come full circle, back to a form of Christianity, but a form in which my eyes remain open and my mind accepting to alternatives of all descriptions.
Still, from more a sense of force of habit than anything else, I had a hard time making the move from acceptance of civil unions for Gay people up to accepting full marriage.
First, I was trained that marriage was not just a set of vows, but a “Sacrament”, sanctioned by the church and (allegedly) by God. I could not see how homosexual marriage could resolve into that mind space.
One thing that solved that problem for me was a look into the not so distant past, a look at Race. Fifty years ago, one would not dream of a marriage of a mixed race couple. It was looked upon with the same kind of disdain and fear that we see homosexual marriage today. Now, with the passage of time, we have had the experience of seeing whites and blacks married, and the fabric of society has proven strong enough to tolerate it, if somewhat reluctantly on the part of some. Homosexual marriage will prove tolerable in the same way, for the same reasons.
A second objection for me was the idea of the Churches being forced into a corner themselves, being forced to administer their religious practices in a way they themselves prohibit by their own internal laws or traditions. In point of fact, nothing about the right to homosexual marriage would force any church to perform such a marriage against their will.
When I was married some 19 years ago (at this writing), my wife to be and I spoke to a local Catholic church about the possibility of being married within the church. We were told that since both of us were “Lapsed Catholics”, neither of us having taken part in the sacraments of the Church in quite a number of years, it would be inappropriate for the Church to take an active role sanctioning the marriage. Indeed, that decision was appropriate, and within their rights. If the Church can decline performing a traditional heterosexual marriage, then how could they be forced to perform a Gay marriage?
In point of fact, the only change that a right to Gay marriage would imply for the churches would be that a church that was willing to perform such a marriage would have the right to do so. There would be nothing that would compel any church to do so.
Still, people feel threatened by the possibilities. The question is raised, “What would be harmed by allowing Gay marriages?”
The answer, in a word, is nothing.
While the basing of our social fabric, in part, on “Christian” principles, has some advantages, it certainly has disadvantages for those who practice other alternatives–either from other religions, or from NO religion. In the mid-70’s, I was a member of one alternative religion that wished to incorporate legally as a church. The way I heard the results of that effort, the requirements of structure we would have had to meet would have virtually forced us to become Episcopalians.
Catholics, for some time, had a prohibition on eating meat on Fridays. So many restaurants had fish specials on Fridays, as did some markets. At the same time, people who were Muslims had to use far more caution avoiding pork byproducts, with so many restaurants using pork fat as a part of their grease in deep fryers. And what of Hindus who, like Muslims and Jews, also prohibit the consumption of pork and shellfish, but also prohibit eating beef? Jews, at least, have a legal structure wherein food products can be inspected by Rabbis who certify food items as Kosher and permissible under Jewish law and tradition. Where is the protection for Muslims and Hindus?
In these areas, there is clearly a situation in which some religious minorities are placed at a disadvantage by the religious majority. Were there a universal prohibition against, for instance, selling pork, the reverse would be true, and those groups that permit eating pork would suffer at the hands of the minority.
In the case of marriage, however, there is no such real disadvantage. While there is an emotional element of fear, there is NO practical disadvantage for the heterosexual majority, or even for the homophobic majority, in the legal right for Gay people to enjoy the benefits of marriage.
Another common complaint is the emotional well-being of children who, as some say, need a mommy and a daddy, not two mommies or two daddies. I find there may be some truth in this–gender roles do indeed have a positive effect on children. This can be easily verified by looking at children brought up by a single parent, the result of a divorce or a birth by an unmarried mother. But–are we suddenly proposing laws to prohibit divorce, or requiring unmarried pregnant women to terminate their pregnancies? If there is any validity to fears about gay parenting that have enough of a basis in reality to prohibit Gay marriage, then these other forms of parenting which lack both parental genders would be an equal threat to the well-being of the children and, if we were to be fair, should be prohibited to the same extent.
In point of fact, the argument is specious, since we make allowances for unmarried mothers as well as for divorcees of both genders. No one tries to have children torn from their single parent on that basis alone. And if there are alternative bases for the removal of a child from a single parent, they would apply equally well to a gay parent–single or married–who failed some other test of good parenting.
Past, present and future, there have been and will be bad parents. People neglect children, abuse them, assault them, treat them in a way requiring protection for those children under law. None of this is based on the gender compliment of the parents, nor on the existence of a single parent, nor on the sexual orientation of the parent.
There is also the fear that children raised by gay couples will themselves become gay. Consider first, that the vast majority of gay people today were raised by heterosexual parents. Any parent, regardless of orientation, who displays their sexuality in too overt a manner in front of young children would be guilty of abuse. And any parent who tries to forcibly mold their child into any orientation, sexual or otherwise, would be equally guilty of abuse. One wonders how many children who made the mistake of admitting their homosexuality to their prejudiced parents suffered abusive punishment as a result.
Where, in any of this, is there a basis for different treatment for homosexuals?
Some fear that children will pick up that fearful homosexual tendency by association, by osmosis. I laugh at such statements. Having spent about three years in the early 70’s living in the center of a gay community (as a confirmed heterosexual), I find myself having picked up absolutely no gay traits, attributes or inclinations. And frankly, anyone who has seen a first or second grade boy calling his fellow schoolmate a “faggot”, or even better, has known a gay man who has spoken about his time “in the closet” thru his entire adolescence, will attest to the fact that it takes a lot more than osmosis to change a person’s sexual orientation.
Incidentally, sexual orientation begins far earlier than puberty. I have heard many accounts of people who recognized their orientation way back even before school age, long before puberty. Some children feel far more comfortable exchanging affection, non-physical intimacy, emotion, with those of the same gender. The emotional precursors to sexual orientation begin in infancy. And many people know themselves to be gay long before they even know how human beings reproduce. Much to the dismay of the right-wing religionists, not only is it exceedingly difficult to cause someone to become gay by influencing their childhood, it is equally difficult to force a gay person to become straight the same way, and for the same reasons. You may succeed in forcing them into the closet, but cannot change their basic drives.
The time has come for society to grow up and show a mature level of acceptance for more of the minorities in our society.
And for those who still see homosexuality as a boogeyman, I have only one word:
Boo!
Copyright © 2004
Anthony D’Andrea
paradigmshift202 