[Vision2020] 07 05 05 Ny Times: United Church ofChristBacksSame-Sex Marriage

[Joan Opyr]

On Jul 12, 2005, at 9:52 AM, Pat Kraut wrote:

> If they can convince us that this has been a normal practice throughout
> history then they think they can justify their actions today and 
> 'prove'
> that the stand against homesexuality is wrong is our problem. It is the
> argument of a thirteen year old...'everybody else is doing it'. If it 
> is
> wrong I don't care who else did it and just being famous is not reason
> enough to follow the beliefs of anyone.
> PK
>

Here's a question for you, Pat: why do you care?  Are you a member of 
the United Church of Christ?  Are you a Unitarian-Universalist?  Is 
your church, whatever it may be, likely to perform a same-sex marriage 
ceremony in your lifetime?  If marriage is a civil contract -- and no 
country which now allows gay marriage has written language forcing 
*any* church perform same-sex ceremonies -- then what is your problem?  
No one is stopping you from refusing to recognize our marriages as 
religiously legitimate; you're still free to condemn us all to the 
fiery pit.  What you're not free to do is discriminate against us in 
civil legal matters.  Civil marriage is not religious marriage; you can 
legislate the one without compelling the other.  No church is obliged 
to recognize any civil marriage as "okay with God."  That's up to the 
individual.  As far as marriage is concerned, we (meaning gays and 
lesbians) only ask that we be treated equally under the law.  Some of 
us will remain in the repressive religions of our youth, hoping to 
change them from within; others will flock to the United Church of 
Christ, to the Unitarian-Universalists, to the Quakers, to Reform 
Judaism, and to other liberal religions that are open and affirming.

Hard-line anti-gay religions are safe from our predations, Pat.  Even 
if civil marriage were available to all equally, as I believe it should 
be, your particular church would still not be obliged to perform such 
marriages.  The only effect same-sex marriage would have on you 
personally is that you would not be allowed to discriminate against us 
in health insurance, taxes, mortgage and car loans, and the hundreds of 
other civil benefits now available to opposite-sex married couples but 
not to same-sex couples.  Your freedom to be an anti-gay religious 
conservative would continue on, ad infinitum.

BTW, your assumptions about marriage practices throughout history are 
ill-founded.  You need to read a thorough history of marriage before 
you make pronouncements about marriage always and everywhere being a 
relationship between one man and one woman.  Just reading the Old 
Testament will tell you that that's not the case.  The evolution of 
marriage into the "traditional" institution many argue for today is 
comparatively recent -- it dates back no further than the European late 
middle ages.  Most men and women couldn't afford or weren't allowed to 
be legally married until the 18th century; common law marriage was the 
order of the day, and those relationships were entered into and 
dissolved with a certain casual abandon and a mere wink and a nod from 
the Church, which had more important matters on its spiritual mind than 
who was sleeping with whom . . . matters like transubstantiation versus 
consubstantiation, or how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.auntie-establishment.com